Printing the Law in the 15th Century With a Focus on Corpus iuris civilis and the Works of Bartolus de Saxoferrato

The editions of legal texts are a major and important part of 15th-century book output, amounting to about 15% of the surviving extant editions. The category comprehends two types of work: (a) the collections of Roman and Canon law, with their medieval supplements and commentaries; (b) acts and regulations produced by governments and by local authorities as part of their day-to-day activity. After a general overview, this article focuses on the first group of texts, which offers an opportunity to address some key questions related to the impact of printing in a particular cultural context, that of the university. A study of legal texts printed in the 15th century aims to provide a relevant contribution to a better understanding of the impact of printing by comparing elements of continuity and discontinuity with the manuscript and later printed tradition.


Introduction
The editions of legal texts are a very important part of 15th-century book production; the category is second only to Theology. With about 4,500 editions, it represents 15% of known surviving output. 2 Two main groups of texts form the category: a. the compilations of Civil and Canon law with their medieval supplements and the exegetical works of the jurists: (1) the Corpus iuris civilis, the Justinian compilation (Roman law), the law of the Empire; (2) the Corpus iuris canonici, the law of the Church; (3) commentaries, treatises, and works written by the jurists for teaching purposes or in the course of their professional activity, such as consilia (the texts of the ius commune). 3 b. Collections of local rules, such as statutes, regulations, customs (the texts of the iura propria) but also the acts promulgated by the superior authorities as part of their daily activity. The numerous papal bulls issued for the granting of indul-2 Cf. page 63 in this volume. An explanation of the figures is found in paragraph 2.1.
General note: editions are quoted with reference to the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegenducke (GW) and the Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue (ISTC); descriptions are based on the latter. For detailed descriptions of texts, the reader is invited to check the TEXTinc database, which is being implemented with new descriptions every day and where most part of the editions discussed in this paper have already been recorded. In TEXTinc the records are identified with a number made of a 't' followed by the ISTC number. A final note on the format: in this paper the format has been specified only in relation to texts not in folio, which is the usual format for law books. Actually, as Paul Needham has shown, for legal texts a particular format was developed, resulting from the use of a sheet of paper of special size, named by him "super-royal". To determine the category and format of 15th century paper, a very helpful tool has been developed: the Needham Calculator (www.needhamcalculator.net/). It will be used in a future research on legal texts for a systematic recording of this datum which has not been possible to include in the present research. I should also like to add that the 15cBOOKTRADE has produced a special ruler, on which the categories of paper classified by Needham have been marked so as to simplify their recording.
tory is based in principle and practice on the conviction that early printed editions are effectively interchangeable", has written Douglas Osler,12 to stress the need for a complete bibliography of all early editions of legal texts (1450-1800), so as to extend to later centuries the knowledge we have of the production of the first fifty years. 13 Any such work would be a starting point for scholars to undertake any further analysis, as has taken place now within the 15cBOOK-TRADE project, which has promoted an in-depth analysis of all aspects of the book -texts, illustration, copies -to show why and how the invention of printing became 'r-evolutionary'. This article focuses on texts and editions and offers the results of a systematic approach pursued with the aim to understand the evolution of legal texts during the second half of the 15th century. 14 A first section provides a general overview of all kind of texts included in the category of law which were printed in the 15th century; the two following chapters focus on the analysis of the editions of the Corpus iuris civilis and on the works of Bartolus de Saxoferrato.
13 "Yet our information on the vast book production of European publishing houses remains rudimentary. Only the incunable period up to the year 1500 is well documented, with a majority of editions and even copies being identified, this information currently being assembled in a single data bank in the ISTC project at the British Library. Thereafter, however, our knowledge falls off dramatically". Quoted from the presentation of the research project A Bibliography of European Legal Literature, 1450-1800: https://www.rg.mpg.de/research/bibliography-of-european-legal-literature.
14 From a methodological point of view there is a continuous line between the present research and the pioneering studies based on data collection conducted in the seventies and eighties by scholars like Carla Bozzolo, Dominique Coq and Ezio Ornato; for a good overview see: Ornato et al., La face cachée du livre médiéval. An essay published by Coq and Ornato is of particular interest in this context, as it pertains precisely to law books: "La production et le marché des incunables. Le cas des livres juridiques"; this research was necessarily based on incomplete data, taken from a partial census provided by GW; so, it can now be used as a benchmark to measure the enhancement of knowledge produced in this matter in the meantime. Much attention has been dedicated to the secondary literature published on the subject of early editions of legal texts especially by legal historians, including entries in reference works (e.g. CALMA, DBGI). One has to recall here works providing general overview of the theme by offering a number of relevant articles: Dauchy et al., The Formation and Transmission of Western Legal Culture (especially Wijffels, "Accursius, Standard Gloss"; Treggiari, "Bartolus, Commentaria"); Colli, Juristische Buchproduktion im Mittelalter (especially Neddermeyer, "Juristische Werke auf dem spätmittelalterlichen Buchmarkt"; Quaglioni, "Dal manoscritto alla stampa"); Ascheri, Colli, Manoscritti, editoria e biblioteche (especially Mattone, Olivari, "Dal manoscritto alla stampa"). It is also worth mentioning a fairly recent article which highlighted the advantages of applying the tools and knowledge of Analytical bibliography to Legal history (Hespanha, "Form and Content in Early Modern Legal Books") and the on-going research on the Corpus iuris civilis by Rodolfo Savelli, who has already published: "Maestria tipografica e mercato accademico"; "Sulla stampa del Corpus iuris civilis nel Cinquecento".
Siciliae, and the compilation of Jewish laws [tab. 5]. Statuta of lower level organisations, such as city statutes, have been gathered in a dedicated group of 60 editions, while 41 editions are in the category of Customs, consuetudines. All these texts are of great interest and relevance in relation to the study of the birth and development of the State and public administration in the early modern period, as well as to the study of the system of common law, or national (Jewish) tradition. Evidently, this topic should form the core of a dedicated study.

Civil and Canon law: Scholarly Production
The systematisation and analysis of the texts of Roman and Canon law, later to be gathered respectively into the Corpus iuris civilis and Corpus iuris canonici, formed the basis of the very creation of the university, as the highest degree of the educational system. 20 These texts are at the core of the category of scholarly production, together with the works written by the jurists in relation with their academic activity. The category therefore includes commentaries, reportationes, quaestiones disputatae, but also abridgments (summae), introductory texts to the study of the discipline and texts conceived as reference works (vocabularia, repertoria and the like). The category includes works that might not have a close and direct relation with the teaching activity, but were the result of the jurist's investigation, such as treatises exploring a particular subject, but also the consilia, reflecting the author's deep knowledge of and expertise in a topic. 21 The keyword 'education' has been used to mark most part of these texts, 20 Cf. above notes 5-6. On the birth of the jurisprudence as a discipline, cf. also Radding, The Origins of Medieval Jurisprudence. Pavia and Bologna 850-1150, particularly the final chapter "The Invention of a Discipline". In this work Radding shows how the birth of Jurisprudence as a new discipline was the result of a process started in the context of the Lombard court at Pavia, where judges were already using parts of the Justinian's texts (Codex and Novellae) to solve cases under attention. The rediscovery, after five centuries, of the Digest (the longest and most complex compilation of the texts of the ancient jurists) was to come later, when society, stimulated by a powerful process of renewal, was in need of a sophisticated legal framework that could only be found in the thought of the ancient jurists. Radding's analysis of how the knowledge of the corpus of Roman Law was developed in the early Middle Ages was followed by an in-depth study of the earliest texts of the Corpus iuris done together with a new codicological and palaeographical analysis made for the purpose by Antonio Ciaralli, and ended up with a new dating of almost all the manuscripts; cf. Radding, Ciaralli, "The Corpus Iuris Civilis in the Middle Ages".
21 The category of scholarly production is only aimed to distinguish the texts resulting from the speculative works of the jurists from texts of practical or administrative use within the group of texts which form the focus of this article. In this analysis, therefore, the category does not include here texts classified as National law or Customs. Of course this does not imply that the latter are not considered as the result of the work of learned jurists. yet so far applied only to those which have an obvious relation with the teaching activity; 'commentary', 'index', 'abridgments', to mark respectively exegetical works, texts consisting of or including tabulae, summae; 'notary' for texts like the summa artis notariae, which is also part of this group.
About 2,500 editions belong to this group [charts [3][4]; the majority of them are medieval works, which is obvious as the group includes the texts of both the corpus iuris civilis and the corpus iuris canonici. Yet, it is worth noting the prevalence of medieval authors, as well as that of the texts of civil law over Canon law, plus a relevant number of editions of texts in both laws (utroque iure). Such a synthesis acquires significance when at least the authors are known; a complete list includes more than 250 authors, or titles of anonymous texts. Those printed in 20 or more editions have been highlighted in a 'top ranking' list [tab. 8]; a much longer list is formed by all the others [tab. 9], and one can see here how the majority is formed by those authors whose texts were printed only once, such as Johannes Franciscus de Poliascha, Henricus Greve de Göttingen or Jean Bagnyon. A long list of names, usually hiding in the shadow of those who received more attention from the printers, was brought to the surface by such classification and it is hoped that new research, so facilitated, will pursue this type of production. These lists only aim to provide an overview and to allow comparisons between general data and some warnings should be heeded. First of all, only the names of those who in the ISTC appear as main authors (in each edition) are listed and only editions are counted, not the single works that might be found collected together in one edition. 22 Multiple works within an edition are an important and common feature of 15th-century book production, in this respect continuing a long-standing medieval tradition. It is indeed the main reason why the 15cBOOKTRADE is carrying on the analytical recording of the texts in the database TEXT-inc. In this paragraph a synthetic bird'seye view is needed to serve as an introduction to the focuses. For this purpose, uniform headings have been used for those texts that in the ISTC appear either anonymous, or are scattered throughout the database under individual headings. This issue is particularly important for the texts of Civil law, which in the ISTC are found under the name of the Emperor Justinian, including those parts that contain, or only consist of, the texts of feudal law, such as the Libri feudorum or Constitutions of medieval emperors. By contrast, in the ISTC, as well as in GW, the texts of Canon law appear under the name of the author of each part, Gratian and the popes Gregory IX, Boniface VIII, Clement V, and John XXII; it should be remembered that it was only in the course of the 16th century that they were finally gathered under the common title of Corpus iuris canonici. In this table they are kept together for the purpose of comparing different groups of texts, showing, for example, that in the 15th century only the Glossa ordinaria of Accursius, which appeared in all editions of the Corpus iuris civilis, and the works of Bartolus de Saxoferrato were as popular as the two main collections.
It is worth noting that in the 15th century the texts of Civil law were printed in parts as separate editions, reflecting their traditional arrangement in the manuscript tradition. 23 Previous to printing, the four parts of the Corpus iuris civilis (Digestum, Codex, Novellae, Institutiones) were arranged in five volumes: the 50 books of the Digest (or Pandectae, the collection of texts of ancient jurists) were divided in: (1) Digestum Vetus (1.1-24.2), (2) Digestum Infortiatum (24. 3-38.17) and (3) Digestum Novum (39. 1-50.17). The 12 books of the Codex were also divided in two: the medieval Codex Iustinianus only included the first nine books, the last three (Tres ultimi libri) being gathered together with the Novellae (or Authenticum, the laws issued by the Emperor Justinian himself) and the four books of the Institutiones (introduction and textbook for the study of the law) to form what is also known as the Volumen. In the printed editions of the fifteenth century this arrangement is reproduced with a variant concerning the Volumen and the Institutiones: the internal combination of the Volumen varied, especially in relation to the medieval additions, such as the Libri feudorum, which are not always present but can also be found alone; the Institutiones, on the other hands, were always printed separately [tab. 7].

