Corpus Juris Civilis – Denys Godefroy – 3500 Pages From 1583 – Extremely Rare Work

Corpus Juris CivilisBy Denys Godefroy (1549-1622)Four parts in one very large octavo volume. Four title pages with woodcuts (the first restored on the lower part). Initials, bands, and tailpieces. One plate folded over a double page. Text in Latin in two columns. Some notes in the margins. Slight old traces of humidity. Full marbled calf from the 18th century (rubbing and slight losses). Ribbed spine decorated with title label. Very good condition overall. Very rare original Lyon edition of the same date as that of Geneva (Brunet III, 608). Monumental collection of the main works of Roman Law with the commentaries of Denys Godefroy (1549-1622). In Lyon at Bartholomé Vincent 1583 More than 3500 pages !!! 17x25cm and 11.5cm thick !!! Berriat in his history of Roman law declares "We therefore think that a lawyer must have in his library editions of the pure text and the two glosses, or at least that of Denis Godefroy". This is the collection of the most important works of Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis, the Institutionum, the Digestorum seu Pandectarum, the Codicis Justiniani, the Novellæ constitutiones and the Feurorum consuetudines with the commentaries, still considered today, as the best by Denis Godefroy. Very rare first edition published in Lyon by Vincent Bartholomé in 1583 and missing from Cujas and the BNF. Highly sought after. Biography of Denys Godefroy Born on 17.10.1549 in Paris and died on 7.9.1622 in Strasbourg, Protestant, from a family of nobility of the robe, bourgeois of Geneva in 1580. Studied law at the universities of Paris, Louvain, Cologne and Heidelberg, doctor of law from that of Orléans (1579). From 1579, G. gave a free course at the Geneva Academy, where he was appointed professor on March 11, 1580. Relieved of all teaching from 1581 to 1585, he devoted himself to his great work Corpus juris civilis, the annotated edition of the entire codification of the Emperor Justinian. The publication of this monumental work was a landmark and would number more than fifty editions, of which G. himself would give three separate editions. The first appeared in 1583 with a brief commentary (reissues in 1590, 1602, 1607, 1624). The second was printed in 1587 without annotations (reissues of 1598, 1606, 1625). The third, containing the Gloss, dates from 1589 (reissues of 1604 and 1612). Member of the Council of Two Hundred of Geneva in 1587, extraordinary advisor to the King of France in the Parliament of Paris and judge in three bailiwicks of the Pays de Gex, where G. settled in 1589, but only stayed six months, driven out by the troops of the Duke of Savoy who sacked his library. Taking refuge in 1590 in Basel, he temporarily taught Roman law there and in 1591 accepted a chair of Pandects and History of Law at the University of Strasbourg. In 1600, G. preferred an offer from Henry IV to appoint him to one of the six Protestant advisors in the Parliament of Paris, to that of the Elector Palatine calling him to Heidelberg, where he did not settle permanently until 1604, becoming rector of the university in 1607. Advisor to the Elector Palatine, he represented him as ambassador in Paris in 1618. The threats of Jean de Tilly against Heidelberg at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War led him to leave the city in 1621 to take refuge in Strasbourg. Sources and bibliography. D.-Ch. de Godefroy-Ménilglaise, Les savants Godefroy, 1873 (reprint 1971). R. Stintzing, Geschichte der deutschen Rechtswissenschaft, 1, 1880, 206 and 386-389. Hist. de l'université de Genève, 1, 1900, 282-290.