M.M.M. Decisiones Extravagantes Ex Variis Scriptorvm In Vtroqve Ivre Lectionibvs Collecte. Qvibvs Accedvnt Ivris Dicta Mirabilia

Naples: O. Salviani, 1580. CONTEMPORARY NEAPOLITAN BLIND-RULED AND GILT BROWN MOROCCO, two blind triple rule borders enclosing A WIDE FRAME OF A TYPICALLY SPANISH ROLL OF DRUMS, MASKS, HELMETS, SHIELDS, TOOLS, MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND WEAPONS, potted bouquets in the outer corners and angel heads in the inner corners, deeply impressed gilt central cartouche with AN UNIDENTIFIED DUCAL ARMORIAL CHARGE PAINTED ON A RAISED OVAL MEDALLION (painting worn), gilt birds in the spine compartments (base neatly repaired), evidence of four leather ties, edges gilt and gauffered.

            Only Edition of this anthology of judicial opinions compiled for the use of law students in the Spanish Kingdom of Naples.
            Primarily extracted from recent Spanish legal sources, these one hundred exemplary court decisions pose and resolve cases spanning DIVORCE, RAPE, ADULTERY, THEFT, TAXES, USURY, STUDENT DEBT, MONEY BETS, THE INHERITANCE, ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN, CONCUBINES, etc. The majority treat issues of succession and feudal law. Each cites legal texts as precedents or for their theoretical explications.  In every case, the judge's response is either a yes or a no - Should a convicted rapist be sentenced to death or be forced to marry the victim....
            Little is known of the Spanish jurist Pedro García, who gave Salviani, the printer, the Decisions in 1576. A family tragedy prevented the author from completing the second text announced in the title - Extraordinary Legal Quotations - which delayed the edition for four years. In 1580 García provided Salviani with the Quotations to issue the two works together. To do this, he printed a new preliminary quire (on different paper), fixed the title date, inserted the author's newly penned dedication to Juan de Zúñiga y Requesens, appointed Viceroy of Naples in 1579, and altered the colophon in manuscript to read 1580.
            This copy was bound for an unidentified Spanish duke, who wished to receive only the Decisions. The offsetting of the title onto the facing flyleaf shows the volume was splendidly clothed immediately upon publication. The original colophon date of 1576 was neatly altered to "1580" at that time. The book likely entered the Astorga family library during the stewardship of Antonio Pedro Álvarez Osorio Gómez Dávila y Toledo, X marqués de Astorga (c. 1615-1689), who was ambassador in Rome (1667) and viceroy of Naples (1672-5). He bought many fine 15th- and 16th-century Italian, Spanish and Latin books. That offered here figures in the 1789 Astorga library inventory (BnF ms. Espagnol 609 f. 168); printed bookticket on the second verso and small letterpress 220. mounted on the upper outer corner of the first front flyleaf verso. No copies in the U.S. In good condition.
¶Palau, Manual del librero hispano-americano 99927; Astorga, Catalogue de la bibliothèque I (1870) 274 "Très-remarquable reliure italienne"; Manzi, La Tipografia napoletana nel '500: Annali di Orazio Salviani 69; Toda y Güell, Bibliografia espanyola d'Italia 1953; EDIT16 CNCE 20445; see Lipen's Bibliotheca realis juridica I: 650.