PITHOU, Pierre.

Les Libertez de l'Eglise Gallicane.

Paris, Mamert Patisson, 1594. Small 8vo, ff. 27, [1] blank; armorial bookplate and MS ink shelf-number to the rear pastedown; some light spotting; a nice, crisp copy in contemporary vellum, spine lettered in MS ink. First edition of the seminal sixteenth-century defence of Gallicanism. Pithou (1539–1596) studied law under Cujas but could not practise in his native Troyes due to his Protestant beliefs. After abjuring Protestantism in 1573, he returned to France and was a strong supporter of the future Henri IV. On the latter’s accession he became procurator general of the Parisian Parliament, a post he soon resigned to carry on his prodigious literary and legal works.Gallicanism, it was argued, had begun as early as the protests of Philip IV (1285–1314) against the policies of Pope Boniface VIII, or even the early control over the church in their territories by the Carolingian monarchs. But it was not merely the specific privileges granted by the Popes to the French monarchy over the centuries, it was also an abstract notion of control over the Church. Many of its adherents used the localised tenets of early Christianity as their basis and were now placing it above the later institutional development of the Church. Pithou, along with Coquille, was the first to codify these principles into a cohesive doctrine.The Defense went through two Paris editions in 1594, both published by Patisson. Eight copies are listed by OCLC, four of which have title-pages which, like our copy, denominate Patisson as ‘Imprimeur du Roy’. The other four have the alternative imprint ‘chez A. Estienne’. Schreiber puts forward a number of explanations for this. Patisson had married Robert Estienne II’s widow in 1575, and had been Royal Printer since 1578. This continued use of the Estienne name, and design to title pages, was ‘to perpetuate the name of Robert Estienne until … [his] son Robert III … would come of age and take over the business from his stepfather’. An alternative reason, and to Schreiber’s mind a more credible one, was due to ‘the long lease of 1533, which ensured a minimum rent on the Estienne house only so long as it remained in the name of Robert Estienne’ (Schreiber, The Estiennes, p. 201).STC French, p. 181; Quérard VII, 193–4.

• GBP 1,250.00 > otras divisas
• nº de pedido: H817.2

• librero: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)