Antoninus, St., Archbishop of Florence [1389-1459].

[Secunda Pars Totius Summe Maioris Beati Antonini]. [Strassburg: Johann Reinhard Gruninger, 24 April 1496]. [225 leaves]. Main text printed in double columns. Final leaf, a blank, lacking. Small folio (8-1/2" x 12") gathered in 6s and 8s. Collation: A-D8/6, E-V6/8, X-6, Z8, AA-DD6, EE-LL6/8 [LL8 is the missing blank; colophon on verso of LL7]. Recent period-style alum-tawed calf, thick raised bands and calligraphic title and date to spine, endpapers renewed. Handsomely rubricated throughout with two ornate 13-line initials and three decorative woodcut gothic capitals with long extensions at beginning of text, paragraph markers and Lombard initials in red and blue, 67-line gothic type, interior notably fresh. An excellent impression with vivid rubrications. $12,000.

* Second Strassburg edition. Complete in itself, this is the second part of St. Antoninus's four-part Summa Theologica. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, this is "probably the first-certainly the most comprehensive-treatment from a practical point of view of Christian ethics, asceticism and sociology in the Middle Ages." The Secunda Pars is directly relevant to students of canon law because it offers a detailed legalistic treatment of the seven deadly sins in their various manifestations, such as fornication, rape, breach of contract, homicide and use of the occult sciences. Its best-known section deals with usury. An important contribution to economic thought, it defends the medieval argument regarding interest. Since currency is unproductive, it argues, natural law forbids a lender to demand interest beyond the safe return of his capital. To do so is to exploit the necessity of the borrower. Deeply influential, this section was reprinted several times during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as an independent work. 6 copies of this impression located in North America at Colgate Rochester Crozier Divinity School, the Newberry Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, University of New Hampshire, University of Cincinatti and Yale. Not in Hollis or the Robbins Collection. "St. Antoninus" in the Catholic Encyclopedia (Online Edition). Goff, Incunabula in American Libraries A878. Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now in the British Museum I:109. Gesamtkatalog Wiegendrucke 2192.