Franciscus de Platea, Opus restitutionum, Venice, 1474, modern calf tooled in period style

FRANCISCUS DE PLATEA

Opus restitutionum, usurarum, excommunicationum. Venice: Johannes de Colonia and Johannes Manthen, 25 March 1474

Median 4to (233 x 162mm.), 152 leaves, [* **⁸; a-b¹⁰ c-d⁸ e¹⁰ f¹² g-n¹⁰ o⁸], double column, 40 lines, gothic type, initials supplied in red (the first with penwork decoration), red paraphs, annotations by two early readers including headlines and marginal pointing hands, two blank leaves at end filled with a contemporary manuscript text (see footnote), modern calf over (old?) wooden boards and tooled in period style, edges untrimmed

A crisp copy. Franciscus de Platea was a Franciscan lawyer; this work, considered to be the earliest printed work of economics, was first printed in 1472, and this is at least the fifth edition. He discusses the falsification of papal documents in the section on excommunication and also condemns inquisitors who extort money from suspected heretics. The annotations in this copy indicate that the early readers were also Franciscans.

The additional manuscript text at the end is Regularia circa materiam soccidarum secundum Sanctum Bernardinum, incipit "Circa ma[teria]m soccidarum tria ad eius notitiam...", written in a contemporary hand. This short treatise on contracts relating to the shared farming of animals ("soccida") is also found in a late fifteenth-century manuscript volume in Rome (Biblioteca nazionale centrale, S.Fr.Ripa 10), ff. 94r-98v, along with extracts from the works of Franciscus de Platea and Angelo Carletti.

LITERATURE:

ISTC ip00755000