Beschreibung:

LEO X, Pope, Giovanni de' Medici (1475-1521, elected Pope 1513). 'Indulgencia plenaria'. [Rome: Giacomo Mazzocchi, 1513-1521.
LEO X, Pope, Giovanni de' Medici (1475-1521, elected Pope 1513). 'Indulgencia plenaria'. [Rome: Giacomo Mazzocchi, 1513-1521.] Broadside (205 x 294mm). Woodcuts of the Madonna and child and Leo X's arms, woodcut initial. 17 lines, gothic and roman types. (A little stained and wormed, principally affecting margins.) Provenance : early manuscript notes on verso. A RARE, REFORMATION PERIOD PAPAL PLENARY INDULGENCE (a type of indulgence which was in the gift of the Pope alone). This indulgence -- to raise fund for work on the fabric of the Carmelite church and convent of Santa Maria -- was issued in the name of Pope Leo X, whose promulgation of an indulgence to solicit contributions towards the building of a new St Peter's in Rome prompted the opposition of Luther and Zwingli, converting discontent with the Catholic church into the movement that became the Reformation. Giacomo Mazzocchi, the printer of this indulgece, was active in Rome between 1505 and 1524. The gothic type in the first line (F. Ascarelli Annali tipografici di Giacomo Mazzocchi , Florence, 1961, type 84G) was used by Mazzocchi to print Pope Julius II's Monitorium contra Venetos (1509) while the roman type in which the remainder of the text is set (Ascarelli type 107R) was being used by Mazzocchi in 1517. Although indulgences were presumably printed in relatively large editions, their ephemeral nature means that few survive; indeed, of those that are offered at auction, a number owe their survival to later reuse as binder's waste.