Rebuffi, Pierre
Baillargues (Montpellier) 1487 – 1557

Pronomi’ai [in Greek] seu privilegia uni­versi­tatum, collegiorum, scolas­ticorumquè, & bibliopolarum, atque omnium, qui istis ministrant, que què studiosis omnibus necessaria ad scientiae & virtutis perfec­tionem, cum elucidatione Authen. habita C. ne filius pro patre Authore domino Petro Rebuffo de Montepessulano jurium doctore & comite, in inclita Parisiorum universitate publico professore.

Paris, ‘Venales comperiuntur in vico Amigdalarum, iuxta Collegium Remense apud Stephanum Guiot’, 1549

octavo (175 × 110 mm), (307) ff. signed a–c⁸ (c8, can­celled) a–z⁸ &⁸ A–K⁸ L⁴ M⁸ and paginated (46) 1–567 (1). Woodcut initials from several alphabets.

provenance Magister Georg Munding (Preceptor of the Grafen von Helfenstein),¹ his note of purchase, dated 1589, on front pastedown — Fürstlich-Fürstenbergische Bibliothek at Donau­eschingen, shelfmark on paste-down (written in red ink, possibly by Baron Joseph von Lassberg), but without the library’s inkstamp — Reiss & Sohn, ‘Auktion 70: Aus einer Süddeutschen Fürsten­bibliothek, Teil 2’, Königstein im Taunus, 4 May 2000, lot 1650

Droplets of ink in margins of pp.100–101, otherwise an immaculate copy.

binding contemporary flexible vellum.

A collection of laws, statutes, and privileges relating to universities and colleges, together with those governing booksellers and stationers, who in me­diaeval times were members and under control of the univer­sity corporation. It is a ‘Curieux traité, où l’auteur aborde un grand nombre de problèmes concernant la vie scolaire et universitaire’ (Dictionnaire de Droit Canonique, Paris 1965, vii, col.477).

The author had studied at Montpellier, Toulouse, and Cahors, where he took his doctorate in utroque jure. In 1527 he was teaching at Poitiers, in 1529 in Bourges, and in 1533 in Paris, where he was one of six doctors regent appointed to lecture on canon law. He pub­lished on some of the most vexed and sensitive legal questions of his day, including treatises on the law concerning ecclesiastical benefices, the rights of pos­session, royal duties and prerogatives, war, and the lordship of castles.

The work is divided in three parts: ‘Scolasticorum priuilegiorum’, 180 in number (pp.1‒384); ‘Scolastica necessarium’, or ‘De His quae necessaria sunt literarum studiosis’, 12 in number (pp.385‒420); and ‘De interpretatione autenticae constitutionis habita’ (pp.421‒567). The edition is substantially a reissue of the sheets of Pierre Vidoué’s edition of 1540 (Impressum Parrisijs, caracteribus P. Vidouaei Vernoliensis, librarij adscripticij, impensis vero Guiraudi Rebuffi, mercatoris Montispessulani),² issued under a new royal privilege granted to Rebuffi on 5 August 1547. The three texts were reprinted together as Privilegia universitatum, collegiorum at Frankfurt in 1575 and 1585, and at Antwerp in 1583.

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The publisher, Etienne Guyot (Guillot, Guiot), a ‘libraire et relieur de livres’ in the rue des Amandiers, is documented 1549–1561, and was deceased by 1561.³ These other copies of his edition can be located

● Bologna, Biblioteca Arcivescovile, OPPIZZONI 000 001 887 (link) ● Châlons-en-Champagne (Marne), Bibliothèque municipale, Ancien fonds 14360 (‘Ex. dono ms de Jacques du Bois, 1563, Ex. libris ms du Couvent des Augustins’; link) ● Faenza, Biblioteca comunale Manfrediana, CINQ. Z.N. 006 002 006 (link)⁴  ● Paris, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de la Sorbonne, U6=34 (‘Ex libris ms. Bibliothecae Colbertinae’; link) ● Piacenza, Biblioteca comunale ‘Passerini-Landi’, A 6270 (link) ● Turin, Biblioteca Norberto Bobbio dell’Università degli Studi di Torino, A*Patetta 14 I 27 (‘nota ms. di possesso di Giovanni Antonio Boccoleri’; link)

reference Wilhelm Erman and Ewald Horn, Bibliographie der deutschen Universitäten (Leipzig & Berlin 1904–1905), no. 3167