Aquinas (Thomas)

Opuscula Sancti Thomae: quibus alias impressis nuper haec addidimus. vz. Summae totius logicae. Tractatum celeberrimum de usuris nusque alias impressum. [Edited by Antonius Pizamanus.]

      [Venice: Bonetus Locatellus, for Octavianus Scotus.] , 1498 - Gothic type, 65 lines and headline per page, final blank discarded, title slightly dusty and last few leaves just faintly dampmarked, a few minor spots elsewhere, two old ownership inscriptions to title (one struck-through) and one or two marginal notes, ff. 341, folio, late eighteenth-century Italian vellum, skilfully recased, endpapers renewed with old paper, later brown label to smooth backstrip, edges mottled red, head just slightly rubbed, very good A very clean copy of an important incunable edition of Saint Thomas Aquinas?s collected minor works. This is the second Pizamanus edition, and the first in folio form, following a quarto of 1490 printed in Venice by Hermann Liechtenstein. Two additional treatises have been included, bringing the total to 73, and one, on usury, is here printed for the first time. This is thus most complete incunable edition of the Opuscula, of which a small selection had first been printed in the 1470s. This edition was published by Ottaviano Scotto, an enterprising businessman who began as a printer but who later strictly restricted himself to publishing - underwriting and arranging distribution for books produced by other men. Around a dozen printers worked for him, of whom the most important was Boneto Locatelli, a priest from Bergamo and the printer of this book. The colophon dates this edition to the 31st of December, 1498, exactly a week after Scotto?s death, so it seems likely that this was the last book in which he would have been able to personally take an interest. His heirs continued to print books with his name for at least a year before adopting their own imprint. The editor, Antonio Pizzamano, was the era?s leading Aquinas scholar, a correspondent of Poliziano and a friend of Cardinal Grimani; he also produced the first catalogue of the library of Count Pico della Mirandola after his death. Pizzamano?s life of Aquinas is also included in this edition. (ISTC it00257000; BMC V 452; Goff T257; Hain 1542)