977J Anselm, Saint, Archbishop of Canterbury, (1033-1109)

D. Anselmi Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis Theologorum Sui Temporis Facile Principis Operum Omnium Tomus … 4 Continens Diversas Ad Diversos Ab Eodem Exaratas Epistolas Tribus Libris Comprehens, Ac Hactenus Nunquam Editas, Et R. D. Joannis Picardi Bellovaci Ad S. Victoris Parisiensis Augustiniani Canonici Industria Annotationibus Ad Easdem Illustratas.

 Coloniae Agrippinae : Ex officina Cholin. sumptibus Petri Cholini, 1612          Price $2,300

Folio (four parts in one volume)  36 cm. Signatures: v1: pi² *⁶ **⁸ (**8 blank) A-N⁶ O⁸; v. 2: 2A-2Z⁶ 3A-3S⁶ 3T⁸; v. 3: *⁸ 2A-2Y⁶ (2Y6 blank); v. 4: pi² (pi2 blank) A-O⁶ P⁴ (P4 blank) (dagger)]⁸

Bound in a contemporary German blind-stamped pigskin binding over wooden boards, with a central oval panel stamp and multiple decorative roll borders; retaining the original brass catches but lacking clasps.

Earlier printed editions of Anselm’s works, issued from the mid-16th century and often associated with the editorial work of Antoine de Mouchy (1494–1574), circulated widely in Paris and Cologne, frequently without explicit attribution in later reprints. The present 1612 Cologne edition marks a significant development in this tradition, introducing the recension of Jean Picard (d. 1615), who revised the text on the basis of manuscript comparison, incorporated works here stated to be printed for the first time, and furnished the corpus with editorial annotations. Edited by Jean Picard (d. 1617), whose recension of Anselm’s works—based on the comparison of manuscript sources—formed the basis of early modern collected editions, here issued in a Cologne printing of 1612 during the editor’s lifetime.

Anselm of Canterbury was born in Aosta around 1033 and entered the Norman abbey of Bec, where he became one of the most admired teachers in Europe. He does not initially appear as a church politician or ambitious prelate. Quite the opposite: the early Anselm is a monastic intellectual, deeply concerned with meditation, logic, prayer, and the disciplined use of reason in theological reflection. The Monologion and Proslogion emerge from that world—not as public disputations, but as exercises in thinking carefully about what can and cannot be said about God.
His move to England changed everything. After the Norman Conquest, Canterbury became deeply entangled with royal government, and Anselm—almost against his own temperament—was drawn into the machinery of power. When he became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093, he inherited a church caught between reform ideals and the ambitions of the Norman kings, especially William Rufus and later Henry I. The irony is striking: one of the great advocates of rational clarity spent much of his later life navigating situations where reason alone could solve very little. He was exiled more than once, struggled constantly over the limits of royal authority in church affairs, and became a central figure in the Investiture Controversy in England.
That tension helps explain why Anselm still feels modern. His works are not abstract systems detached from life; they were written by someone who understood both the attraction of pure thought and the disorder of institutions and politics. The famous “ontological argument” matters not because it proves belief mechanically, but because it demonstrates a method: the attempt to follow an idea as far as reason can carry it, while remaining honest about the limits of certainty. In that sense, Anselm’s writings remain less a collection of answers than a discipline of thinking.

VD17,; 23:301025U;

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