Calderinus's Repertorium iuris

Calderinus's Repertorium iuris
Michael Wenssler, 1474
CALDERINUS, Johannes (d. 1348; ascribed to). Repertorium iuris. [Basel: Michael Wenssler,] 12 December 1474.

First and only incunable edition of this legal work attributed to Calderinus, and first dated book printed by Michael Wenssler, the second printer at Basel. Johannes Calderinus was a student and later the adopted son of Johannes Andreae, a renowned canonist and professor at Bologna. Calderinus obtained his doctorate at Bologna in 1326 and later taught at the university. He wrote a number of legal works which were influential during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, although the list of works attributed to him has not yet been established definitively. The Repertorium iuris is a dictionary of terms from canon and civil law, arranged alphabetically with definitions. HC 4248*; BMC III 721; GW 5904; IGI 2366; BSB-Ink C-54; Bod-inc C-029; CIBN C-26; Goff C-51; ISTC ic00051000.

Royal folio (383 x 285mm). 488 leaves (of 490, without first and last blanks). Large blue Lombard initial A with reserved white decoration and red flourishing extending into margin, blue Lombards with reserved white decoration, small red and blue Lombards, some pearled, red paragraph marks and capital strokes (small hole affecting two words on each side, a few leaves slightly browned). Contemporary blindstamped calf over wooden boards, clasps (tooling pattern very worn, some repairs, one clasp lacking, endpapers renewed). Provenance: Hospitaller Fraternity of St. John at the church of Saints John and Cordula in Cologne (inscription) – Stadtbibliothek Cologne (stamps, including duplicate stamp) – acquired from Lathrop C. Harper, Inc, New York, 20 May 1955.