[GRATIAN]. Decretum Gratiani. Cum glossis Ioannis Theutonici et annotationibus prepositi alberitatensis: & annotationibus Bartholomei Brixiensis. Diuisionibus Archidiaconi. Casibus a Bene, compositis per Bart. Brixi. correctis & pro clariore intellectu pluribus in locis extensis. Concordia ad bibliam. Tabula marginalium glossularum omnium canonum et conciliorum. Margarita decreti. Flosculis totius decreti a domino Ioanne Diacono compositis. Additione in margine litterarum quo minuscoli characteres lineis intercepticitius legenti appareant. [Venezia : Luca Antonio Giunta il vecchio] (Venetijs : Lucas Antonius de Giunta Florentinus impressit, 1514 die XX Maij).
Leather-bound; hardcover; thick octavo (21.5 x 15 x 7.5 cm); leaves [38], CCCCCCLII, [76]. Latin text in gothic letter, commentary surrounding double column text, with side-notes, printed in red and black, printer’s device on title, ca. 130 woodcut illustrations (3 full-page), decorative initials. Rebound in modern full calf, spine in five compartments with brown morocco lettering-piece, marbled endpapers. Imprint information from colophon on numbered leaf 652 recto. Title-page device of Lucantonio Giunta (lily in rectangular frame, with "L. A."; flanked by black motto in italics: Soli Deo honor, & gloria; Zappella figure 617). Includes indexes in triple columns. Condition: VERY GOOD. Collated complete. Binding tight and secure, the covers well-preserved. Textblock remaining largely fresh and clean, some very light toning, the title-page and fore-edge with old inking, plus a few small marginal annotations and trivial stains. Scarce thus.
Notes: Typographically beautiful edition of Gratianus’ Decretum by the Venetian printer Luca Antonio Giunta the elder. The text is printed mirroring the manuscript editions of the Decretum with the text surrounded by the commentators’ notes and illustrated by more than 130 woodcuts. The Concordia Discordantia Canonum, or Decretum Gratiani, is a collection of canon law compiled and written in the 12th century as a legal textbook by the jurist and Camaldolese monk known as Gratian. Together with later legal texts (The “Decretals” of Gregory IX; those of Boniface VIII (Sixth Book of the Decretals); those of Clement V (Clementinæ), the Extravagantes of John XXII, and the Extravagantes Communes) it constituted for centuries the cornerstone of the Corpus Juris Canonici, the main source of the canon law of the Catholic Church, in force until 1917. In addition to the Glossa Ordinaria of Joannes Teutonicus and the glosses of Bartolomeo da Brescia this edition includes the Flos Decreti of Johannes Hispanus, a set of commentaries on Gratian, and the Margarita Decreti of Polonus Martinus, a collection of excerpts from the Decretals of Gregory IX. A complete work (and bibliographically distinct), it is part of a three-volume edition of the Corpus Juris Canonici issued by Giunta in 1514.
