Anti-Papal Polemics
CIGAULD, Vincent.
Allegationes Vincentii … iudicis ordinarii ville et comitatus Brivaten[sis] sup[er] bello ytalico per eum in unu[m] co[m]posite cum pluribus questionibus et casibus specialibus ibidem i[n]sertis ad diversis ex locis multipliciter extractis ea que cothidie geru[n]tur co[n]cernentibus. (Colophon:) Paris, Jean Frellon, 23 December 1512.
8vo, ff. XXXX; title in red and black with woodcut fleur-de-lys device of Guillaume Le Rouge, full-page woodcut of the Annunciation to title verso, white on black woodcut initials, text in two columns; some ink offsetting to title-page, some toning; a very good copy recased in sixteenth-century calf, lozenge border roll-tooled in blind to covers, all edges gilt and gauffered; rebacked, very worn, losses to covers revealing printed waste beneath, and to corners, endpapers renewed.
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Allegationes Vincentii … iudicis ordinarii ville et comitatus Brivaten[sis] sup[er] bello ytalico per eum in unu[m] co[m]posite cum pluribus questionibus et casibus specialibus ibidem i[n]sertis ad diversis ex locis multipliciter extractis ea que cothidie geru[n]tur co[n]cernentibus.
Extremely rare first edition of this legal tract by Vincent Cigauld (fl. 1491–1523), a judge from Brioude, prompted by the War of the Holy League, in which the Papal States under Pope Julius II, alongside Venice, Spain, and later England, sought to thwart the ambitions of the French King Louis XII in Italy.
The question at the heart of the text is whether a pope could legally wage war on Christian princes and vice versa, consideration of which leads Cigauld to debate the respective rights of popes, councils, and kings. Peace and truces, judges and their duties (including the question of murder arising from violent sports), and the king of France’s exemption from excommunication are also discussed, while Cigauld calls for obedience from the Genoese and other Italians subject to the French king’s sovereignty. ‘Biblical citations, bellicose declarations, and outpourings of monarchist mysticism jostle beneath his pen ... and he frequently falls into virulent anti-papal polemics’ (Dictionnaire historique des juristes français XIIe–XXe siècle (2007), col. 192, trans.). Several revised and expanded editions of Cigauld’s text followed between 1513 and 1516, a testament to its topicality.
No copies located in the UK or US. BP16 101927; USTC 183191 (two copies only, both in France).