403G Martino Delrio 1551-1608

Ex miscellaneorum scriptoribvs digestorvm sive pandectarvm Iuris Civilis Interpretatio […] His accesserunt Indices duo: Prior Authorum atque Scriptorum Miscellaneorum, ex quorum libris has notas excerpsimus: Posterior Titulorum Pandectarum in hoc libro explicatorum.
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Ex miscellaneorum scriptoribvs Codicis, Novellarum, Feudorum, necnon etiam Institutionum Iuris Civilis Interpretatio. His accesserunt Indices duo: Prior Authorum atque Scriptorum Miscellaneorum, ex quorum libris has notas excerpsimus: Posterior Titulorum Codicis, Novellarum, Constitutionum Imperialium, Feudorum, & Institutionum Iuris Civilis passim hoc in libro explicatorum.

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Lugduni, Apud Franciscum Fabrum, 1590.                 $2,900

Octavo ã A-2G 2H This is a nice clean copy bound in original full vellum with intact ties.DSC_0046

This book contains catchwords to titles of the Digesta, in order, each followed by citations to authors (by chapter and verse) writing on the particular title, often with a brief note of explanation. In a sense, this book functions as a technical appendix to the Juris Civilis and can be used as a convenient and quick reference for both lawyers and judges.

Martin Antoine Del Rio was a famous Jesuit scholar and his encyclopedic Disquisitionum Magicarum, in many ways the most complete of all works on witchcraft, is as renowned as the Malleus Maleficarum. He was born in Antwerp, Belgium, of a distinguished Castilian father and wealthy Aragonese mother. Del Rio was well educated in the classics, Hebrew and Chaldean, five modern languages, and in law; at nineteen he had published an edition of Seneca (citing over 1,300 authorities). At twenty-four he was made Vice-Chancellor and Attorney General for Brabant—later, Voltaire satirized this appointment as Attorney General for Beelzebub. After Delrio’s studies in Paris and Salamanca, but before he entered the Jesuit Order in Valladolid in 1580, he was an Officer of the Order (AO) as one of the judges of the Inquisition in the Netherlands, the so-called “Blood Council”. It was at this time that his father, a royal official, had his castle pillaged in the native rebellions against Spanish domination, and Martin lost his library. In 1580, however, Del Rio decided to enter the Jesuit order, and studied and taught at various Jesuit centers such as Valladolid, Douay, Liege, Louvain (where he gathered the material for his demonology), Graetz (Styria), Salamanca, and Brussels, dying there in 1608. During these twenty-six years of study and research, he wrote at least fifteen books of sermons and commentaries.

DeBacker-Sommervogel Vol.II col 1897 no5 ; Adams D244

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“Scholar, statesman, Jesuit theologian, born at Antwerp, 17 May, 1551; died at Louvain, 19 October, 1608. He studied at Paris, Douai, Louvain, and Salamanca where he received the degree of Doctor of Law in 1574. Returning to the Low Countries with the reputation of being “the miracle of his age”, a title given him by Justus Lipsius, he held the offices of senator, auditor of the army, vice-chancellor, and procurator general. In 1580 he entered the Society of Jesus, made his novitiate at Valladolid, and returned to Louvain for further studies. He afterwards held the chairs of philosophy, moral theology, and Scripture at the Universities of Douai, Liège, Louvain, Graz, and Salamanca. He possessed a speaking-knowledge of at least nine languages, wrote in a pure though somewhat diffuse style, and was careful to the extreme in the preparation of his books, as may be seen from the fact that his second work, published at the age of twenty-three, contains citations from nearly eleven hundred authors. His principal works comprise: Commentaries on Claudius, Ennius, Florus, and Seneca; on the ancient geographer and historian, C. J. Silvius Polyhistor; notes on the Christian poets, St. Orientius and St. Aldhelm; an exhaustive treatise on civil law; a “Historia Belgica”, on the contemporary disorders in the Low Countries; some controversial pamphlets written against Joseph Scaliger; commentaries on Genesis, on the Canticle of Canticles, and on the Lamentations of Jeremias; an explanation of various proverbial expressions in the Old Testament called “Adagialia sacra Veteris Testamenti”; panegyrics and other works on the virtues of the Blessed Virgin; and a treatise on magic, called “Disquisitionum magicarum libri sex”. This last work, the one by which Delrio is best known, was much praised in its day and went through many editions, but can no longer be accepted in full.”   (CE)