Jean Calvin (1509 -1564): Institutio Christianae Religionis, Lausanne, 1576

Description

INSTITUTIO CHRISTIANAE RELIGIONIS, ab ipso authore anno 1559, in libros quatuor digesta, certisque distincta capitibus ad aptissimam methodum: & tum aucta tam magna accessione, ut propemodum opus novum haberi posset. Cum Indice per locos communes opera N.Colladonis tunc contexto. Additi sunt postea duo Indices ab Augustino Marlorato collecti anno 1562, ut testatur eius epistola: quorum prior res præcipuas: poſterior, in ea expositos copiosissimè sacræ Scripturæ locos continet. 

Lausanne, François Le Preux, 1576

In-8vo. [16] leaves, 1–380 fol. (with several misfoliations), [72] leaves. With coat of arms of the city of Berne in woodcut on title; a few pages with underlinings. Bound in contemporary calf over bevelled wooden boards, with two original two carved brass clasps, finely blind-tooled to a three-panel design with fleurons, geometric motifs and portraits. With signs of wear due to age and use, worn corners on boards.

Comments:

Exceptional copy in contemporary binding of the first systematic statement of the Reformed Church and one of the most influential books of all time.
Written by the French theological Jean Calvin at the age of 26 in 1536, it took its final form in 1559 and subsequently much revised, enlarged and later re-published again from this present edition. In this third, expanded Latin edition the twenty-one chapters discuss fundamental theological questions like the knowledge and understanding of God’s divine nature, the doctrines of justification by faith alone and of predestination which differentiated Calvin’s thought from Luther’s. His influential theories inspired, among others, the religious and political ideas of the French Huguenots and the Scottish, English, and Irish Presbyterians.

This edition is edited by Nicolas Colladon (1530 – 1586) and Augustinus Marlorat (1506 – 1562). The former was a friend of Calvinus, taking refuge in Switzerland following religious controversies. With Theodore Beza, he worked on a famous monography on the French Reformed Church in France. Marlorat du Pasquier became a French Protestant Reformer after his conversion, obliging him to leave France in 1535 and taking refuge in Geneva, where he worked as a proof-reader for Greek and Hebrew.

Provenance: Valdemar’s Castle, Tåsinge (Denmark)

Reference: Erichson 34; Adams C 364; Peter/Gilmont 76/3; Senebier, Histoire littéraire de Genevè I. 398; vlg. PMM 65