Iurisconsultorum vitae.

Bookseller Notes

A very good, genuine copy, with a little charming early hand-colouring, of this scarce, interesting work on the lives of ancient Roman jurists. Bound in a manuscript legal document on vellum, dated 1600, most probably recycled from the professional archive of an early Italian owner of this copy.Born in the Veneto, Bernardino Rutilio (1504-38) studied law and philosophy at Padua and Rome. His first work, a study of Cicero, led him to correspond with Guillaume Bud. He was later at service of Cardinal Ridolfi, bishop of Vicenza, to whom he dedicated 'Iurisconsultorum vitae' the first collection of biographies of famous ancient Roman jurists and one of several original humanist texts printed by the Blado press. It applies the classical and humanist genre of 'de viris illustribus' to the legal profession, providing narrative portraits of 77 jurists, from Papirius (6th century AD) to Tribonian (6th century BC), who edited the Justinian Code. Others include Cato, Mutius Scaevola, Balbus, Cassius Longinus and Tertullianus. Each biography focuses on anecdotes of worthy or unworthy professional deeds, often quoting public excerpts from speeches at trials. This copy bears evidence of interesting early provenance. Julius Benigni (d.1628) was probably the Secretary of the Congregation of Rites and Titular Archbishop of Thessalonica, also 'doctor in utroque'. Petrus Servius was a Roman physician with a great interest in antiquities; he was involved in scholarly debates against the classicist Johann Georg Graevius. The copy was later in the library of Charles (1674-1722), 3rd Earl of Sunderland. Sunderland 'a lavish and even extravagant buyer' the Duke of Roxburghe, Robert and Edward Harley, and the Earl of Pembroke were 'the first great collectors of early-printed books, not only in England but in Europe' (De Ricci, p.33). Sunderland's library comprised 20,000 early books, the present having been left uncommonly bound in its original vellum. The collection, housed at Blenheim Palace in the 1880s, was eventually sold in 'five memorable sales' (De Ricci, p.40). Columbia, Texas, Georgia, Yale and UCLA copies recorded in the US. Bernoni, Dei Torresani, n.39: 'Rarissima'; Brunet IV, 1470: 'Rare'; Adams R964. 'Bib. Sunderland.', (1881-3, pts 4-5), 10851; 'A catalogue of a portion of the library of Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton' (1891), p.169: 'From the Sunderland Collection.' S. de Ricci, 'English collectors of books & manuscripts (1530-1930)' (1930).