De politia et disciplina civili & ecclesiastica, tum Israeliticae tum Christianae reipublicae libri II...

by Joannes Baptista Aurellius

Leiden: Leonardus Niestus [i.e. Basel: Leonard Ostein], 1585

[4], 231, [9] p. | 4to | A-2E^4 2F^6 2G^4 | 211 x 156 mm

First and only edition of this blend of theology and political science by an Italian Waldensian. Born around 1540 and calling Calabria home, the author was forced to leave Catholic Italy and spent nearly half his life in London, where he served as pastor for the Italian refugee church from 1570 until his death in 1596 (with a brief visit to France in 1572, where he happened to be for the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre). London had a number of these independent “stranger churches,” which provided foreign Protestants with a permitted place of worship. On account of the false imprint, the treatise has been extolled as an early and important work of Dutch Reformed canon law. In truth, the work has little bearing, if any, on the Netherlands, except possibly for influencing the work of Johannes Wtenbogaert. The author was, however, connected by marriage to the Van de Corput family of Breda. ¶ Through this examination of the civil and church administrations of the ancient Christian and Israelite people, Aurellius tries to thread a “reasonable middle path” between “papal tyranny” and “Anabaptist anarchy” (173). While certainly theological, and rooted in classical and biblical sources, the middle path Aurellius seeks invariably leads him to ground of a more secular political nature. After leaving Egypt, for example, the author remarks that the Israelites established the first republic. Moses was a leader of his people, no doubt. But he didn’t govern as a king, or as a single authority, “for he was consulted as the first leader among many for service and counsel [Dux primarius multorum opera & consilio]” (84). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Aurellius believes secular leaders should be subject to church administration (56). ¶ Leonard Ostein, incidentally, acquired the Froben shop in 1587, ending that storied printing dynasty. This is the only book we find with his false Niestus imprint. Basel, “a prime example of a town whose market and authors were truly international,” was home to a variety of Protestant and otherwise heterodox printing in the 16th century (Hill). It’s not obvious to us if Aurellius’s work might have seriously offended any of Ostein’s authorities, though Ostein must have had his reasons for obscuring his role. Aurellius himself might theoretically have insisted on a Leiden imprint, perhaps to honor his wife’s Dutch family. Even so, while Leiden’s university was only a decade old and the town was still recovering from the 1574 Spanish siege, we suspect Aurellius could have found a Leiden printer with the smattering of Greek and Hebrew types to do a competent job. Plantin had an office there after all. ¶ With a comprehensive topical index. We find no sale records.

PROVENANCE: Scattered brief, early marginalia, our annotator apparently preoccupied with the concept of justice.

CONDITION: Perhaps late 20th-century full leather, simply tooled in blind and gold; dull gilt edges. ¶ Scattered worming in the lower margin, with some losses filled (not affecting text); title worn, stained, and mounted, with filled loss just touching some letters; upper corners of the first several leaves filled, text unaffected; first and last several leaves stained. Spine and two edges of the front board faded.

REFERENCES: USTC 422349; STCN 840102410 ¶ J.C.L. Starreveld, “De auteur van ‘De politia et disciplina civili et ecclesiastica’ (1585),” Nederlands archief voor kerkgeschiedenis/Dutch Review of Church History 77.2 (1997), p. 152-154, 156; Kat Hill, “Anabaptism and the World of Printing in Sixteenth-Century Germany,” Past & Present 226 (February 2015), p. 92

Item #319