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The best edition of the most influential, so-called 'Louvain Index' of forbidden books

[CHARLES V, Emperor].
Lordonnance & edict de lempereur Charles le Quint, renouvelle au mois davril M. CCCCC. cincquante, pour lextirpation des sectes et erreurs pullulez contre nostre saincte foy catholicque, et les constitutions et ordonnances de notstre mere saincte eglise. Avec le Cathalogue des livres reprouvvez & prohibez. Et aussi des bons livres qui se deburont lire et enseigner aux ieusnes escoliers. Par ladvis de luniversite de Louvain.

With the imperial coat-of-arms with the double eagle on the titles.

With the imperial coat-of-arms with the double eagle on the titles.

With the imperial coat-of-arms with the double eagle on the titles.



Louvain, Servatius Sassenius, 1550. 2 parts bound together. 4to. Modern half vellum, boards covered with a leaf from an incunable edition. With the imperial coat-of-arms with the double eagle on the titles. (10), (12) lvs.

Extremely rare French edition of the decree, or ordinance, of 29 April 1550 issued by the Emperor Charles V against heresies and dangerous books and images against the holy Catholic faith in the Low Countries. The ordinace is bound together, as usual, with the famous Louvain 'Index of forbidden books', with an additional list of approved and recommended titles of books to be read in schools. This index has a separate title-page: Les Catalogues des livres reprouvez,et ceux que lon pourra enseigner par ladvis de luniversite de louvain. Avec ledict & mandement de la Maieste Imperiale. Louvain, Servais de Sassen, 1550).
The art of printing played an important role in the dissemination of the reformation, but, on the other hand, also in the offensive of the Catholic Habsburg emperor of Spain and the Low Countries against all forms of heresy. From 1521 on Charles V had issued various decrees forbidding the printing, reading and sale of heretical or suspect books. On demand of the emperor the theologians of Louvain drew up a list of heretical and suspect books for uneducated people in 1546, which became law and was published simultaneously in three languages: Latin, Dutch and French, in the same year. The list was very much enlarged in 1550 and was, together witch a new imperial oridinance on the subject, of 29 April, printed in the same three languages.
Our copy belongs to the French version of this most important edition of the 'Index', which was meant as an eternal decree, regulating the entire book trade.
From that year on it was stricktly forbidden to possess, print, read, buy or sell works written by all reformers, other heretical woorks, satirical images, etc., and hencefort all books to be printed needed a special permission.
The catalogue contains a list of forbidden books (1) in Latin - in alphabetical order - and anonymous titles, (2) editions of the Bible in Latin, Greek, Flemisch  (a.o. the Liesvelt and Vorsterman bibles), and French, (3) other Flemish, German and French books, and (4) a list of recommended books for use in the classroom.
Our copy belongs to the most important edition of 1550, which served as a model for the Spanish (1551 and 1559), Venetian and Roman Indexes, especially the so-called Index of the Council of Trent of 1570.

At the end there is a hand written contemporary annotation in French: "Depuis xxx ans ...(?) apres composez ou imprimez, sans declaration des auteurs imprimeurs temps et lieu".

Good wide-margined copy.- (Dampstains in margins second part).
Belg.Typogr 2381; Machiels I-35; Meulman 67; STC Dutch 141;STC French 478; Carolus. Keizer Karel V (Exhib. Ghent 1999), nr. 65; Reusch, Der Index d. verbotenen Bücher (1883), passim; Martinez de Bujanda, Index de  l'yuniv. de Louvain 1546, 1550, 1558 (1986), passim; cf. Knuttel 102-102 (Dutch ed.); not in Adams, nor NUC.

Related Subjects: 16th Century  Forbidden Books  Louvain 

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€ 12.500,00

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