Bonifacio VIII; Clemente V; - Liber Sextus Decretalium (Extravagantes) - 1591

Liber Sextus Decretalium of D. Bonifacius Papa VIII. Clementine Constitutions of Pope Clement V. Extravagantes, both the twenty of D. Ioannes XXII and the commons. All this, with their glosses, returned to their integrity and carefully compared with the Roman exemplar.
Venice, 1591.

Venetian edition of 1591 (in 4°) of the Liber Sextus of Boniface VIII (promulgated in 1298), of Clementine Constitutions of Clement V, and of the Extravagantes (both the Twenty of John XXII and the commons), all furnished with the ordinary glosses restored to integrity and checked against the Roman exemplar. Two-column text with marginal glosses, two-color title pages (red and black), illuminated initials, and numerous woodcuts.

The work brings together three fundamental nuclei of the Corpus Iuris Canonici: the Sixth Book of the Decretals, the Clementine Constitutions, and the Extravagants. There are two title pages with the famous vignette of Gregory XIII in prayer before the crucifix (repeated at the beginning of the sections) and a large full-page scene within a pictorial frame depicting the delivery of the Decretals. Completing the iconographic apparatus are the three classic full-page plates:
• Arbor Consanguinitatis
• Arbor Affinitatis
• Arbor or declarative figure of the title of patronage law
Index rich (Index locupletissimus rerum et verborum) and register.

Mm 250 × 180 bound.
Pp. (8), 592; 243, (13); 262, (34).

Contemporary parchment binding, thick, with evident signs of use, stains and scattered foxing. The paper has foxing and some damp stains, but the text and engravings are generally well legible.

The Liber Sextus, together with the Clementines and the Extravagantes, constitutes one of the essential parts of the Corpus Iuris Canonici, the body of canonical law of the Catholic Church in force from the Middle Ages until the Code of 1917. This Venetian edition of 1591 belongs to the post-Tridentine tradition of editions “ad exemplar Romanum,” especially valued for its textual accuracy and for the illustrative apparatus.

Complete copies, with all the woodcut plates and in period binding, remain sought after by collectors of canonical law, of sixteenth-century legal books, and of illustrated Venetian editions.