Periodisation of the Texts of Civil and Canon Law
Legal texts were among the earliest ones to appear in print; and, again, it was the texts of Canon law that were printed first [tab. 8].
The princeps of the Constitutiones Clementinae -i.e. the constitutions of pope Clement V (1305-14) issued by his successor John XXII (1316-23 The texts of Roman law circulating in the Middle Ages were not identical with the texts written at the court of the Emperor Justinian at Byzantium in the 6th century. They were the result of the exegetical work of early jurists, the Glossators: a collection of texts rearranged and increased with later supplements. A text of reference for the Digest also prevailed, which formed the basis for the work of the Medieval jurists: the Littera Bononiensis in opposition to the Littera Pisana-Florentina, as testified in a celebrated very early witness of the Digest, the only one containing the texts in Greek. Fust and Schoeffer in June 1460. 24 Five years later, Fust and Schoeffer also published the Liber Sextus Decretalium of Boniface VIII, 25 and both works were printed again by Schoeffer alone in 1467 and1470. 26 In the meantime, Schoeffer printed the earliest editions of the Institutiones, in 1468. 27 By 1470 no editions had appeared outside Germany, but even there only certain parts of the corpora were printed; some of them more than once, which marked a kind of original trend partially confirmed by later production. The most printed books were the Liber Sextus by Boniface VIII, with 58 editions, for Canon law and, for Civil law, the Institutiones, which were also the most printed legal text of all with 77 editions. In both cases, the majority of editions were printed in Italy; just after 1470, indeed, Italy was the place where the majority of editions appeared and where all the parts of both corpora were printed. More details on the editions of the texts of Civil law are provided in the following paragraphs; in the next few lines, instead, some brief considerations are furnished about the general features of editions of Canon law.

34) -were printed in Mainz by
The princeps of the Decretum Gratiani (the core collection of the corpus) was not printed by Schoeffer, but appeared in Strasbourg in 1471 in the printing shop of Heinrich Eggestein, who repeated it again the following year, when Schoeffer also added the Decretum to his catalogue. 28 Soon it was printed in Italy: in Venice by Nicolaus Jenson in 1474, 29 in Rome by Lauer in 1476, 30 with further editions in these same cities during the 1470s. In the following years yet more editions appeared in Venice, by various printers/publishers; in the

Commentaries, Treatises and Reference Works: The Most Published Genres of Scholarly Production
The application of a number of categories or keywords to the 2,250 editions or so of scholarly texts, not including the corpora iuris, allowed us to understand what typology was mostly printed and whether the typologies evolved over the years. The following terms have been used: 'Commentum/Lectura'; 'Quaestiones/Disputationes'; 'Reportationes'; 'Summa'; 'Tractatus'; 'Consilia'; 'Casus'; 'Singularia & Brocarda'. To these terms, taken from the tradition and found in the titles, 37 the expression 'Handbook & Reference' has been added, to gather together all texts conceived as tools for the study of the discipline. Such categories have been applied to all texts included in each edition; in a number of cases, therefore, it was necessary to use multiple descriptors (such as 'Quaestiones -Reportationes -Consilia'), as a further manifestation of the variety of combinations in which legal texts (as well as texts of any other disciplines) were published in early editions. The result (chart 4) shows that the vast majority is formed of commentaries on the texts of Civil and Canon law (744 eds, about 35% of the whole); they are also defined Lecturae (as the title often reads) as they were written by the jurists in their activity of teaching the law and indeed they are usually commentaries on a specific part of the corpus (e.g. Lectura super prima parte Digesti Veteris) with relation to the part of the text that was read during a course. The practice of writing comments to the texts was an evolution from the traditional interpretation of the texts, consisting of notes added to the margins (glosae, as developed within the earliest school of jurists, the Glossators), and culminated in the compilation of the Magna glossa by Accursius (1184Accursius ( -1263. Famously Accursius' work became almost a natural apparatus to the text of the Corpus and indeed all the editions printed in the 15th century included it, sometimes with additional notes by later jurists. Among these later jurists Bartolus de Saxoferrato excelled; to him is mostly owed a renewed approach to the study of the text and a development of a new school of jurists, the School of Commentators, also manifested in the number of editions of their works printed in the 15th century. 38 'Handbooks and reference' works form the second most printed kind of texts (486 eds) mirroring a very important series of works which includes: repertoria (indexes, finding aids) in 57 dedicated editions plus 27 editions in which a repertorium was combined with oth-er texts. Some repertoria were dedicated to the work of a particular author (30 editions), such as the Repertorium iuris super operibus Bartoli written by Antonius de Prato Veteri, printed in six editions; 39 there were also repertoria written by celebrated authors, such as Baldus de Ubaldis, for his Repertorium aureum super Speculo Guillelmi Durandi 40  works of practical use, such as the collections of formulas, formularia of various kind. 50 Treatises (tractatus) are the third most printed genre of work, with more than 350 editions (about 300 plus a number of editions where a treatise appears together with other works). Like the commentum, the tractatus was developed by the late school of jurists, from the late 13th century onwards, and to it Bartolus, again, gave an important impulse. 51 Collections of Repetitiones follow, with about 120 editions, the repetitio being "a lecture outside the normal curriculum". 52 It consisted, indeed, in the repetition of a lecture in order to provide the students with a more in-depth analysis of the content of a lectura and to clarify their doubts. About 100 editions are collections of Casus, that is "an introduction to each law, canon or chapter, and paragraph, summarizing its text", 53 with an exemplification of practical application of the law. 54 More than 70 editions are collections of Consilia, that is the expert opinion of the jurist given under request of a judge or of a private citizen. Altogether consilia appear in about 130 editions, in half of which together with other texts (often quaestiones, tractatus, repertoria). A little over 50 editions contain the Ars notaria, the famous text for notaries, which was taught in various universities, and indeed texts of Ars notaria appear in the lists of books distributed by the stationarii; 55 the bulk is formed by 33 editions of an anonymous Ars notariatus, a brief text of a few leaves summarising the subject. The celebrated Summa artis notariae by Rolandinus de' Passageriis was printed in 13 editions 56 and a Doctrinale florum artis notariae, by Stephanus Marcilletus (Étienne Marcillet, a French notary) appeared in five editions. 57 About 50 editions are Summae, concise commentaries aiming to provide a comprehensive, yet brief, introduction to the subject of parts of the legal text, such as the Summa de sponsabilibus et matrimoniis sive summa super IV Decretalium by Johannes Andreae, which was printed in 16 editions. 58 Two groups of works follow with 27 editions: Singularia & Brocardica, variants of a genre consisting in a discussion of a general principle of law by quoting the passages found in the texts; Quaestiones/Disputationes: a typical expression of Scholasticism, the quaestio consisted in analysing the texts and the authoritative authors in order to provide the response by examining pros and cons, while, for didactic purposes, the question was to be debated by two students, defending opposing views (quaestio disputata). of commentaries on the work of an author, Commentum (auctoris), which has been kept apart from the generic Commentum as it identifies those authors whose work clearly had become as authoritative as the text of the laws (or the canons): along with an edition of Apostillae to the work of the canonist Nicolaus de' Tudeschis, and additions to the Speculum Gulielmi Durantis (by Baldus de ' Ubaldis). Otherwise this group mainly consists of the Apostillae by Alexander Tartagnus (1424-77) to the works of Bartolus de Saxoferrato (1313/14-1357/58). 59 Bartolus gave his name to a major School of Jurisprudence (the 'School of Commentators'); indeed, expertise in the law was associated with his name: the saying 'nemo jurista nisi Bartolista' was still in use in the late 15th century. In the course of that century, both in Spain and Portugal it was established that the opinion of Bartolus would prevail in case of doubt: 1427 in Leon, 1433 in Castiglia and 1446 in Portugal, later extended to Brazil. 60 The fame of Bartolus, which spread through a vast number of manuscripts, was confirmed by the number of early printed editions, which made him the jurist most commonly found in print in the 15th century, far more than any of his rivals. Bartolus specialised in civil law (not in Canon law, nor was he a doctor utriusque iuris): his fame is linked to his comments on the texts of the Roman law and a number of treatises mostly based on his interpretation of the Roman law, such as the Tractatus super constitutione «ad reprimendum crimen lese maiestatis» and the constitution Qui sint rebelles, promulgated the Emperor Henry VII, which became part of the Corpus iuris civilis (the Constitutiones Extravagantes). The analysis of the editions of these two groups of texts, the Corpus iuris civilis and Bartolus' works, forms the core of this paper.

Introduction
A The earliest editions appeared in Germany, Mainz, Nuremberg, and Strasbourg, here included in the German area for historical reasons, followed by a number of editions printed mainly in Italy and Switzerland. During the 1480s, further editions were printed in several more Italian cities and in France, Lyon and Paris. No editions appeared in Spain, nor in the South of Italy, which is worth noticing. The bulk of the editions was produced in Italy, and particularly in Venice, in increasing numbers over three decades: 12, 37 and 44 editions. Lyon follows, with 16 and 33 editions, but they seem to be based on Venetian editions, as will be shown in the next paragraphs [tabs. 9-14].

