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an old book with a picture of a man and woman in a rooman open book with two pages of text and a picture of a horsean open book with a black and white image of two pages of textan old book with a brown cover sitting on top of a table
Premium Maître Paul PASTAUD

678 - Post-incunabulum – PONTANO (Ludovico). By the most acute and…
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Estimate €800 - €1,000
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Description
Post-incunabulum – PONTANO (Ludovico). By the most acute and eminent interpreters of both systems of law, the laureate Lord Ludovico Pontano of Rome: a man of profound learning, *Lectura aurea & copiosa* on the second part of the *ff.* *veteris*, most recently published: diligently and meticulously revised; with summaries; and with the addition of certain useful and necessary notes for the common benefit of students, it begins most successfully. Milan, Giovanni Giacomo da Legnano, 1523. Folio (40.5 x 28.5 cm) comprising CXCI folios, in cream half-vellum with corner pieces, plain, unmarked spine (19th-century binding). Title page printed in black and red with a central illustration depicting a law lecture at the University, set within a Renaissance frame featuring putti and allegorical figures, with numerous wood-engraved initials. Also known as Ludovicus Pontanus, Ludovico Romano or Ludovico de Roma, Pontano was one of the most renowned Italian jurists of his generation. Born near Spoleto around 1409, educated in Perugia and Bologna, he taught civil law in Florence and then in Siena before entering the service of the Roman Curia and King Alfonso V of Aragon. He subsequently took part in the Council of Basel, where he gained great renown as a canonist and legal theorist. He died of the plague in Basel in 1439, aged barely thirty. Despite his brief career, his commentaries on the *Corpus Juris Civilis* were widely circulated in European universities for over a century. The work is an academic commentary (“lectura”) on the second section of the “Digestum Vetus” (a major compendium of Roman law compiled under Emperor Justinian I), corresponding to the books of the Digest studied in medieval law faculties. It is therefore less an original treatise than a “scholarly course in law”, drawn from Pontano’s teaching and intended for law students, professors and practitioners (judges, lawyers, notaries). This 1523 edition has been enhanced with analytical summaries and marginal notes intended to facilitate its study, a common marketing strategy among 16th-century legal printers. It forms part of the widespread wave of reprints of works by jurists of the ‘mos italicus’ (Bartole, Balde, Jason de Mayno, Pontano, etc.), who still dominated legal education prior to the rise of legal humanism. More than eighty years after his death, Pontano remained a sufficiently prestigious doctrinal authority to be constantly reprinted in Lyon, Pavia and Venice. Rows of marginal verses and traces of old water stains in places.
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About the sale MONTIGNAC – 31st BOOK SALE – Day 2 of 4 – Nos. 550 to 1084
Auction location
Auction time 08/20/2026 at 11:00 AM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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