Ludovicus à Turri, 1486

LUDOVICUS À TURRI DE VERONA
(1441–c. 1501). De immaculata conceptione Beatae Virginis Mariae. [With:] SIXTUS IV (1414–1484). Bulla, ‘Grave nimis.’
Brescia: Boninus de Boninis, de Ragusia, 19 August 1486. (06448)

This treatise defends the Franciscan Order’s devotion to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary within the womb of St. Anne, an article of faith that was opposed by the Dominican Order. The text is accompanied by the first edition of Sixtus IV’s bull of 1483, Grave nimis, which forbade anyone to denounce those who supported the Immaculate Conception. Bridwell Library’s copy, one of only three recorded in America, features an illumination of the Nativity. On the facing page, seventeenth-century library stamps with the initials S G M seem to mark it as the property of the church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. A blank leaf at the back of the book bears a lengthy inscription by the Franciscan friar Jacopo de Castello. It records that he entered his Order as a novice in 1497, took the four minor orders in 1498, was ordained as a subdeacon, deacon, and priest in 1499, and celebrated his first High Mass later that same year. Castello also recorded the deaths of his mother in 1503 and his father in 1504.