Decretales domini pape Gregorij noni acurata, diligentia nouissime quam pluribus cum exemplaribus emendate: aptissimisque imaginibus exculte: cum multiplicibus repertorijs antiquis: & de nouo factis ad materias quascunque inueniendas amplissimis. Additis omnibus necessarijs addi possibilibus: que de se legentibus patebunt. Venetijs, in edibus Luce Antonij de Giunta florentini, 1514 die XX Maij

ILLUSTRATED WITH OVER 180 WOODCUTS

4to (206x147 mm). [4], CCCCCXXXVI, [56] ll. Collation: [π⁴] a-z⁸ &⁸ [cum]⁸ [run]⁸ aa-zz⁸ &&⁸ [2cum]⁸ [2run]⁸ aaa-yyy⁸ (l. yyy⁸, a blank). Title page printed in red within a woodcut ornamental frame. Woodcut printer's device on title page printed in red. Two full-page woodcut illustrations at ll. CCCCXV verso (‘Arbor consanguinitatis') and CCCCXVI recto (‘Arbor affinitatis'), and a full-page woodcut on l. [π]4v. Text in gothic letter in red and black, chapter headings rubricated, printed side notes, many woodcut initials and in-text illustrations, text in double columns. Colophon at l. CCCCCXXXVI verso, final index in three columns. Contemporary vellum with manuscript title on the spine (binding worn and stained, spine soiled, binding slightly detached from the book block, small worm hole to the front panel). On the title page manuscript entries ‘Ex libris… Jo Domi[nici] Lavign.ra' and, by a later hand, ‘et modo […] Matthias Lo Porrino […]'. Some manuscript annotations and reading signs. Marginal stains, occasionally browned and soiled, worm track to the title page and following two leaves slightly affecting the text. All in all, a good and genuine copy.

Early 16^th-century illustrated edition of Pope Gregory IX's Decretales (written in 1234), also known as the Liber extra. This edition, published by Giunta as volume two of the Corpus Iuris canonici and accompanied by the Glossa Ordinaria of the canonist Bernardo Bottoni, is arranged in five books on church government, procedure, clerical life, marriage and criminal law. Gregory's Decretales is a fundamental source of medieval Catholic canon law, part of the Corpus Iuris canonici (until 1917). It is a collection of constitutions, papal letters and conciliar canons. It was realised by the Dominican jurist St. Raymond of Penyafort to replace and update the Decretum Gratiani written in 1050.

Compared to other illustrated editions of this canonical text, i.e. the first printed edition by Heinrich Eggesteyn (Strasbourg, 1470-72) with 13 illustrations or the 1528 edition by Octavianus Scoto (Venice) with only 5, this one includes more than 180 woodcuts (mostly quarter-page and some half-page illustrations), two full-page woodcuts and a third one with Jesus before Pilate on l. [π]4v, a copy of a woodcut made by the famous Swiss goldsmith, painter and printmaker Urs Graf (1485-1528, whose artistic work is in the tradition of Albrecht Dürer).

Lucantonio Giunta was a member of the famous family of printers from Florence, first established in Venice in 1489. Roughly 30 members of the family became printers or booksellers, with a press established in Florence from 1497, which became one of the leading printing firms. By 1550 the Giunta family had bookstores and warehouses across several countries, and numerous agencies throughout the Italian Peninsula. The Venetian press of the Giunta family was the most active publisher and exporter of liturgical texts in Catholic Europe.

Edit16, CNCE13386; OCLC, 1403592600; USTC, 800250 (with a different collation); Camerini, I, p. 158; Sander, 3281; Essling, 1818.

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