Beschreibung:

LOPEZ, Juan (or Johannes Lupus,1440-1496). De libertate ecclesiastica: tractatus Joannis Lupi... Eiusdem tractatus dialogic: de confederatione principum potentatum... Strassburg: Joannes Schott, 3 February 1511.
LOPEZ, Juan (or Johannes Lupus,1440-1496). De libertate ecclesiastica: tractatus Joannis Lupi... Eiusdem tractatus dialogic: de confederatione principum potentatum... Strassburg: Joannes Schott, 3 February 1511. 4 o (209 x 149 mm). Title in red and black with historiated woodcut border in red clair-obscure technique by Hans Wechtlin Remboitage of 15th-century half blind-stamped pigskin over wooden boards. Provenance : purchased from H.P. Kraus, 1951. FIRST EDITION, CONTAINING ONE OF THE EARLIEST SPECIMENS OF CHIAROSCURO PRINTING. The title border by Hans Wechtlin shows two naked boys wrestling at bottom, two others acting as umpires and holding toy windmills; the top and sides are filled with a festoon and trophies of arms. "Schmidt... knew only of the Stadtbibliothek copy at Strassburg. This method of colour printing was seldom used, but Schott, the printer of this book, produced several specimens in this manner, and was probably the first to use this process for borders of title-pages, &c... The earliest example by Schott mentioned by Proctor and Dodgson (II, p.257) is in a folio book of 1510, Nov. 5, though the border has the date 1511: the present example seems to be the next in order of line" (Fairfax Murray German ). Lopez's text is a legal treatise on ecclesiastical immunity of taxes and a dialogue on the right of princes to form alliances, by the late fifteenth century Spanish jurist Juan Lopez, a canon of Segovia who died in Rome in 1496. VERY RARE: RLG lists only copies at Cambridge, University of Minnesota and Yale. In the last 30 years, American Book Prices Current records only the Jeudwine copy, sold Bloomsbury, 18 September 1984, lot 85. Adams L-1724; BM/STC German p.534; Fairfax Murray German 248; Pr 10269; Schmidt Jean Schott 19.