MENGHI Girolamo - Flagellum Daemonum [BOUND WITH:] / Fustis Daemonum - 1697 -

MENGHI Girolamo - Flagellum daemonum, exorcismos terribiles, potentissimos, & efficaces, remediaque probatissima, ac doctrinam singularem in malignos spiritus expellendos, facturasque et maleficia fuganda de obsessis corporibus complectens, cum suis benedictionibus, et omnibus requisitis ad eorum expulsionem. Accessit postremo pars secunda, quae Fustis daemonum inscribitur. Quibus novi Exorcismi, et alia nonnulla, quae priùs desiderabantur, superaddita fuerunt. Auctore R. P. F. Hieronymo Mengo Vitellianensi, Ord. Min. Reg. Observantiae [BOUND WITH:] / Fustis Daemonum, Adiurationes Formidabiles, potentissimas, & efficaces in malignos spiritus fugandos de oppressis corporibus humanis. Ex Sacrae Apocalyptis fonte, varijsque Sanctorum Patrum auctoritatibus haustus complectens. Auctore R. P. F. Hieronymo Mengo Vitellianensi, Ord. Min. Reg. Observantiae. Opus sane ad maximam Exorcistarum commoditatem nunc in locum editum - 1697. Venetiis, apud Paulum Balleonium. Full leather, fore-edges sprayed in red; octavo, cm 16,2 x 11; pp. (2b) 222 (8), (12) [13-244] (3) (1b); worn binding, slight water stain at the lower edge, some slight foxing, gathering Nn of the Fustis a bit more dusty with little tape restore (3 cm circa) at the lower edge of Nn and Nn2 (pp.193-194 & 195-196) with no loss of text, a fair specimen. Printer's device on both title pages, handwritten old ownership not on the first endpaper (Benedictine library, dated 1698), first blank almost entirely filled with an handwritten prayer in Latin, the two parts of the work are misbound here, as originally the Flagellum should come before the Fustis, in this copy this order is reverse. One of the last editions of this gloomy "masterpiece" on exorcism, before it ran into the censorship radar (1704). The Franciscan Monk Menghi published the Flagellum first in 1577, following the 'fortune' of his first work on exorcism (Compendio dell’arte essorcistica et possibilità delle mirabili et stupende operationi delli demoni et de’ malefici). Nevertheless, the Flagellum had a different aim: while the Compendio was addressed to a wider public - also in order to stand against the accusations of superstition - and not only to the clergy, the Flagellum was written and printed to become a new handbook for exorcists, along the same lines as the famous Malleus Maleficarum.