The editiones principes of the Books of Civil law
By 1476 all parts of the Corpus were in print, almost all in different places and from different printers. In 1468 Peter Schoeffer printed in Mainz the princeps of the Institutiones. The text has a celebrated incipit, poetically praising the Law: Imperial majesty should not be only adorned with arms but also armed with by laws, so that both in time of war and in those of peace it can be rightly regulated. 61 This is the incipit of the imperial constitution conferring authority to the Institutiones (the constitution "Imperatoriam maiestatem" indeed) and is preceded by the invocation of God, the name of the author, that is the emperor Justinian, together with all his attributes, the mention of the addressees, that is the students, with the addition of the announcement of the book of the Institutiones: In nomine Domini nostri Ihesu Cristi. Imperator Cesar Flavius Iustinianus Alamanicus Francus Germanicus Acticus Guandalicus Africus pius felix inclitus victor ac triumphator semper augustus cupide legum iuventuti. Incipit liber primus domini Iustiniani imperatoris Institutionum seu elementorum. In the vocabulary of diplomatic these are the three elements of the protocol (namely invocatio, intitulatio, and inscriptio), which take the appearance here of a titulus. 62 In this edition, and in almost all the following ones, this titulus was printed in red, as it would be rubricated in manuscripts. Indeed, it is certainly for the purpose of having the job completed by a rubricator that in the editions printed in Rome in 1473, 63 as well as in the one printed in Mantua in 1476, 64 the space remained blank and the text opens directly with the incipit "Imperatoriam maiestatem". 65 Mirroring the first lines, in the explicit the author again addresses the students to express the wish that they will carry on their study by reading the books of the Digest: "We have made these remarks on public prosecutions only to enable you to have the merest acquaintance with them, and as a kind of guide to a fuller study of the subject, which, with the assistance of Heaven, you may make by reference to the larger volume of the Digest or Pandects". 66 In the many editions of the Institutiones, small variants can be observed in the tituli, both in the sequence of the attributes of the Emperor and in their spelling; for example 'Guandalicus' in the prin-62 "Hoc quod in capite librorum scribitur, diversis nominibus a doctoribus appellatur.
Dicitur enim capitulus, dicitur titulus, dicitur elenchus, dicitur prologus, dicitur prefacio, dicitur argumentum, dicitur prooemium, dicitur clavis. Capitulus dicitur eo quod in capite ponitur; Titulus a Titane, id est a sole, quia sicut sol oriens sua presentia inluminat, ita et titulus sequentia librorum manifestat"; to Richard Sharpe we owe the rediscovery and evaluation of this text, found in a manuscript written in the 10th century (Titulus. Identifying Medieval Latin Texts,5). 65 As this case clearly shows, tituli and incipit do not coincide (although the word 'incipit' is often found in the tituli); similarly explicit and colophon are different portions of the text. Tituli and colophon, in fact, do not belong to the main text, they are rather elements of the paratext and, as such, they can vary sensibly, or even be present or not. Notoriously, in printed editions all paratextual elements were increased and enriched, to provide information on the context and on those who were responsible for the edition. Such notes are usually provided by the colophon, or in dedicatory letters and prefaces. Yet information is found also in-between the lines of shorter texts, such as the tituli, or other opening and closing formulas that the editors used to add to the main text. A detailed description of these texts has therefore been provided in TEXTinc, and incipit and explicit have been always transcribed apart from tituli, colophon and the like, so as to allow a comparison of the texts between different editions, as well as to establish the relations between the various editions. Among the principal goals of this research is the construction of a proper stemma editionum and an accurate delineation of the links with the manuscript tradition, so that a systematic recording of the paratextual features is very useful in this context. ceps becomes more often Vandalicus, Flavius alternates with Flavus, etc. 67 The last lines of the main text may also present some variants, yet most of them are found in colophons and closing formulas, in the glossa and in further additional texts. In the colophon of the princeps of the Institutiones (and in other publications) Schoeffer highlighted the importance of his enterprise, showing great pride at the task done, which he emphasised by printing the colophon in red and incapsulated in the glossa: The present famous work of the Institutes appears in the beloved city of Mainz of the famous German people by the grace of God, who has bestowed on it genius of the first order and this great gift before all the other peoples of the earth, where it was achieved not with mere ink nor with a feather or metal pen, but by the invention of the mechanical art of printing, or making letter-shapes as shown here before you, and it is completed in praise of God's work by Peter Schoeffer from Gernsheim. 68 At the very end of the book six couplets were printed, again exalting the enterprise. A few years later Schoeffer printed the princeps of the Codex Iustinianus (26 Jan. 1475). 69 A few months after that, another edition of the Codex was printed in Nuremberg, 70 by Sensenschmidt and Frisner who asked the jurist (utriusque iuris doctor) Andreas Rommel to work on the text, as testified by the prefatory letter that he addressed to Sensenschmidt. 71 The letter is preceded 67 Full transcriptions can be found in TEXT-inc records.

"Presens Institutionum preclarum opus alma in urbe Maguntina inclite nacionis
Germanice quam Dei clemencia tam alti ingenii lumine donoque gratuito ceteris terrarum nationibus preferre illustrareque dignatus est, non atramento communi, non plumali canna neque erea, sed artificiosa quadam adinvencione imprimendi seu caracterizandi sic effigiatum et ad eusebiam Dei industrie est consummatum per Petrum Schoyffer de Gernsheym. Anno dominice incarnacionis Millesimo cccc.lxviii, vicesimaquarta die mensis Maii" (translation of the Author) (from the BL copy, IC.128, printed on vellum; BMC I 25; a digital copy of the Munich copy of this edition is available through BSB: urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00036837-3). On Schoeffer's entrepreneurship and his awareness of the role he was playing cf. Hellinga, "Peter Schoeffer: Publisher and Bookseller".  71 "Andreas Rumel Nurembergensis utriusque iuris doctor magistro Joanni Senseschmid impressori salutem. Rogas me mi Joannes quam instantissime velim tibi epistolam ad caput Codicis imprimendam componere sicut plęrosque correctores fecisse mihi sępenumero narras existimans ęmulos tuos tanto posse facilius codices tuos nota malę correctionis supprimere quanto magis muti simus" (a4v). by a sophisticated analytical index at the opening of the book, and is full of notes on the accuracy of the text, including a reference to the city of Pavia, where -Rommel says -there were both expert jurists and good exemplars: "eos precipue quos iam Papię ubi et exemplarium et doctissimorum virorum magna copia est". Apparently the first and second round of corrections on the texts had been done in Pavia, and the third and fourth ones in Nuremberg: "prima ac secunda Codicis correctione, deinde Nurembergę tercia ac quarta quibus et egoipse desudavi" (ll. 7-9). Along with the index, further innovations were introduced: woodcut initials were printed at the beginning of the books, whereas in Schoeffer's edition, as well as in others, spaces were left blank for initials to be added by hand, sometimes splendid miniatures such as those seen in the British Library copy (IC.128), but of course not found in every copy. Sensenschmidt and Frisner were very proud of their job, as manifested in the advertisement they printed to announce the publication of the edition, a unique copy of which is preserved today at the British Library: 72 In order to avoid that the sacred laws, which allocate to each and every one according to what they deserve, disappear due to textual corruption or the lack of copies, for the benefit of all citizens, the skillful master of the art of printing, Joannes Sensenschmidt with Andreas Frisner de Bunsidel, companions here in Nuremberg, have published the Codex of the most sacred prince Justinian, the navel or centre in which all laws come together, accompanying it with the glossa ordinaria by Accursius Florentinus, and the type is not just for today, but they have printed it in such a way that for a long time it will be easier to admire it than to imitate it. 73 Almost at the same time, but far away, the three parts of the Digest went into print. The principes were printed in Italy, in Rome and Perugia. In 1475 the Infortiatum was printed in Rome, introduced by an elegant preface mentioning the history of the Digest, the need of a printed edition, the great opportunity provided by the new tech- Printing R-Evolution and Society 1450-1500,  nology and the cooperation between the scholar who edited the text and the German master who printed it: [...] and of Justinian who brought back to light the corpus of laws, previously dispersed and confused; a restoration to which many distinguished jurists gave their contribution and, by doing so, provided the republic with the most important offices […] Considering this, a number of people interested in Civil law have finally decided that the corpus was worth printing and for this purpose joined forces with certain Germans, most expert in the art of printing. 74 Interestingly, Roman types were used for printing the preface, the glossa, the versified colophon and the table of contents. 75 Less than one year later, the princeps of the Digestum novum was printed, in the same printshop "apud sanctum Marcum"; the preface written by Johannes Guarinus, professor of Law at the University of Rome, was now explicitly addressed to the printer Vitus Puecher. 76 These two editions, resulting from the cooperation between Italian scholars and German printers, were most likely known to three people in Perugia who very soon (1476) took the initiative of printing the Digestum Vetus. 77 They adopted a similar layout and arrangement of the texts, with a preface and a versified colophon written by the humanist Sulpitius Verulanus. The preface was shorter than the Roman ones, but full of interesting notes: the three men involved in the enterprise were all from Germany, they came from Saxony, the Valley of the Rhine and Swabia. They were part of the academic community, they called themselves 'scolastici', affiliated with the celebrated college of the 'Old Sapientia', that is Domus Sapientiae Veteris: 75 Leaves a2v, T3v, T4r, cf. also TEXT-inc tij00555000. I read the text from the BL copy (IC.17945), which was shown at the conference; online is available the digitised version of the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek copy (urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00076887-9).
76 On the role of Vitus Puecher within the printing-shop "apud Sanctum Marcum" including information on the production of legal texts: Modigliani, "La tipografia 'apud sanctum Marcum' e Vito Puecher". The knowledge of the Civil law, without which even the greatest kingdoms quickly disintegrate, will be hopefully restored very shortly to its original observance and merit, with honour of the men of our time. And if many were put off the study of this science because of the huge sums of money these books were sold for, or because they were in short supply, or because they were full of mistakes, now all will be able to aspire to this divine science, compared to which nothing is better nor more useful. In the same was found all the eloquence of the Romans that was almost as important as their other achievements, and to which the efforts of all the other cities in Italy tend. Among these the biggest effort has been made by the ancient city of Perugia, which above others obtained glory with arms as well as laws, and has gained ever greater fame due to the services of the following: the Saxon Jacob Languenbeke, student in the House of the Old Sapientia of Perugia, and Johann Vydenast, from the Valley of the Rhine, and made possible thanks to the skill in punchcutting and making type of Heinrich Clayn from Swabia. At the expense of the first two and with the genius of the third, this Digestum vetus (compared to which nothing in our time could get closer to those Pandectas Pisanas), has been diligently printed in Perugia. 78 The mention of the college of the 'Old Sapientia' is worth noticing; it was founded around 1360 by cardinal Niccolò Capocci, a friend of the cardinal and papal legate Gil de Albornoz, who soon after founded a similar institute in Bologna, the celebrated Collegium Hispanicum. The college in Perugia was meant for students of Theology, Canon and Civil law coming from places where the cardinal had had 78 "Iuris Civilis scientia sine qua maxima quaeque regna parvo tempore dilabuntur perbrevi ut spero cum magna nostrorum hominum gloria ad illam pristinam observationem dignitatemque restituetur. Et si vel magnae pecuniarum summae quibus ii libri vendebantur vel parva librorum copia et eorum quidem qui mendosi fuerant multos admodum ab hoc studio deterrunt nunc merito omnes ad divinam hanc scientiam aspirabunt qua nulla utilior nullaque melior reperiri potest. In qua una omnis Romanorum eloquentia quae preclaris rebus gestis haud minor fuit recondita est cui cum Italie omnes urbes operam impendunt. Tum vel maximam Augusta Perusia praeter ceteris ut armis sic legibus gloriam assecuta est maioremque indies unius Almae domus Sapientiae Veteris Perusinae scolastici Iacobi Languenbeke Saxonis et Ioannis Widenast Sicambri singulari beneficio et coelandi sculpendique Henrici Clayn Sueui arte consequetur illorum enim impensis et huius ingenio ffm. [i.e. Digestum] hoc vetus quo nullum nostra secula quod ad antiquas illas Pisanorum Pandectas propius accederet habuere diligenter Perusii impressum est" (ISTC ij00546500 a1v; emphases added). The reference to the Littera Pisana, the text of the Digest as preserved in the Codex Florentinus, as the manuscript was called since it was brought to Florence, is worth noting; it was possibly suggested to the three who organised the publishing ventures in Perugia by the humanist Sulpitius Verulanus who wrote the four final verses that precede the colophon. his ecclesiastical benefices, mainly in central Europe. 79 From then onwards, groups of students from 'beyond the Alps', 'Ultramontani', were regularly present in Perugia in order to attend university classes, together with their servants or other professionals whose presence is testified in a number of documents. Indeed, different styles of handwriting reflecting the various origins of the guests can still be seen in the registers preserved in the college archive, where names of students can be read along with the name of servants and scribes, scriptores. 80 Also, evidence of relationships between German students and professionals in Perugia and in Rome have been found in other documents and it is possible that the whole initiative of printing the three parts of the Digestum, as well as other early editions of legal texts, was conceived within a network of people who were in touch with each other, for example, to Georg Lauer, whose name is found in 1479 in the register of a notary from Perugia. 81 It is therefore particularly interesting what Paolo Veneziani wrote about the type used in the Perugia edition of the Digest, which was very close, 79 The entry for Capocci in the Italian Biographical Dictionary (Guillemain, "Capocci, Niccolò"), does not pay much attention to the foundation of this college (considered as one of the various charitable activities undertaken by the cardinal, and even named with the wrong name of 'santa Sofia'); on the contrary, it was the choice of a refined politician, aiming to create a centre for the education of the leading class under the control of the Church. Cf. Nicolini, "La 'Domus sancti Gregorii' o 'Sapienza Vecchia' di Perugia"; Angeletti, Bertini, La Sapienza Vecchia.
80 The college was suppressed towards the end of the 18th century and its archive is now preserved in the Archivio di Stato di Perugia. The oldest documents went lost, but the earliest preserved ones are the registers of the head of the college (the Rector), dating back to 1472, one year after the art of printing was introduced in Perugia. In 1472 six students from Germany were recorded, starting with "magister Georgius Teotonicus" and including a "dominus Jhovannes de Mens[is?]" who is said to be from Mainz: "Teotonicus ab Maguntia": Perugia State Archive, Sapienza Vecchia, Registri dei Rettori, 1 (1472-73), ll. 2rv, 6v. The year after D[ominus] Joannes de Maguntia is recorded together with fifteen other students, including a Jacobus de Franconia de Alamania Alta, apparently arrived in 1474. Could he be identified with Languenbeke? Also, a list of scribes (scriptores) is found in the same register, opening with a "Petrus de Alamania bassa" and including a "Ioannes Almanus", who paid for their room in the college (1 florin a month) (Perugia State Archive, Sapienza Vecchia, Registri dei Rettori, 2 (1473-74), ll. 4,6,34). Other names of individuals who were members of printing companies can be found in the registers of later years (registers nrr. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][1479][1480][1481][1482][1483][1484][1485][1486][1487][1488][1489][1490][1491] 34v-35r; emphases added). The Sapientia Nova mentioned in this document was a college for students founded around 1430 and so called as it came after the other college, hence called Sapientia Veteris. The use of the term 'Sapientia', in relation to the university context, that would become common with time, seems to have made its early appearance in Perugia (Denley, "The Vocabulary of Italian Colleges to 1500").
if not the same, to the type used in Rome precisely by Lauer. 82 The latter, on the other hand, had already given his contribution to the printing of the Corpus. In 1473, together with Leonhard Pfluegel, he printed the first Italian edition of the Institutiones 83 and in 1478 the first Italian edition of the Codex. 84 In the meantime (1476), Vitus Puecher published another princeps, the edition of the Volumen (including Novellae, Tres libri and Extravagantes with the commentary of Bartolus). 85 So, in a few years, all parts of the Corpus were made available in print thanks to the initiative of groups of Germans, who were moving between Perugia and Rome, trying to make the most of the relationships developed within the university environment and the curia, as is witnessed indirectly by the names of those who wrote the prefaces, the professor of Law Ludovicus de Passeris, Andreas de Murris, Coronatus de Planca; the advocatus concistorialis Johannes Aloysius Toscanus, etc. A further example is offered by the edition of the Institutiones printed in Rome by Ulrich Han in 1475, where the text was fully revised and corrected by a jurist from Perugia, Carolus de Alexandris, 86 before being printed with the same combination of type, Gothic for the text and Roman for the apparatus.
82 "It is a rather eccentric production, typographically speaking, for the text was printed in a gothic of 17 mm (type 1A), while the commentary was printed in a roman of 103 mm (type 2A). Both are practically indistinguishable from types of the same measurement used by Georg Lauer in Rome in the years immediately preceding, and were no doubt cast from the same matrices", cf. Veneziani, "Johann Vydenast and a New Incunable from Perugia", 177; Veneziani, s.v. "Lauer, Georg".

