One of the first books banned by the Church

Rosellis, Antonius de. Monarchia, sive de potestate imperatoris ac papae.

Auf Anfrage

First edition. Authoritative late medieval treatise on canon law, defining the powers of the emperor and the pope and the papal relationship with the conciliar movement. The book was proscribed by the Vatican in 1491, and all copies ordered to be burned.

Antonio Roselli (1381-1466), professor of canon and civil law at Bologna, Siena, and Florence, was a prominent lawyer and consistorial mediator during the Second Council of Constance, which ended the Great Schism by electing Pope Martin V in 1417. In this, his main work, the author examines the extent of papal primacy, conciliarism versus the monarchy, and the concept of a universalist ideology. Although upholding papal authority, he argues it might be limited by a General Council under certain circumstances. This conciliatory theory, accepted as a compromise at Constance, was rejected by the next Pope, Eugenius IV, in his long struggle for supremacy with the Council of Basel (1431-39), which deposed him. Rosellis left Rome in 1438, as his political stance had become controversial, but continued to teach canon law at Padua. His treatise was finally condemned as an anti-papal tract and it became the first book to be prohibited by the Church in 1491, when Nicolò Franco, papal legate at Venice, ordered all copies to be burned in St Mark's Square. In 1499 the Dominican Henricus Institoris published a refutation of Roselli's work, titled "In errores Monarchiae Antonii de Rosellis".

Preserved in the rare contemporary full calf binding exhibiting decorative blind-tooled vines and lillies.