HOTMAN, François. [with] MYNSINGER von FRUNDECK, Joachim.

In a solid, handsome pigskin binding. The centrepieces are signed G.K. (Georg d. Ä. Kammerberger, EBDB w000435 and Haebler I 221-225). The Kammerbergers were a family of bookbinders, whose workshops in Wittenberg were active during a large part of the C16 and throughout the C17 century. The company probably flourished under Georg Kammerberger the Younger in the 1590s, who was elected Master of the Guild in 1592 (Haebler). This binding is stamped with the finely cut arms of Christian I, Elector of Saxony, and those of Johann Georg, Elector of Brandenburg. Christian I married Sophie of Brandenburg, Johann Georg s daughter, in 1586; after her husband s death in 1591, she became Regent (Sophia Electrix) during the minority of their son, until 1600. Given that, during the Regency, her personal arms were used in escutcheons and medals, this binding was probably produced for her library in the preceding years, with the Saxon and Brandenburg arms identifying her status as wife and daughter.

Two important commentaries to Justinian s Institutiones a cornerstone of the Western legal system. Justinian I (482-565) ruled for forty years over the Byzantine empire and succeeded in temporarily rekindling the former splendour of Rome by reclaiming Italy, Dalmatia and Spain from the Ostrogoths and Visigoths. Institutiones is part of his Corpus iuris civilis , the first codification of Roman law. Based on the Institutiones of Gaius, and other authorities, including Ulpian, it is a compendium of the basic institutions of Roman law devised by Theophilus and Dorotheus, two Byzantine law professors, under the supervision of Tribonian. François Hotman (1524-90) was a French Protestant lawyer associated with the anti-absolutist faction. In his revolutionary Anti-Tribonian , he advocated the substitution, in France, of Roman law based on Justinian, a change the king could have enforced with a legislative act. With a philological approach, he favoured an alliance between law and history in order to distinguish between old law and new law , that is, between obsolete law and authoritative law , being concerned with salvaging what still had practical value among Roman laws (Kelley, François Hotman , 189). His Commentarius , also featuring a life of Justinian, sought to highlight Roman laws still relevant to the present, distinguishing originals and interpolations by later jurists, including the berated Tribonian. Joachim Mynsinger von Frundeck (1514-88) was a German jurist and writer, a judge at the Imperial Chamber of Justice in Speyer and later Vice-Chancellor of Helmstedt University. He was the first to publish documents of the so-called cameralistic jurisprudence , the decisions of the Imperial Chamber based on confidential consultation. Here in a scarce German edition, Apotelesma was organised in the form of glossae or annotations to single passages in the text, accompanied by brief comments. (Padoa-Schioppa, History , 269). Subjects include the laws relating to agriculture, wills, evidence, landed property and inheritance.