Nonio - Interpretationes in Nonnullos Institutionum - 1568

THE ROMAN LAW LABORATORY THAT PASSED THROUGH PERUGIA AND WAS PUBLISHED IN VENICE
This Venetian edition of 1568 presents Tobia Nonio fully embedded in the liveliest moment of Italian civil jurisprudence in the second half of the Cinquecento: a Perugian master who reads the Institutes of Justinian not as a scholastic relic, but as a workshop of technical, linguistic, and forensic interpretation. The octavo format, the agile structure, and the presence of an index render the volume a study and use tool, designed to circulate among students, doctors, and practitioners of law. The copy described here, though defective and not collated, preserves a strong historical identity thanks to the seventeenth-century Savonese ownership note and the ancient underlinings, which reframe it as an object truly lived, read, and used. It is precisely this dimension of use, more than pure material elegance, that today constitutes its main collecting charm.
MARKET VALUE
For comparable copies of Nonio’s work in late-medieval to late-renaissance Venetian editions, current market requests run roughly €200-400 at retail.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Binding in antique parchment, with defects, tear to the last two leaves, signs of worming to the final leaves, some ancient annotations and underlinings, stains and reddening. Provenance handwritten on the title page: Paoli Andreae Suffi Savonensis, 1650. Edition with printer’s mark on the title page, headpieces and initial woodcuts. In old books with a centuries-long history, a few imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. Pp. (2); 46nn; 620; 2nn; (2).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Interpretationes in nonnullos Institutionum titulos.
Venetiis, ex officina Dominici Guerrei, & Io. Baptistae fratrum, 1568.
Thobiae Nonii.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The book belongs to the great tradition of commentaries on the Institutes of Justinian, i.e., the formative core of Roman law taught in European universities. Nonio, active in Perugia, was one of the most notable civilists of his academic milieu, holding lectures on the Institutes and later on ordinary civil law, as well as being the teacher of the young Alberico Gentili. The Interpretationes collect explanations on specific titles of the Institutes and fit into that instructional-legal production designed for the classroom but rapidly transferred into the book of professional use. The presence of the general index reinforces this practical function: not a mere school text, but a consultable, orderly tool intended for concrete circulation among students and jurists. The work’s interest also lies in its chronological placement: after an initial Perugian phase and a previous edition of 1557, the text experienced a Venetian circulation articulated in multiple issues and reprints, a sign of steady reception in the legal book market of the second Cinquecento rather than episodic. In this sense, the 1568 copy is particularly significant: it represents the Venetian formalization, in a manageable, portable format, of a Perugian university knowledge now ready to live outside the university.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Tobia Nonio was born in Perugia in 1528 and died in 1570. He was a jurist and professor of civil law in the Studium of Perugia from 1554; he later held the ordinary chair and, in 1564, the primary chair, confirming himself among the major Perugian civilists of the century. Sources recall among his works exactly the Interpretationes in nonnullos Institutionum titulos, and the academic tradition also marks him as the master of Alberico Gentili.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The editorial history of the work is important and must be distinguished with precision. Before this Venetian edition of 1568, there existed a Perugian phase with the Enarratio of 1557 and a significant Venetian edition of 1566, enlarged and revised with the intervention of Fulvio Costantini; later there would be further Venetian and Lyonese editions in 1579, 1581, 1586, and 1589. The copy described here is therefore not the first-ever appearance of the text, but belongs to the first phase of editorial consolidation of the work, at a moment when Venice absorbs and promotes a product of Perugian legal culture. The choice of the Guerra brothers as printers confirms the book’s inclusion in the robust Venetian circuit of legal books in a relatively economical and portable format. The Savonese ownership note of 1650 also demonstrates a use survival well beyond the century of printing, in a Ligurian context that suggests professional or doctrinal circulation not purely local.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
EDIT16, CNCE 035989, Thobiae Nonii iuriscons. Perusini Interpretationes in nonnullos Institutionum titulos primis annis in Gymnasio Perusino explicatae. Cum indice totius operis, Venetiis, ex officina Dominici Guerrei, & Io. Baptistae fratrum, 1568.
ICCU / OPAC SBN, IT\ICCU\RMLE\001823, same Venetian edition of 1568.
Sebina / BiblioEst, bibliographic card with holdings: [24], 310, [2] leaves; shelfmark: a-c8 A-2Q8; variant note with last leaf blank.
M. Ascheri - J. Kirshner, ed., catalog of the legal collection, entry 957: Tobias Nonius, Interpretationes in nonnullos Institutionum titulos, Venetiis, 1568, with references Moranti 2319, Osler (MPI-16) 1424, Rocchi 622, Soltész N.250.
Treccani, entry Nònio, Tobia: essential biographical data and mention of the work.
Onomasticon / Studium Perusinum, Tobia Nonio, for the Perugian academic career and the reference to the mastership over Alberico Gentili.
Internet Culturale, author results for Nonio, useful for the sequence of editions 1557, 1566, 1568, 1579, 1581, 1586, 1589.