From Occasional Initiatives Towards the Corpus iuris civilis:
Key-players, Entrepreneurship and Innovation

From Mainz and Rome to Venice
By 1475-76 a first phase in the printing of the texts of Civil law had been concluded, with a number of occasional initiatives (including the principes) undertaken in different places. In the area of Mainz-Strasbourg and Rome-Perugia attempts were made to produce a complete edition of the corpus; in all other places (Nuremberg, Ferrara, Mantua, Padua, Louvain) only isolated editions of the Institutiones were printed [tab. 11], something which kept happening until the final years of the century. The Institutiones, indeed, were printed over twice more often than all the rest of the Corpus, including places where the other parts were not printed at all. This fact is noteworthy and suggests that these editions were planned as a response to the request for the basic textbooks of the law (such as the Institutiones were), which was shared possibly by a wider readership than the university students and the professionals who were interested in the corpus in its entirety. 87 In 1475-76 a second phase began, when Venice made its first appearance in this particular publishing field and duly revolutionised it. In only five years, all the parts of the Corpus were printed in twelve different editions, something which happened repeatedly until the end of the century, with a climax marked by the 27 editions printed between 1491 and 1495. The list of printers and publishers who undertook the printing of the whole Corpus iuris civilis is also very interesting; in Venice, where most of the editions were realised by a wide range of printers/publishers, it is noticeable that only a few of them completed a full edition comprising all the parts, while others seem to have followed the temporary demand of the market and printed only one or two books, though it is impossible to say to what extent this happened as part of an agreement with their seeming rivals [tabs. 12-14]. Also very interesting are some temporary joint-ventures that occurred especially in Venice, showing once more how market and working environment were particularly lively in the city. 88 At the beginning (1476-80), the scene in Venice was occupied by Jacobus Rubeus and Nicolaus Jenson, neither of whom printed the whole collection on their own. Rubeus printed all the parts except 87 This is leading us to think that they were printed in connection with the provision of basic education in the law outside university and in preparation for it.
88 It is also useful to recall the cost of producing a complete set of law books, as this affects the final cost, as is clearly shown in the Zornale of Francesco de' Madiis, where a complete copy of the Corpus iuris civilis was the most expensive item of all. Cf. Dondi, Printing R-Evolution 1450 the Digestum Novum, while Jenson printed everything with exception of the Infortiatum; however, while Jenson only realised one edition for each book, beautifully printed with his celebrated gothic type, 89 Rubeus printed the Institutiones more than once and, possibly, the Volumen, in a combination formed of only Novellae, Tres libri and Libri feudorum, therefore not including the Extravagantes. 90 During the 1480s, both Rubeus and Jenson disappeared from the scene (the latter actually died in 1480) and many other printers produced partial editions of single elements of the corpus: there was a sort of outpouring between 1481 and 1485, with 16 editions produced with 14 different imprints. Among the others there was also Baptista de Tortis (Battista de' Torti), who soon became the dominant figure in the market for editions of legal texts, and not just in Venice. By the end of the century, Tortis had printed more than 110 editions of legal texts. As far as the Corpus iuris civilis is concerned, one can see how, from 1485 onwards, he steadily increased his production, by printing 9, 11 and 16 editions of all parts of the corpus, altogether 8 editions of the Institutiones, 6 of the Digestum Vetus, 6 of the Infortiatum, 5 editions of the Novum, 8 of the Codex and 6 of the Volumen. 91 These were not always totally new editions, but they were not always a proposal of the same text either.
An improvement of the texts with an addition of paratextual materials can easily be observed between Tortis' second and third editions (around 1490) when the addition of summaries at the beginning of the chapters were printed, always written by "Hieronymus Clarius Brixianus iuris utriusque doctor prothonotarius et comes apostolicus", 92 whose name is otherwise very little known. 93 A collation of samples of the text reveals the presence of variations introduced in the successive editions, in the progress from the first edition to the second and from the second to the third, after which the text seems to remain stable and unaltered, except for minor variants, for the next five editions. In structural terms all these editions con- 90 Institutiones 1476, 1478 (ISTC ij00514000, ij00517000); Institutiones Pinerolo 1480? (ISTC ij00520300); Digestum Vetus 1477 (ISTC ij00547000); Digestum Infortiatum 1477 (ISTC ij00555500); Codex 1478 (ISTC ij00576000); Volumen 1477 and 1478, the latter only testified by an imperfect copy at the Vatican Library (ISTC ij00592000, ij00592500). 93 His name, indeed, is not included in the Italian biographical dictionary, nor does he appear in the biographical dictionary of the jurists (DBGI). sist in eight gatherings of eight leaves and two gatherings of six; 76 leaves in total, which Tortis had numbered also in Arabic numerals, a feature that made the text much more accessible.
Among other things, it made it possible to include a table of contents with direct reference to the leaves, instead of to a section of the text. Similar innovations are observable in other editions printed during the final decade of the century. Tortis seems, however, to have pursued his goal with special care and pride, clearly manifested in the printing of a title page, often in red, where he wished to add his family name: "Instituta de Tortis", 94 "Volumen de Tortis", etc. The printer followed a similar pattern in the other parts of the Corpus, but additions appeared in the second edition: summaria again written by Hieronymus Clarius were printed in the Codex, in the Digestum Vetus and the Infortiatum; 95 summaria were also added to the Digestum Novum, based on the reading of Bartolus de Saxoferrato and Paulus de Castro. 96 More changes and additions were made to the "Volumen de Tortis", of which four new editions can be identified. A first one (1489) only contained the 'basic' component of the Volumen (Novellae; Tres libri; Libri feudorum and Extravagantes). 97 Anonymous summaries were printed in the second edition (shared, with a differentiation of the colophons, between Georgius Arrivabene and Torti), 98 again on the basis of the lectures of Bartolus de Saxoferrato and Angelus de Ubaldis. A third edition offered new summaria, this time written by another jurist from Brescia, Hieronymus Confortus, who graduated in Civil law in Padua and then worked as a judge in his home-town. 99 Although numerous printers/publishers in Venice 94 The Institutiones from 1495 onwards (TEXT-inc tij00539000-tij00545000); the Volumen from 1492 (TEXT-inc tij00598000).
96 A first edition with such summaria was printed in 1491 and is attributed to Tortis and Andreas Calabrensis (ISTC ij00571000); it was soon followed by another expanded edition printed in 1494 by Tortis alone (ISTC ij00571600). 99 I am most grateful to Angelo Brumana who provided me with information on Confortus, mainly based on documents from the Brescia archives, dating from 1503 to 1522, when Confortus died. They are mostly notary documents written in the house of Confortus, who is always defined as legum doctor (doctor in civil law). We also know that he received his degree in Padua, and it was there that he worked on the editions of the Corpus iuris. Along with the summaries he very likely wrote the prefaces. Although the first one is anonymous, it is addressed to the students and opens by analysing the reason for the name of the book: "Et primo quero: quare iste liber nuncupatur volumen? […] quia diversi tractatus et varie materie in hoc libro complicantur et simul voluuntur". Another letter, explicitly written by Confortus, works as a preface to the Constitutiones Extravagantes, and is addressed in a way to his companions, the young engaged with the printing of libri legales, Tortis seems to have been the only one in Venice who realised the whole corpus, by printing all parts about five times each. Once established a good combination of texts and paratexts, around 1490-91, he kept printing new editions, from 2 to 6, until the end of the century and later. It should be said that a number of new editions seem to be entirely based on previous ones, without a real new investment in updating the work apart from the work of the compositors and the pressmen, as well as the costs for the paper and the ink. For example, seven editions of the Instituta were printed by Torti between 1490 and 1499, all of which have the same structure: collation (a-h 8 i-k 6 ), number of leaves (76), all incipits and explicits of the texts; moreover, two of them even have the same date in the colophon, 1 March 1497. 100 As for this case (which is not unique within Torti's production) I can only think of the following possible explanation: the second edition was set up and printed as a line-by-line copy of the other, to respond to the fact that the print run was sold out, but without wishing to publish a new edition. Similar relationships are visible in the other editions of the other parts of the Corpus, 101 which clearly demonstrates the kind of production students of Law in Padua: "Hieronymi Conforti Brixiensis ad studiosam iuristarum Patavinam universitatem in Voluminis emendationem epistola. Divinum illud Tullianum Institutum …" (TEXT-inc tij00598000).
100 ISTC ij00541000 and ij00541500 (cf. below). Interestingly, both Georgius Arrivabene which Baptista de Tortis and his brother Silvester, who does not appear in the books, but whose existence is known through archive documents, had put in place. One which is meticulously organised in order to make the most of any investment. It is not a surprise, therefore, that in 1507 they ended up promoting the foundation of a publishing company in association with Giorgio Arrivabene, Lucantonio Giunta, Antonio Moretto and Amedeo Scoto with the purpose of managing and rationalising the production of legal texts and their distribution all over Europe. 102 sius and Summaria according to Bartolus

