An excellent copy of this sammelband of works by the French humanist Francois Baudouin, large copies, beautifully printed in Basle by Oporinus. Baudouin was an eminent French humanist jurist and theologian. Interested in the early history of Roman law, he emphasized the importance of history in the development of the law. The first volume is one of his principal legal works, De Legibus XII Tabularum, a study of the history and significance of the Twelve Tables. The last title addresses the legal status of the early Christian Church. Although a legal scholar Baudouin was, perhaps inevitably in mid C16th France, caught up in the religious conflicts of the period. At first possessed of filial devotion to Calvin, François Baudouin, with his love of the Law and the tools necessary for legal study (grammar, philology, and history) developed a doctrine of the church wholly at odds with that of Calvin. While Baudouin s transformation occured over the course of years, his final break with Calvin came with a swift ferocity and a violent animosity. Francois Baudouin s early life mirrored Calvin s: both began their higher education in the study of law, both had the same legal and humanist influences, and both subsequently embraced the reformation, resulting in their exiles. The trajectory of Baudouin s Protestant pilgrimage reached its zenith in 1547, when he served as Calvin s secretary, living in Calvin s home. The denouement of Baudouin s journey,.., took him back to the Catholic church, informed far more by humanism than theology. .. the move also included a strong ecclesiological bent, one that produced rancorous diatribes between Baudouin and Geneva. A most interesting early English provenance. The book was owned by the British classical scholar John Price, bought by him in Rouen in 1632. He was both an author and publisher and had an extensive library and published several works himself including commentaries on the New Testament. He was a Roman Catholic who described himself as Anglo-Britannus . In 1635 he published the Apologia of Apuleius at Paris. From 1652 the Medicis employed him as their keeper of coins . He was also appointed professor of Greek at Pisa. In 1661 he moved, under patronage of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, to Rome where he died in 1676. Rouen was an important centre for publishing outside of Paris.
