[Incunable] AA.VV. - Statuta Civitatum Parmae - 1494

FIRST AND ONLY EDITION OF THE STATUTES OF THE CITY OF PARMA - EXTENSIVELY POSTILLED BY HAND
INCUNABULA OF 1494 WITH RARE LATE-15th-CENTURY SUPPLEMENT
Very rare first and only incunabula edition of the Statutes of the city of Parma, printed by Angelo Ugoleto in 1494, here preserved in an exceptionally documentaryly valuable copy due to the presence of numerous ancient manuscript postils and, above all, for the addition of an important late-16th-century corpus of legislation relating to the papal government of the city.
The principal nucleus collects the fundamental normative corpus that regulated Parma’s civil, administrative, economic and judicial life at the end of the 15th century: magistracies, justice, commerce, property, taxation, professions, public order and relations among citizens.
To the incunabula was subsequently added a rare printed fascicle containing provisions, concessions and privileges relating to Parma during the domain of the Holy See. In the papers conserved and illustrated in the photographs appear, among others, the “FACULTAS ANTONII DE SANCTIS”, provisions “SUPER EXACTIONE ONERUM” and a “BREVE REPARATIONIS” of Pope Clement VII. The texts bear dates from the years 1523–1526; particularly significant is the brief of Clemente VII issued in Rome at San Pietro on February 17, 1526, in the third year of his pontificate.
The fascicle belongs to the tradition of collections of capitula, indulta, concessions and privileges granted by the popes to the Parma community after the city came under papal authority and thus constitutes the natural historical and normative continuation of the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Statutes.
The copy thus becomes something far more significant than a simple first edition of the Statutes: a true Parma legislative archive, in which the 15th-century municipal regulations, their manuscript use by jurists and administrators, and later papal legislative interventions coexist physically in the same volume.
WHY TO BUY
FIRST AND ONLY INCUNABULA EDITION – PARMA 1494! The great legislative code of the city in its first printed form.
WITH RARE LATE-15th-CENTURY ADDITIONS! The incunabula is joined by a later normative corpus containing provisions and privileges related to papal Parma.
CLEMENT VI11! The supplement preserves a papal Brief issued in Rome at San Pietro on February 17, 1526.
A LEGISLATIVE CORPUS ACROSS TWO CENTURIES! The volume allows materially following the evolution of Parma law from the 15th century to the full Renaissance.
EXTREMELY POSTILLED BY ANCIENT HANDS! The laws were read, commented on and used directly by jurists or administrators of the time.
ANGelo UGOLETO! One of the most important testimonies of Parma’s early typography.
UNIQUE COPY FOR HISTORICAL STRATIFICATION! Statutory text, manuscript annotations and papal legislation all gathered in a single working volume.

MARKET VALUE
The municipal statutes of Italian towns printed in the 15th century belong to the rarest and most specialized tier of incunabular legal collecting. The originally limited edition, official character and especially the intense professional use led to the loss or deterioration of many copies.
However, the present copy possesses a higher interest than a simple copy of the Statuta of 1494. In addition to the extensive manuscript postils, it includes a late-16th-century legal corpus relating to Parma’s subsequent papal administration. The presence in the same volume of 15th-century norms and subsequent papal provisions demonstrates the continuity of use of the code and greatly increases its historical and documentary value.
For the complex thus constituted, a retail value in the region of €5,000–7,000 seems prudent, with possibility of higher offers in a specialized catalog dedicated to incunabula, the history of law, Italian municipal legislation or the history of Parma.

PHYSICAL / CONDITION
Incunabula: pp. (4), 486, (4).
Ancient full parchment binding, with spine and corners formerly reinforced and normal signs of use.
Spaces reserved for initials with guiding letters. Copy extensively postilled along much of the text by several ancient hands, with numerous marginal notes of evident legal and historical interest. Tear repaired without loss of text on sheet A3. Some marginal defects and losses.

ADDED TO THE VOLUME A LATE-15th-CENTURY LEGISLATIVE FASCICLE relating to the papal government of Parma. The papers include texts dated 1523–1526, including the “Facultas Antonii de Sanctis”, chapters relating to the “exactione onerum” and a “Breve reparationis” of Clemente VII. The papal brief bears at the end the date Rome, San Pietro, 17 February 1526, in the third year of the pontificate.

The fascicle presents large-format papers with irregular margins, signs of use, stains, halos, small tears and marginal defects compatible with its originally practical and administrative function. Also present are ancient manuscript annotations.
A notably important collection copy, particularly significant for the overlap of printed and manuscript testimonies belonging to different phases of Parma’s legislative history.
In old books, with a centuries-long history, there may be some imperfections, not always noted in the description.