Milan
The question of whether the printing of each part was conceived autonomously or within a more extended project of publishing all parts of the Corpus has been addressed. It allows us therefore to notice that important initiatives were taken in Milan: indeed, while several printers produced many editions of various parts, only three of them printed the entire Corpus. The evidence from de Madiis seems to suggest a gap in the Venetian market eventually filled by de Tortis. 108 It is also worth noting that the Volumen was enhanced with the addition of the text of the Acta de Pace Constantiae, with the commentary of Baldus de Ubaldis, added in the Milanese edition for the first time. The volume ended with a poem addressed to the publisher by Matthaeus Barlasina, a jurist from Milan, who also worked on the editions of the Digestum Vetus and the Novum printed by Honate, as he made clear in a letter printed at the end of the Novum, and whose figure is otherwise almost unknown. 109 Of the Digestum Vetus Honate printed shortly afterward a second edition, 110 which he signed alone, presumably as a response to the success of the first edition. Johannes

Lyon
After Venice, the largest number of 15th-century editions of the Corpus iuris was printed in Lyon, or (28) are attributed to one printer, Johannes Siber, whose name, however, only appears on five. There is no reason to doubt the attribution, but of course the fact that it is not explicit has to be taken into consideration. The reason why Siber did not sign most of his editions has not been clarified, and one can only make hypotheses. In a fairly recent biographical dictionary of the printers of Lyon, published in 2003, Johannes Siber is identified with certainty with a student from Nördlingen, who matriculated at Freiburg im Breisgau in 1462; 111 BMC, however, argued at an earlier date that "the printer is more likely to have been a member of the family of Siber of Zurich". 112 No doubt, in any case, that he started his career in Basel, where he eventually found himself in financial difficulties (1475) and, what is important, part of his material went to Ruppel and Wenssler, so that he was "no doubt responsible for the Basel type and the Northern style in which the partners' books were executed". 113 In 1477 Siber is found in Lyon, where in 1481 he started his own production made of almost only law books (114 editions out of 143). He had also completely changed his type-material, as is announced in 1481 in the colophon of the compilation of the Decretals of Gregory IX, which was "impressa littera Venetiana per Johannem Syber Almanum". 114 As noted by Scholderer, Siber might have spent some time, between 1477 and 1481, in Venice, where he learnt how to produce the best types to print the kind of texts he was interested in, 112 BMC, VIII, xlviii, footnote 3, where further hypothetical identifications are discussed. One must also consider that Johannes Siber was a fairly common name and several students are found in the German area called in this fashion (source: RAG).
113 BMC, VIII, xlviii. Of the Corpus iuris civilis Wenssler printed in Basel five editions of the Institutiones (GW 7591, ISTC ij00513000; GW 7594, ISTC ij00516000; GW 7597, ISTC ij00518000; GW 7599, ISTC ij00520000; GW 7612, ISTC ij00528000), one of the Codex (GW 7734, ISTC ij00580800) and one of the Volumen (GW 7762, ISTC ij00590000); later on (1496/97) he printed in Lyon another edition of the Institutiones (GW 7642, ISTC ij00540700). Wenssler printed many more editions of the texts of Canon law (18 editions altogether), as well as texts of reference, such as four editions of a Vocabularius juris (GW M12628, ISTC iv00334000; GW M12625, ISTC iv00335000; GW M12614, ISTC iv00335600; GW M12632, ISTC iv00342000; cf. above note 45) and a number of indulgences and other official announcements. i.e. legal ones. He is thought to have been in touch also with Erhard Ratdolt and Nicolaus Jenson, whose editions he might have taken as example to imitate. Indeed, the earliest edition of a part of the Corpus explicitly printed by Siber is the Digestum Vetus published in Lyon in 1482, 115 which GW considers likely to be based on the edition printed by Jenson in 1479. 116 The same applies to the Codex, printed by Siber the first time in November 1482 and was likely modelled on Jenson's edition of 1479. 117 Still in 1482 Siber printed the Digestum novum, 118 this time on the basis of the edition printed in Padua in 1479 by Petrus Maufer for Zacharias de Zacharotis (Zaccaria Zaccaroti), 119 which was the model also for the edition printed in Milan by Honate-Castelliono-Caymis. 120 The mentioned editions, plus a later one of the Codex, are the only ones that Siber printed with his name. None of the six editions of the Institutiones which are attributed to Siber bears his name; nor have they an imprint date, so their sequence is uncertain. Anyway, they can be divided in four groups, on the basis of the structure of the books and the dependence of some editions on previous ones. 121 The earliest editions, dated to about 1480-83, have been recognised  as modelled on the edition printed, supposedly, by Jacobus Rubeus in about 1480. 122 The following two editions, dated to about 1488-90, have a different structure and collation, 104 leaves (a-n8), which made them practically identical to the edition of the Institutiones printed in Basel by Michael Wenssler in 1486 and by Kesler soon after. 123 Almost at the same time Siber printed another edition of the Institutiones different from the other two; he used a smaller type for the glossa and so reduced the number of leaves to 92. 124 Finally, towards the end of the century Siber printed a sixth edition, where he once again reduced the size of the type and therefore the leaves, but added a textual element, the summaries, based on the exegetical work of Angelus de Gambilionibus. 125 Such Summaria had already appeared in one edition printed in Venice by Reynaldus de Novimagio in 1490 and by Georgius Arrivabene in 1491. Four editions of the Volumen are also assigned to Siber, one dated [about 1488-90] the other three [about 1498-1500]. The text of the earliest one is made of the four main sections (Novellae, Tres ultimi libri, Libri feudorum and Extravagantes), with the glossa of Accursius and the commentary of Bartolus to the Extravagantes. In the latest edition "a collection of summaria" (as pointed out in ISTC) is also included. Summaries to the parts of the Corpus included in the Volumen had already appeared in about eight editions, starting with those published by Arrivabene and Torti in 1491. 126 Compared to all the others, howev-122 "Ist Nachdruck der vorhergehenden Nr.", one can read in GW 7602, referred to an undated edition assigned to Rubeus, printing place Venice (in GW) or Pinerolo (in ISTC, based on the fact that Rubeus moved to Piedmont around 1479) about 1480. GW 7601; ISTC ij00520300. It is worth noticing that the structure of this edition is not regular (the collation reads: a 10 b-g gg h 12 ik 6 , for a total of 90 leaves) although two other editions had already been printed by Rubeus in Venice in 1476 and 1478, both with the same amount of 90 leaves but a regular collation (ab 10 c 8 d 6 ef 10 g 12 i 6 k 8 ): Institutiones (with the Glossa ordinaria of Accursius Bartolus de Saxoferrato; with the Glossa ordinaria of Accursius and Summaria accord-er, Siber's editions seem to have been prepared autonomously, as is also evidenced by the fairly irregular collation of the first edition. 127 At the end of this overview one can see how Siber's production was quite different from both Torti's and Honate's. He was certainly the main figure in the production of law books in Lyon and a major one in France. On the other hand, the fact that most of his books do not carry his name nor a date of printing not only makes it very difficult to reconstruct the sequence of their printing, it also suggests the lack of a specific publishing programme. Siber seems to invest his energy in the typographical work for (re)printing the texts of Civil law in the most recent and better arrangements realised by a number of other printers, from whose work he clearly took inspiration: Summaries can be found either inserted within the glossa (in which case it can be difficult to distinguish the two) or in the main text, and in this case they usually come after the tituli, and are printed in smaller types. The question of summaries on what pertains the authorship of such summaries in all editions is a complex and not fully clarified one (hence some inconsistence in the titles in the ISTC). From the overview provided in GW the names of Hieronymus Clarius and Hieronymus Confortus emerge in some editions as the persons responsible for the summaries; sometimes also the names of the authors (the authorities) who provided the basis for such summaries were made clear, such as Bartolus and Angelus. The identification of Bartolus is never difficult (he always is Bartolus de Saxoferrato), but Angelus is a more common name among the jurists (he could be either Angelus de Gambilionibus, Angelus de Ubaldis, Angelus de Periglis, Angelus de Ubaldis jr, etc.) and identifications are made according to the different parts they had commented: Angelus de Gambilionibus is behind the summaries of the Institutiones whereas Angelus de Ubaldis is mentioned in relation to the summaries of the Authenticum.
127 ISTC ij00595500, printed about 1488-90 (without summaries). The collation (a 10 b 8 c 6 cc 9 d-f 8 ff 10 g-i 8 ij 10 k-m 8 mm 12 n-p.pp 8 q-ſ 8 s 10 t 8 v 6 u 8 x 10 ; 235 leaves) is an evidence of some difficulties encountered in the building of the collection of texts, which could have been avoided, had the printer taken a previous edition as a model. About ten years later Siber printed an edition which included the summaries, but he reduced the sizes of the type so as to fit the texts in a lesser number of leaves, 212 (they became 214 in the next two editions, where the index was added, cf. the descriptions in TEXT-inc under tij00600100 and tij00600200). the same paratexts and structure of Torresano's one printed in 1491. 128 Torresano did not invest much in the Corpus iuris, he only printed three editions altogether, yet in the Digest he included new summaries by an author, Petrus Fossanus, whom we have not previously encountered and who also wrote a postface; Torresano then added an index, and completed the work with tituli printed in red, and printed leaf numbers. Initiatives, such as this one, marked a step up in the development of the texts of the Corpus over the years. The most relevant innovations are obviously those concerning the editing of the text and the introduction of new paratexts, such as the summaries; yet, they were often accompanied by changes made to the layouts, which were enriched and refined so as to match both the needs and the taste of the readers. In this context the appearance of editions in smaller formats is finally worth a mention; not surprisingly, it concerned almost exclusively the Institutiones, the textbook of law. Thirteen editions were printed in 4° or in 8°, starting in 1483; the earliest editions were printed in Italy, Rome, Venice, and Turin; then most of the production moved to France, Lyon and Paris. 129 New summaries and additions made also their appearance by modern authors,  Jason de Mayno (Giason del Maino, 1435-1519) was a landmark in the study of the law, as he was among the earliest jurists to introduce a critical approach to the texts and the works of the authors of the past. The question of attribution raised by him about the works of the most famous jurist of the late Middle ages became almost a manifesto of the new school traditionally referred to as Legal humanism: "attribuuntur Bartolo et tamen non sunt Bartoli, et ab eius stilo et ordine multum deviant". Famously Mayno inserted such a consideration in his commentary on the Digest (Second part to the Digestum novum), where he wrote a long note on the life and work of Bartolus de Saxoferrato, trying to put some order into the mass of works that circulated under his name. 130 Indeed, Bartolus became an authority very soon after his death, which occurred in 1357-58, as is witnessed by the huge number of manuscripts, and subsequently of printed editions, which transmitted his works; even more by the recurrence of his name in texts such as the summaries discussed in this paragraph or also by the fact that certain texts never appeared in print without his commentary, such as the Constitutiones Extravagantes 'Ad reprimendum' and Qui sint rebelles, about which Bartolus wrote a famous separate treatise. 131 4 Editions of the Works of Bartolus de Saxoferrato (Focus 2)

