A handsome pocket edition in a contemporary Lyonnese binding in handsome, unrestored condition, of part of the first 16mo edition of Justinian I's Corpus Iuris Civilis, from the library of one of the earliest collectors of fine bindings, Jean Ballesdens (1595-1675).
Jurist, ecclesiastic, author, secretary to the Chancellor of France, Pierre Séguier - and tutor to his grandchildren - and lawyer to the parlement of Paris, Ballesdens was a member of the Académie française (though he gave up his first nomination for a chair in favour of playwright Pierre Corneille). He collected printed books and manuscripts, with a particular interest in French Renaissance bindings, including those of Grolier; along with De Thou he acquired many books from Grolier's library before it was dispersed in the late seventeenth century. Ballesdens' own library of more than 6000 volumes was sold en bloc after his death in 1675, and his property bequeathed to the Hotel-Dieu in Paris.
Present here is part of the first 16mo edition of the Corpus Iuris Civilis, Justinian I's comprehensive codification of Roman law, this portion edited by jurist Gregory Haolander (1501-1531) and issued by Guillaume Rouillé over 1550 and 1551. The text here is the Institutes, a survey of the broader code.
La bibliothèque d'un académicien au XVIIe siècle: inventaire et prisée des livres rares et des manuscrits de J. Ballesdens, suivis de son testament (Paris: imprimerie nationale, 1885). Baudrier, IX, 85-186.
