JUSTINIAN'S INSTITUTES, 1568 EDITION, FROM THE GIUNTA PRESS

(JUSTINIAN) ALDOBRANDINI, Silvestro, editor. Institutiones iuris civilis D. Iustiniani Imp. Venetiis: Apud Iuntas, 1568. Octavo, contemporary vellum-covered boards with early rebacking of blind-stamped vellum with raised bands. $3200.

Giunta printing of the Institutes of Justinian, edited and annotated by noted legal scholar Aldobrandini, in a binding blind-stamped 1586.

The Code of Justinian was a "collection of laws and legal interpretations developed under the sponsorship of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I from 529 to 565 CE. Strictly speaking, the works did not constitute a new legal code. Rather, Justinian's committees of jurists provided basically two reference works containing collections of past laws and extracts of the opinions of the great Roman jurists. Also included were an elementary outline of the law and a collection of Justinian's own new laws. The Justinian code consists of four books: (1) Codex Constitutionum, (2) Digesta, or Pandectae, (3) Institutiones, and (4) Novellae Constitutiones Post Codicem… The Institutiones, compiled and published in 533 under Tribonian's supervision and relying on such earlier texts as those of Gaius, was an elementary textbook, or outline, of legal institutions for the use of first-year law students" (Britannica). The Institutiones were largely forgotten during the early medieval period, but a first printed edition reappeared in 1468. This 1568 printing of Aldobrandini's influential edition came from the press of the famed Giunti (or Giunta) family of printer-publishers, with their fleur-de-lys printer's mark in red on the title page; the text is attractively printed in black and red in double columns with decorative initials and extensive commentary surrounding the main text. Graesse III:505. Front pastedown with ink owner inscription dated Jan. 24, 1882; title page with early ink owner inscription. Contemporary hand-inked list of chapter headings at back; early underlining throughout and occasional small annotations.

A few sections with light waterstaining, final leaf with edges chipped; text block sound with a few slightly proud signatures, binding darkened, a bit rubbed and slightly bowed. A handsome copy in an early vellum binding.