A General Overview
It was precisely with reference to the editions of treatises that Thomas Diplovatatius (1468-1541), a pupil of Jason de Mayno and Bartolus' earliest biographer, wrote a note of particular interest in relation to early printing. Several of Bartolus' treatises -he wrote -were found in print and because of this he felt the need to clarify that some of them were not by him; their distribution in large numbers of copies, indeed, would reinforce the erroneous attribution. On the other hand, he had to add the treatises that were still found only in manuscript and -we may deduce -therefore ran the risk of being forgotten: "He also wrote several treatises which are now printed; some of them, though, are attributed to Bartolus but are not actually his, and so I have written here, in my additions. Also, here I added some other treatises, which were written by Bartolus but have not been printed". 132 In a few lines Diplovatatius perfectly expressed the importance of printing (at that time still a fairly new invention) in relation to the transmission of the texts and their attribution, possibly better than many of the explicit manifestations of enthusiasm expressed at the time. About 200 editions of the works of Bartolus were printed in the 15th century, both alone or in combination with works of other authors. A number of additional editions include Bartolus as the author of the commentary to the Corpus or in relation to 'secondary' texts such as the summaries added to the Corpus; so, the total number of editions which include Bartolus' name can be increased to over 250. 133 It is also worth mentioning a number of works based on Bartolus' texts, which were also printed in the 15th century, such as a Repertorium super operibus Bartoli or the commentaries written by Alexander Tartagnus  133 In ISTC (last checked 2019-09-08) 199 records are retrieved through a search for Bartolus de Saxoferrato as author, including 5 postincunable editions; 69 records are found if one searches for his name in the title, where he appears as author of additional texts, including 2 postincunables; finally, 273 records are found through a simple search (Bartol* de Saxoferrato in the main search field) which include 7 additional records where Bartolus is mentioned in the notes in relation to one edition of his Contradictiones (within a collection of other authors' texts: ISTC il00057000) and to six editions of the so-called Processus Satanae, a case extensively analysed (Pasciuta, Il diavolo  The chronology and the sequence of editions are impressive. After the princeps of the lectura of the Infortiatum, which appeared in 1470, 134 new editions were published almost every year until the end of the century. It has been observed that the appearance in print of the texts necessary for university teaching, such as Bartolus' lecturae, occurred quite late. 135 It should be remembered, however, that only a limited number of authors and texts appeared in print during the first ten to fifteen years of the new industry, despite the amount of editions, about 423, produced up to and including 1469. Only major authors such as Cicero, saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas or pontiffs, such as Pius II, were published before Bartolus, who preceded his famous contemporary Dante, since the Comedia was first printed in 1472. A closer look at the section of legal texts relating to scholarly production shows that only the Institutiones, some parts of the Corpus iuris canonici, and a commentary of the canonist Zabarella were published before 1470. 136 Bartolus did not just appear in print earlier than most other jurists: his works were published in a number of editions comparable only to the corpora iuris, and far higher than any other legal author [tab. 8]. The bulk of the editions is formed by the texts of Bartolus' Lecturae, that is the interpretation of the various parts of the Corpus iuris civilis, the result and content of the activity of the jurist as a professor, and the manifestation of the core of his thought. 137 Each edition followed the same pattern of the division of the texts established for the university courses and consisted in the lectura of a subdivision of a section of the Corpus (Lectura super prima Digesti veteri, super secunda Codicis and so on); they were printed an average of 10-13 times each [tab. 16]. However, Bartolus' fame is linked also to the socalled 'minor works': the Quaestiones disputatae (the texts of the university disputations), the Consilia (the jurist's opinion on particular 137 Cf. Mari, "Letture bartoliane e 'bartolismo'", 28, where it is noticed how the result of Bartolus' teaching activity never took the form of the commentary: "Pur con le doverose cautele, che devono essere praticate allorché si tratta dei 'generi letterari' i cosiddetti commenti bartoliani sono tutte letture universitarie". cases) and Tractatus (treatises), a genre that Bartolus greatly contributed to develop. In the 15th century these three groups of texts were brought together in collections of: 18 Quaestiones, 244-5 Consilia and about 30 Tractatus; they were published in nine editions altogether, with almost the same internal arrangement of texts [tab. 23]. Some treatises were published also in minor collections, often together with works of other authors [tabs. 24-26]. The first two groups of texts -the Lecturae and the collections of Consilia, Quaestiones and Tractatus -were published for a large part in Italy [tab. 18]. A good portion of the minor collections, on the other hand, was printed in Germany and France and, interestingly, it is mostly in this group that texts of uncertain attribution are found. 138 As has already been noticed, not all the texts promulgated under the name of Bartolus belonged to him with certainty; some are doubtful and the question of attribution began to be raised by the jurists of the 15th century. It seems plausible therefore that the whole issue of attribution and textual paternity was facilitated by the huge efforts made by early editors and printers who worked on the editions produced in the first fifty years of printing. This paragraph is aimed to provide a general overview and is followed by the presentation of case studies which illustrate effectively how already in the 15th century the ground was prepared for a new critical approach to Bartolus' work. 139 138 A detailed analysis of the editions of minor works could not be done in this article, but it has been summarised through two tables [tabs. 23-24], where a prospect of all treatises printed outside the 'collectio maior' has been provided.
139 By the end of the 15th century, an important part of Bartolus' production was in print, although not all his works, as they appear in the list compiled by Susanne Lepsius in C.A.L.M.A.: 768 works, with 603 consilia gathered under no. 73. The lecturae were all printed (apart from a lectura of the Institutiones, which is doubtful, very rare in manuscript and which was printed in 1504); most of the treatises (about 45 out of 65), the quaestiones (18 out of 25), a third of the consilia (244-5) and about ten repetitiones (out of 65). A few articles, during the years of research within the 15cBOOKTRADE project, have been published in Italian on this subject: Panzanelli Fratoni, "Bartolo da Sassoferrato e la stampa"; "Il 15cBOOKTRADE e la storia delle università"; "Bartolo in tipografia: il Quattrocento". There is no mention in the colophon of the man who was most likely responsible for the enterprise: "ser Costantino Lucarini", who created three companies in order to print Bartolus and a life of Saint Francis of Assisi. Lucarini first set up a company with the German printer 'Johannes Reinhardi Rothomannus', then with the jurist 'Petrus Donatus', and later on, with his cousin for financial purposes. The Trevi edition of Bartolus was clearly the outcome of a one-off initiative, as shown by the short existence of the company. Possibly it was stimulated by the appearance of the princeps of a text, the Lectura super Prima Infortiati, of which Lucarini possessed a good manuscript. 145 The same lectura was printed very soon afterwards (less than three weeks) by Vindelinus in Venice. 146 The three editions of the same text quickly following each other lead us to think that there was a reason for choosing to start with the lectura of the Infortiatum, rather than another part. Indeed, the order of appearance of the lecturae is certainly important, as this may well have depended on the availability of a good manuscript or on the organisation of the courses within the University system (traditionally based on the alternation of the readings of each part of the Corpus) 147 or both. We are almost certain, for example, that the edition printed in Trevi was intended primarily for the students of the Universities of Rome and Perugia, where the copies were expected to be distributed. 148 A more coordinated initiative was undertaken in Perugia, where on 26 April 1471 a printing company was founded by two groups of people: on one side there were some citizens of Perugia, including the jurist Matheus de Ubaldis and Braccio Baglioni, the most prominent figure in town; on the other side, two German printers, Petrus Petri de Colonia and Johannes Nicolai de Bamberga. None of them are mentioned in the books apart from Baglioni, whose name is found on four prefaces printed at the opening of the editions realised by the company, where he was called 'magnificent'. He was presented as the one who had called the printers to the city to launch the new art in support of the famous university of the same: the earliest printed texts were the works of the likewise famous jurists Bartolus and Baldus. 149 Three lectures of Bartolus were printed in Perugia by Petrus de Co- lonia and Johannes de Bamberga between 1471 and 1474: both lectures of the Digestum Vetus, and the one of the second part of the Infortiatum, the latter being the princeps. 150 The absence of any imprint dates not only makes it impossible to ascertain how many editions printed in Perugia were the principes; this fact also shows the secondary role played by the printers, who did not feel the need, or were not allowed, to put their names on the books. 151 Their duty, it appears, was limited to the material and physical part of the operation and this involvement seems to have been regarded as unworthy of mention. 152 By 1474 all Bartolus' major works were available in the new medium, with exception of the lecture on the Novels (super Authenticis), which was realised by Christophorus Valdarfer in Milan in 1477 for Petrus Antonius de Castelliono, 153 whose initiative of publishing legal texts has already been highlighted in relation to the texts of the Corpus iuris. It is worth noticing that the first edition of the three collections of Bartolus' 'minor' works was also realised in Milan, in 1479, again for Petrus Antonius de Castelliono, this time together with Ambrosius de' Caymis and in the printshop of Johannes Antonius de Honate. 154 In the meantime, in Venice, the two major printing houses engaged themselves with the works of the jurist from Sassoferrato. The company of Johannes Manthen and Johannes de Colonia, which took over from Vindelinus, 155 started in 1475 with a lecture that the latter had not printed (super prima Digesti Veteris). They went on by publishing other eight editions of the lecturae in Roman type until 1478, when they started a new series of lecturae, this time in Gothic type, for a 152 The choice of the texts was likely due in its entirety to the jurist Matheus de Ubaldis, who, for family reasons, might have owned some good manuscripts and be well aware of their value. He was in the best position to start a company, involving two merchants so as to arrange the distribution of the books, and the 'magnificent' local lord to whom the jurist could easily show the importance of the initiative for the prestige of the city. On the history of early printing in Perugia: Rossi, L'arte tipografica in Perugia durante il secolo XV e la prima metà del XVI; Capaccioni, Lineamenti di storia dell'editoria umbra; Panzanelli Fratoni, Scrivere stampare e leggere a Perugia nel primo secolo. total of 13 editions, printed by 1480, all entirely new -as announced by the collation, in addition to the change of type. 156 The other major firm who worked on Bartolus in Venice was the one of Nicolaus Jenson who, in only two years (1477-78), printed ten editions of Bartolus' lecturae, 157 during the time when he was also engaged with the printing of the Corpus iuris civilis, and after having printed almost all parts of the Corpus iuris canonici. In the printing of legal texts Jenson accomplished some of his finest achievements, starting with the use of a Gothic type that he made as beautiful as his celebrated Roman. Jenson reshaped the law book and gave it the elegance usually reserved for classical texts. This feature is particularly true as regards the im- portant number of copies of editions of legal texts that Jenson printed on parchment. They were mostly parts of the Corpus iuris canonici, destined for members of the ruling aristocracy, bishops and abbots, or to wealthy institutions, such as the Canons of Monte Donico of Verona whose name has been found, so far, on the copies of two parts of the Corpus iuris canonici, the constitutions of Clement V and the decretals of Boniface VIII, scattered between Venice and London, but now gathered together again, in virtual fashion, in the MEI database. Similarities apart, a closer look at the series of editions printed by both provides us with interesting elements, starting with the chronology, but also including the sequence of the texts, the introduction of additions, and the change in the structure of the book. It was Torresanus who started printing Bartolus' lecturae in 1485 and went on publishing the lecturae of the other parts, and new editions of the same ones, with a crescendo to the amount of 17 editions printed in the following five years, 159 during which Tortis intervened only once, in 1486, with one edition of the Lectura super tribus libris that Torresanus had not included in his first series. 160 Tortis, in the meantime engaged with the printing of the Corpus, reappeared in 1490 with the Lectura super Authenticis that, again, Torresanus had not yet printed. 161 Also, Tortis introduced in his books a most helpful element: printed leaf numbers, soon adopted also by Torresanus, al- the operation was conducted on the basis of an agreement between the two firms [tab. 20]. Through a long series of new editions, they found the way to rationalise their own production, alternating fresh editions with others apparently based on previous ones: Torresanus did so five times and Tortis nine. Likewise the collations, when the signatures applied to the various parts are formed by multiple sets of letters (e.g.: aa-pp 8 , aaa-ppp 8 , AA-OO 8 and so on), imply that the publishing of the various parts of the Corpus was carefully coordinated and intended as a multi-volume production. The most important feature, however, was the further elaboration of the texts, when the exegetical scholarship conducted on Bartolus' works by later jurists was introduced in printed editions in the form of additions.

