Baldus de Ubaldis - [Incunable] Decretalium - 1489

Baldus degli Ubaldi DIXIT - The Word of the Jurist from 'The Name of the Rose'
Baldo degli Ubaldi is the jurist invoked by Umberto Eco in The Name of the Rose as the supreme authority in canon law disputes that animate the abbey: the work that the novel presupposes is precisely this tradition, reconstructed here in its most ancient and material form.
Many initials rubricated in red and blue and decorated with cold gold.
This rare Milanese incunabulum from 1489, of the monumental commentary by Baldo degli Ubaldi on the Decretals, is not only a testament to the great period of Lombard publishing: it is a symbolic object in the full and ancient sense of the term.
The result is a library body that physically and conceptually unites the normative rationality of the late Middle Ages and, as Eco would have said, 'speaks on multiple levels'.
Beautiful contemporary binding in boar leather, cold-embossed.
Market value
The surviving copies of this edition are exceptionally rare: ISTC lists only ten in public libraries. Complete copies in contemporary binding today range from approximately $15,000 to $18,000, with increasing valuations for the presence of earlier manuscript fragments. The reuse of 12th-century liturgical parchments with notation in neumes constitutes a unique element that significantly enhances the interest of collectors of legal incunabula and medieval musical materials.

Physical description and condition
Imposing imperial folio binding (approximately 42 × 30 cm). Many rubricated initials in red and blue, decorated with cold gold.
Leather binding in pigskin on wooden panels, with blind impressions depicting a lily enclosed within a lozenge-shaped frame, the Maria monogram and the Agnus Dei repeated in register. Inside, strips of 12th-century parchment with musical notation in neumes are visible, used as reinforcement for the hinges. Very good condition, with normal wear and signs of woodworm on the binding; traces of woodworm on the first and last pages, browning, and marginal stains. Pages (1); 178; (1). Antique ex libris on the frontispiece and a large ex libris from the Dutch area on the front pastedown.

Full title and author
Super I and II of the Decretals
Milan, Uldericus Scinzenzeler, 1489
Baldus de Ubaldis

Context and Significance
The Super I and II Decretalium is one of the cornerstones of European common law and one of the most authoritative commentaries on the Decretals of Gregory IX. Written between 1360 and 1380, it became an essential reference in university teaching and ecclesiastical judicial practice. The 1489 edition by Scinzenzeler testifies to the centrality of Sforza Milan as a hub of legal printing, with particular attention to typographical clarity, the robustness of bindings, and the dissemination of canonical normative corpus. The presence, in this copy, of medieval liturgical parchments reused as reinforcement is not merely a technical detail: it is a bridge between Church law and its musical tradition, between legal discipline and the sacred dimension of singing. In this sense, the volume embodies the symbolic stratification that Umberto Eco depicted in The Name of the Rose: jurist Baldo degli Ubaldi is invoked as the highest authority in debates on poverty, heretics, and interpretations of the Liber Extra, and what appears here as a complex physical object precisely reflects the kind of book Eco imagines present in the scriptorium of the abbey.

Biography of the Author
Baldo degli Ubaldi (1327–1400), one of the most eminent medieval jurists, was a student of Bartolo da Sassoferrato and continued his dogmatic approach, helping to define the foundations of the common law tradition. He taught in Perugia, Florence, Padua, and Pavia, and his commentaries, advice, and treatises gained European dissemination. His authority was such that he became, in subsequent centuries, the very symbol of medieval legal science: not coincidentally, Umberto Eco cites him as a canonical reference in The Name of the Rose, where his doctrine is invoked in the internal discussions within the abbey among jurist monks and theologians.

Printing history and circulation
The edition of Scinzenzeler from 1489 belongs to the most prolific phase of Milanese typography, characterized by the production of legal, theological, and philosophical texts intended for universities and ecclesiastical circles in northern Italy. The printing of Baldo's commentary, structured in two volumes, uses a clear typeface, large woodcut initials, and a page layout of great readability. The survival of only ten copies in public libraries suggests a limited print run, likely intended for religious colleges, courts, and legal scholars.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
ISTC ib00146000
Hain 2517
Goff B-14
BSB-Ink B-24
Proctor 5864
GW 3836
Beccaria, Milanese typographers of the fifteenth century, pages 112-115.
Schäfer, Contributions to Incunabula Studies, II, 1929