FULL TITLES & AUTHORS
AA.VV.
Statuta civitatis Parmae.
Parma: Angelo Ugoleto, 16 September 1494.
FIRST AND ONLY INCUNABULA EDITION.
Corpus legislativi della città di Parma articulated in books and provisions relating to civil, administrative, economic and judicial life.

WITH ADDITION:
Corpus of capitula, dispositions, concessions and privileges relating to the city and community of Parma under papal authority, including provisions issued during the early 16th century pontificates.
FACULTAS ANTONII DE SANCTIS.
CAP. SUPER EXACTIONE ONERUM.
BREVE REPARATIONIS.
CLEMENS PAPA VII.
Breve dated Romae apud Sanctum Petrum, sub annulo piscatoris, die decima septima Februarii, M.D.XXVI, Pontificatus nostri annus tertius.

The fascicle belongs to Parma’s collection of “Capitula, indulta, concessiones ac privilegia” granted by the popes to the Parma community, testimony to the city’s legislation during the Holy See’s dominion.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
The Statuta civitatis Parmae are not the work of a single author, but the result of a long normative elaboration produced by the magistracies and the city institutions.
The editorial protagonist of the 1494 edition is Angelo Ugoleto, Latinized Angelus Ugoletus, one of the main printers active in Parma in the late 15th century. His workshop represented one of the most significant centers of the early Emilia typography and produced a relatively small but prestigious number of legal, humanistic and religious editions.
The printing of the Statutes is one of his major undertakings: an official, broad and technically complex text, intended mainly for magistrates, notaries, lawyers and officials. The wide margins allowed annotations and references, a function fully documented in the present copy by the numerous manuscript postils.
The second component of the volume belongs to a different political phase of Parma’s history. After Parma’s entry into the orbit of the Stato della Chiesa, local legislation had to confront concessions, privileges and measures issued by the papal authority.
Among the protagonists of this second phase is Clemente VII, Giulio de’ Medici (1478–1534), pope from 1523. The brief of February 17, 1526 preserved in the volume is a direct testimony of relations between the Parma community and the Roman Curia.

RARITY
RARI-SIMA FIRST EDITION INCUNABULA OF THE STATUTES OF PARMA, MADE EVEN MORE SIGNIFICANT BY THE PRESENCE OF A LATE-15TH-CENTURY LEGISLATIVE CORPUS ADDED.
Municipal statutes were normally printed in limited print runs and intended for intensive administrative and professional use; this is why surviving copies are far less common than many contemporary literary or religious works.
The present copy also has a feature of particular interest: it preserves not only the 1494 statute text, but also documents its SUBSEQUENT LEGAL LIFE.
The numerous postils testify to the reading and interpretation of the text; the added late-16th-century fascicle testifies to the material updating of the legislation following the city’s political changes.
The volume should therefore be considered not simply as a copy of the Statuta, but as a CONVOLUTE HISTORICALLY BUILT LEGISLATIVE, in which norms from different eras were gathered because still necessary for administrative and legal practice.
This stratification makes every copy of this kind essentially unrepeatable.

HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE
The municipal statutes constitute one of the fundamental sources for understanding medieval and Renaissance Italian society. They allow reconstruction not only of political institutions but also daily life: deeds of sale, successions, property, trades, commercial activities, taxation, civil and criminal justice, public order and the functioning of the magistracies.
The Parma Statutes of 1494 document the city at a crucial moment in its history, on the eve of the 16th century.
The late-16th-century fascicle’s addition gives the present specimen even greater historical importance. Parma underwent profound political and institutional changes in the early decades of the 16th century and came under the authority of the Church. The old municipal order did not disappear immediately: it was progressively modified, confirmed and integrated through new chapters, concessions and privileges.
It is precisely this process that the present volume allows one to observe materially.
The 1494 statutory code represents the city’s normative structure; the postils show how that structure was interpreted in practice; the late-16th-century additions document how it was subsequently modified and adapted to the new political framework.
Particularly significant is the presence of provisions related to the “EXACTIONE ONERUM,” i.e., the collection and distribution of municipal charges, together with administrative concessions and a brief of Clemente VII. So we are not dealing with purely ceremonial texts, but with documents concerning the concrete financial and administrative functioning of the city.
The volume therefore represents simultaneously a source for Parma’s history, a monument of Italian municipal legislation, a testimony to the professional culture of Renaissance jurists, and a document of the institutional transition from fourteenth- to Parma under

BIBLIOGRAPHY
ISTC, is00769000.
GW, M43511.
IGI, 9308.
BMC, VII, 947.
Goff, S-769.
Hain-Copinger, 15020.
Bod-Inc, S-322.
Oates, Catalogue of the Incunabula in the Cambridge University Library.
Repertori bibliografici dedicati agli statuti comunali italiani e alla tipografia incunabola di Parma.