Editiones principes and Other Earliest Editions: Printing Places and Key Players
The earliest additions appeared in the late 1470s, at the beginning printed in columns following the main text, then introduced into the margins, according to the pattern of the glossa. They mostly came from the work of Alexander Tartagnus, whose Apostillae ad Bartolum on the lectures of various parts appeared as self-standing works in 19 editions (1475)(1476)(1477)(1478)(1479)(1480)(1481)(1482)(1483)(1484)(1485)(1486)(1487)(1488)(1489). Along with the work of renowned jurists, such as Alexander Tartagnus or Angelus de Ubaldis, there are contributions by a scholar of far inferior fame, Bernardinus Landrianus, jurist and member of the College of jurists of Milan, whose work seems to be receiving the attention it deserves only in recent times, in relation to the editions of the collection of Consilia, Quaestiones and Tractatus. Here Landrianus manifests the explicit intention of producing a better edition by rationalising and putting order into the mass of Bartolus' texts. 166 One of the early editions of Bartolus' lecturae enhanced with Tartagnus' Apostillae and the edition of a treatise edited by Bernardinus Landriani form the subject of two case studies analysed in the next two paragraphs. A marvellous link between joy and recovery from illness, and between teaching and happiness is made here, which may sound more like the way of thinking of a Renaissance rather than a medieval author. Another, second, prologue exists, which seems much more traditional, opening with the invocation of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and three more saints 169 and this is only found in the manuscripts, as Paolo Mari, who first drew attention to this text, pointed out after having analysed a sample of three manuscripts, three incunabula and three 16th century editions. 170 Mari concluded that the introitus 'Omnes gaudentes' was not written by Bartolus and was added in the course of the 15th century and, most interestingly, that "its introduction marks the passage from the manuscript tradition to the printed tradition". The thorough analysis of all thirteen editions printed in the 15th century provides a slightly different result, without altering the overall evolution of the texts as presented by Mari. The incunable editions do not only have the 'modern' introitus 'Omnes gaudentes' but also include the medieval one 'In nomine Domini'. Where both are present, the modern one always appears first, as suits a later addition. The arrangement of text and additions in the Mantua edition appears quite unusual and deserving of further investigation: it was both the absence of the 'modern' introitus, together with the absence of Tartagnus' additions, that seems surprising, especially considering that the book was printed when the jurist was still alive and working elsewhere in Northern Italy. Tartagnus taught at the University of Padua until 1470 when he was invited to teach at the University of Bologna. 174 A quick glance at the output of Butzbach, however, was enough to establish that the printer, or more likely those figures who commissioned the publication, were well aware of Tartagnus British Library, belonged to Johannes Pirckheymer, and entered the library with the rest of Arundel's collections. Many of them were written in the 15th century and provide a good picture of the life which existed around the School of Law in Padua and of the university environment in general, beginning with the practices of producing texts, as is also shown in MS Arundel 479. As has already been stated, the first section of the manuscript was written by someone different from the official scribe and contains the Apostillae written by Tartagnus, whose lectures Mendel most likely attended, as they were both in Padua in the same period of time. There is more, however. The 24 leaves containing Tartagnus' Apostillae are not the only text written by the anonymous scribe. Angelus's additions to Bartolus' lectura were also written at a later moment: they are all found in the margins, linked to the text of the lectura with symbols indicating where they should be introduced: 'suo loco ubique positis', as the colophon reads in the Butzbach edition. Thus the whole manuscript seems to bear evidence of the creation of the new edition, including the layout of the texts in both the manuscript and the printed edition, which look impressively similar. How should we interpret this?

The Lectura of the Tres libri: Early Editions and New Evidence from a Manuscript
Further investigation is needed to reach a better understanding of the relation between this witness and the printed edition; 178 I am not suggesting here that this manuscript was the copy-text used in the printshop, since so far no traces have been found in the manuscript of any work done by the printers. There are instead clear traces of a close relationship which has to do with the texts and their arrangement, which is unique among 15th-century editions. Most importantly, the choice of such an arrangement was likely down to Tartagnus, and to his teaching and critical approach to Bartolus' works. In which case er by their son, another Willibald, who greatly increased it. His grandson, Johann Hieronymus Imhoff, started selling the collections, despite the originary mandate not to disperse them, due to the financial difficulties consequent to the Thirty Years War. The bulk of the library was purchased in 1636 by Thomas Howard, Lord Arundel, 1586-1646, during a diplomatic mission to the Holy Roman Emperor (he was son to a Roman Catholic family and grandson of Thomas Howard, the fourth Duke of Norfolk executed in 1572). Some time after Arundel's death, his grandson, Henry Howard, sixth Duke of Norfolk (d. 1684), presented the bulk of the library to the Royal Society (1666-67) which, later on, sold what was not considered as pertinent to the collections of the same; a large portion was purchased by Quaritch in 1873. What the Society had retained was sold by auction at Sotheby's in 1924, after the British Museum had selected a few items. Cf. De Ricci,English Collectors,25; Levy Peck, "Uncovering the Arundel Library at the Royal Society"; cf. also the entries for Willibald Pirckheymer, Johann Hieronymus Imhoff, Willibald Imhoff, Thomas Howard, and Henry Howard in the Index of Owners of MEI, where further bibliography is provided (ID numbers respectively 4744,00010016,3037,2736,4743).
178 Such analysis will include the text of the third section, the comment of the Authenticum by Angelus de Ubaldis. It is interesting that the comment by Bartolus of the same text (Authenticum) is found in the edition of his comment of the Tres Libri printed by Torresano in 1492 (GW 3485; ISTC ib00190000). this manuscript would be a vivid testimony to an important phase in the transmission of the text of Bartolus' works. If it is, then it is worth underlining here that many important elements in the manuscript have emerged thanks to the study of the early printed editions.

