[With splendid provenance] Petri Aerodii quaesitoris

Andegavi, rerum ab omni antiquitate iudicatarum, pandectae (...). Paris, M. Sonnius, 1615, (20),1014,(72) p., with woodcut printer's device on title p., very fine full-p. engr. portrait of the author by L. Gaultier, woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials, contemp. gilt calf, ribbed spine w. mor. letterpiece, edges marbled, folio.

Occas. old annotations (perhaps by one of those mentioned below) in pen, else contents good. Upper joint splitting but holding well on cords; spine head chipped and corners bumped; covers sl. chafed. A good copy with a very exciting provenance: title p. with the owner's entry of Sir Philip Warwick (1609-1683) in pen, and the date "28 Dbr. 1667" (almost certainly by Warwick) on page 1. Warwick was an English writer and politician, who wrote unflatteringly about Oliver Cromwell. Charles I spoke very highly of Warwick's services just before his execution. Also on the title p. the owner's entry in pen of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (1655-1716), Scottish bibliophile, globetrotter, author of political works and member of parliament, friend of the philosopher John Locke. The greater part of the huge library (6000 books across a wide range of subjects, often bought during his travels) was sold in the 1960s. See P.J.M. Willems, Bibliotheca Fletcheriana, the extraordinary library of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, Reconstructed and Systematically Arranged (1999). We have a number of books with this exact owner's entry in this auction. Our work is a rare early edition of a very extensive collection of Roman juridical pandects, with exquisite index, by the French lawyer Pierre Ayrault (1536-1601).