SALMASIUS, Claudius (1588-1653)

De modo usurarum liber.

      Lugd. Batavor. [Leyden], ex officina Elseviriorum [B. & A.Elzevier] 1639. Small 8vo. [LVI],891,[92]p. Contemp. overlapping vellum, spine ends little worn. First (only) edition. The second of three works in which the author defended the taking of interest as an indemnity to the lender. Salmasius (or Claude de Saumaise) was since 1632 successor of the famous Scaliger as professor in Leyden and one of the best known adversaries of scholastic ideas. He was the most important writer in the debate on the taking of interest of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Holland and wrote 3 books on that subject within 3 years: De usuris liber (1638), the present one, and Dissertatio de foenore trapezitico (1640). Laspeyres speaks highly of Salmasius, but Schumpeter thinks that 'so far as the history of economic analysis is concerned ... even the most famous leaders on the anti-scholastic side such as Molinaeus or Salmasius had nothing new to say'. *Willems 488. Kress 545. Dekkers p.151,2. EHB 2171. Schumpeter p.106. Laspeyres B.108 & p.257. (#33432)