The Editions of Consilia, Quaestiones and Tractatus
Another very interesting case is provided by the editions of the collections of Consilia, Quaestiones and Tractatus. After having appeared in separate editions (Venice, Vindelinus, 1471 and1472;Rome, Gensberg, 1473), 179 the three groups of texts were assembled in a single edition, printed in Milan in 1479 by Johannes Antonius de Honate [tab. 23]. 180 A few years later another edition appeared, sine notis, but attributable to the same printer, where some important innovations were made by the already mentioned Bernardinus Landrianus. 181 Landrianus wrote additions to the Consilia, but also reduced them, from 245 to 237, in an attempt to rationalise the collection, for example by deleting duplicates (e.g. consilium 245 was the same text as one of the Quaestiones): "a few additions at the end of a number of consilia, especially where he found a decision opposing a consilium or other decisions taken by jurists of a later period". 182 This intervention provoked a fierce debate that was conducted in the prefaces of minimus. Clarissimo I.V. monarce ac preceptori suo Io. Puteo ordinariam iuris civilis de mane interpretanti in almo gymnasio Papiensi salutem. Cum dulcis patria non mediocri contagione vexaretur incole fere omnes quibus abeundi facultas data erat salubriora loca peciere, sed ego in tantis calamitatibus firmavi ac statui pro viribus ingenioli mei figuras Tyberiadis iam antiquitate deletas reficere quas Bartolus lux nostra suo divino ingenio geometrice confecerat, necnon nonnullas addiciunculas ad calcem quamplurimorum consiliorum colocare [sic] ante confusse [sic] editorum corrigendo, maxime ubi ita vel contra consultum inveni vel decisum ob multitudinem ac varietatem eorum qui post ipsum scripsere" (a1v; cf. TEXT-inc tib00212000). two subsequent editions (both printed in Venice: 1487-88 and1495). 183 Consilia, in any case, were not Landriani's main concern; in fact, the first thing he highlighted in the preface were the illustrations created for the treatise Tyberiadis (De fluminibus). He wrote that he "wanted to remake those images that Bartolus had made with his genius and that had been destroyed because of the passage of time". 184 Landriani is not the only one to appreciate the innovations introduced by Bartolus: the importance of the drawings, which are part of Bartolus' treatise, has been strongly underlined by modern scholars, such as Carla Frova and Osvaldo Cavallar, who have clarified how this is further evidence of Bartolus' genius and of his ability to take from other disciplines (such as geometry) the knowledge he needed to solve his legal cases. The importance of the drawings is reinforced by the fact that at least some of them have been identified as having been made by the author himself. 185 All this helps us 184 "pro viribus ingenioli mei figuras Tyberiadis iam antiquitate deletas reficere quas Bartolus lux nostra suo divino ingenio geometrice confecerat". Landriani showed special care for this treatise also by writing another introduction only for it, again addressed to his master Giovanni dal Pozzo (g1r): "hunc tractatum Tiberiadis figuris abolitum impressioni tradidi ut Bartolo illuminationi nostre quod suum est tribueremus, satis est enim quod nobis eius opera altius investigandi copia data est. Itaque opusculum ipsum in ordine primum accipite, ut ad subsequentes tractatus viam vobis aperiat, sicut Tiber flumen ad varia loca navigando iter prestat et si a recto tramite deviabitis habetis Io. Puteum communem preceptorem cui gratum onus imposui q[ui] vos ad optatum finem perducet".
185 Cf. Frova, "Le traité de fluminibus de Bartolo da Sassoferrato (1355)"; Cavallar, "River of Law". The treatise Tyberiadis (or De fluminibus) is made of three sections: De alluvionibus, De insula, De alveo and they are not always transmitted together in manuscript. It is not a surprise, therefore, that in early editions they are listed one after the other as if they were different texts (nrr. 15-17 in the princeps, whose order was not altered in later editions; cf. also the description in TEXT-inc tib00255000). Nevertheless, the three texts are now considered as sections of a single treatise (no. 163 in the entry dedicated to Bartolus in C.A.L.M.A.). Illustrations are found in the sections De alluvione and De insula and an autograph witness of the first section has been identified in a composite manuscript once owned by Baldus (the most celebrated among Bartolus' pupils) today in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Barb. lat. 1398): Colli, "Collezioni d'autore di Baldo degli Ubaldi", to appreciate fully the initiative taken by Landriani. First of all, illustrations were not included in the princeps, where spaces were left blank for them to be added by hand and the same holds true for the two following editions of the 'collectio maior', printed in 1479 and 1485. In the meantime, before October 1483, a minor, and very interesting, collection of Bartolus' treatises was printed in Rome by Sixtus Riessinger, including the Tyberiadis with the De insigniis et armis. Here 39 woodcuts were added for the first time (22 in the section De alluvione and 17 in the section De insula); 186 their style, however, appears to be very different from the illustrations that Landriani wished to add to the edition he was working on. In fact, he did not claim to have introduced the illustrations but rather wrote that he wanted to recreate the illustrations, since those made by Bartolus were almost worn away due to their age: "figuras Tyberiadis iam antiquitate deletas reficere". The suspicion that Landriani was referring precisely to the autograph emerges, especially if one looks at the woodcuts printed in Landriani's edition, which are very similar to the originals in the Vatican manuscript; the shape of the river is the same, with a profile of a mascaron, whereas the original has the head of a dog (though they are very similar to each other and very different from all other woodcuts); the overall simplicity of the drawings, where only a few lines are used to represent both geometrical figures and real objects, is also found in both sets of images. Most important of all, however, are the colours, which Bartolus used as a real code of communication and which are found as early hand-added decoration in copies of Landriani's edition (three out of the four in the sample examined so far). In all later editions of the 'collectio maior' woodcuts always appear and are more detailed and refined than those used by Landriani; however none of them seem as close to the original drawings as his. 187 As a final note to this paragraph, 187 Cf. also Frova, "Dans notre traité on remarque avant tout comment, dans la partie illustrée, l'écriture et l'image conçue de façon contextuelle s'avèrent indispensables l'une à l'autre.
[…] Notons que le texte prévoit l'utilisation de différentes couleurs dans l'exécution des figures. Cela a créé des difficultés pour la réalisation des éditions imprimées; les illustrations de certains exemplaires ont été complétées à la main, tandis que d'autres sont restées en noir et blanc, comme celles de l'édition fac-similé reproduites ici, ce qui nuit à la bonne compréhension des figures" ("Le traité de fluminibus", 87-8 fn. 20). To these notes Osvaldo Cavallar, who based his analysis on later editions (the 1576 one), added further observations about the lesser effectiveness of woodcuts found in printed editions compared to the original drawings, which sounds like a positive evaluation, e converso, of the quality of the woodcuts found in Landriani's edition. This is what he wrote: "A careful choice and consistent use of colors enabled him [i.e. Bartolus] to differentiate between 'nature' and 'culture' […]. The colors of the figures […] speak of Bartolus' consciousness of both the limits and potentialities of a cogni-I should like to point out how both the cases presented here (Bartolus' lecture Super tribus ultimis libris and his treatise De fluminibus) reveal that, when working on the 15th-century editions, it is important not just to reconstruct the textual tradition of the printed editions alone. Such instances also provide insights into the history of the manuscript traditions and make it possible to formulate better questions about the complexities found therein. For example, how are we to explain the almost complete absence of printing initiatives of Bartolus' work in those two countries, Germany and Spain, where a large number of manuscripts of his works circulated from late medieval times onwards? 188 Were the manuscripts sufficient to match readers' needs over a long period or were printed books imported from elsewhere? In short: was the book trade developed to such a point that it was preferable to import Bartolus' lectures from Venice, Naples or Milan into Seu d'Urgell, Zaragoza, Madrid or Freiburg, Würzburg and Munich rather than printing them on the spot? It is highly probable that this was the case: books were preferably imported from those places where skilled printers and scholars had developed a cooperation which was not easy to replicate. On the other hand, the import/export of legal texts was facilitated by the students who were accustomed to travelling long distances in order to attend the most renowned universities. To what extent books were exported soon after they had been printed or accompanied early owners in their travels is a matter that the ongoing analysis of the copies and the critical recording of provenance evidence is clarifying. tive tool like geometry. In contrast to the holograph, the printed editions cluttered the figures with redundant elements, such as buildings, castles […]. The absence of colors compelled the early printers to use other devices […]. In Bottrigari's edition [i.e. Tyberiadis D. Bartoli de Saxoferrato … Tractatus de fluminibus tripertitus ab Hercule Buttrigario restitutus … Bononiae: apud Ioannem Roscium, 1576; Edit16 4426]. Another change introduced in the printed editions was the suppression of the heads of animals Bartolus drew to indicate the origin and the direction of the flow of the river. Restoring those heads to the figures will give us an additional facet of Bartolus' personality" which is exactly what Landriani wanted to do. Cf. Cavallar, "River of Law: Bartolus's Tiberiadis (De alluvione)", 35, 40-1 (the drawings from the autograph are on pages 30, 119-29). The autograph is now fully available in the digital collections of the Vatican Library, although in black and white: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Barb. lat.1398; paradoxically, a comparison between the autograph and the printed editions is made difficult because of the rarity (at the moment, August 2019, unavailability) of any copy of the Landriani edition. 4 • Printing the Law in the 15th Century Studi di storia 13 129 Printing R-Evolution and Society 1450-1500, 67-198

Conclusions
Despite the large number of editions of Bartolus' works, the majority of which were printed in Italy, most are very rare in their country of origin itself and many are totally absent. 189 The very first edition is one of these, known today only in four copies, not one of them in Italy. 190 Germany is the country where the highest number of copies of Bartolus' editions can be found today 191 and there were even more before some of them were sold as duplicates in the course of the 19th century, when they were acquired by institutions such as the British Museum, the forerunner of the present British Library, where the bulk of the research supporting the current essay was done. 192 The majority of the copies that I have examined in the BL arrived there from German libraries, where they had been conserved for centuries. In Germany copies of legal texts (Bartolus' works as well as the texts of the Corpus iuris civilis) were imported very soon after 189 Of the about 200 editions of Bartolus' main works 50 are not found in Italy, and 57 are held in Italy in only 1 copy. On the other hand, of the 10 editions which survive in unique copies, 6 are in Italy (including a copy in the Vatican Library). The survival rates of the early editions of Bartolus' works (and more generally speaking, of the early editions of legal texts) is connected to a change of the curricula in law studies which took place over the course of the 16th century, as discussed above. In order for this subject to be properly tackled, it would need a detailed and long-term analysis, which would go beyond the purpose of this current research.
190 They are in Germany (Munich and Lübeck, the latter no more existing), Great Britain (Birmingham) and United States (Cambridge, MA) (ISTC ib00230800; GW 3611). The copy in Munich bears the coat of arms of the Dominicans of Freising, and was decorated with motifs that reinforce the evidence of the early acquisition of the book, as anyone can see (http://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00065525-2).
191 With 176 copies, Germany is followed by Italy (139) 192 The British Library was founded in 1973 by an act of Parliament and took with it the collections of manuscripts and printed books belonging to the previous Library of the British Museum. I would like to take the occasion here to express my gratitude to all members of the Library's Collections and Curation department and to its head Kristian Jensen, who warmly welcomed me during the four years of research. Special thanks go to all colleagues of the area 'Printed Heritage Collections', where I worked, and particularly to Adrian Edwards, Karen Limper-Herz, Philippa Marks, Stephen Parkin, with whom I exchanged ideas and information on daily basis, and to Andrea Clark, curator in Manuscripts area, who helped me with accessing manuscripts. Also, I would like to thank John Goldfinch, who was head of incunabula when we started the recording of the British Library incunabula in MEI. The work done on the BL incunabula and their owners could not be included in this article, given the subject of the present work and its focus on the texts and editions rather than the copies. Also, the analysis of the copies implies another big set of data, which needs to be explored in a dedicated article. The same applies to an aspect of this very research that was not possible to include either, that is a chapter on the copies of law incunabula and their provenance (so far 385 copies of the Corpus iuris civilis and 275 of the works of Bartolus have been recorded in MEI; last search 2019-09-13). they had been printed. This fact holds true also for the many copies of legal texts that are still preserved in the libraries of Oxford colleges, where the same works (the texts of the ius commune) were presumably read and taught regularly. Copies of legal texts are found across Europe, in various countries where they had been imported from Italy soon after being published to be used in the local law schools. Copies were also brought back to their native countries by students who had completed their studies in law schools abroad when, on reentry, they became part of the ruling élite, either in the Church hierarchy or as officers in the lay administration. 193 Once back home, they would apply the law they had learnt in their daily activities, because the ius commune (Roman, Canon and Feudal Law) was not just the law of the School: the ius commune provided the theoretical, conceptual, structural framework within which the 'iura propria' (local laws, statutes, etc.) were applied. 194 The ius commune was the law shared all over Europe, where students were free to travel as were printers and booksellers, scholars and artists: this was the Europe in which the Renaissance emerged and so did the printing revolution. […] Le droit étudié et enseigné aux universités médiévales correspondait avant tout à une science de gouvernement, ou, quoique l'expression rencontre toujours de fortes résistances en français, à une science, voire plutôt à un 'art' de la gouvernance publique" ("Une très brève histoire du droit dans la civilisation occidentale", 398).

Abbreviations
194 "It created the concepts, the institutions, the procedures, the documents, the doctrines without which the iura propria would have evolved very differently" (Kenneth Pennington, "Foreword" to Bellomo, The Commom Legal Past of Europe). Decree (bulla, breve, regula etc.) 1