Justinian I. Constitutiones, 1477
JUSTINIAN I, Emperor of Byzantium (483–565 CE).
Novellae constitutiones et Codicis libri X-XII, with commentary by Accursius Florentinus (1184–1263).
[With:] OBERTUS DE HORTO (fl. 12th century).
Libri feudorum, with commentary by Jacobus Columbi (fl. 13th century).
Printed on vellum.
Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, 21 August 1477. (06420)
The original owner of this Roman civil law code was Johann von Dalburg (1455–1503), whose name and coat-of-arms were painted at the bottomof the first leaf in 1478. One of Germany’s leading humanist scholars, Dalburg was Chancellor of Heidelberg University, the founder of its college of civil law, and Bishop of Worms from 1482. Bridwell Library also owns one of his published works, Gratulatio Innocentio VIII dicta (Rome: Stephan Plannck, 1485). A great book collector, Dalburg commissioned the printer Adolf Rusch to purchase books at the Frankfurt book fairs and he bought many Italian manuscripts while he was studying law at Pavia (1472–75) and Padua (1476–80). The illuminations and white-vine initials in Bridwell Library’s book from his collection are unmistakably Italian. They indicate that Dalburg bought this German-made book from one of Peter Schoeffer’s bookselling agents in Italy. Bridwell Library’s copy is one of only four recorded copies printed on vellum, and the only vellum copy preserved in America.
