CALVIN, Jean.

.Handsomely bound in contemporary Swiss polished calf, with cornerpieces much resembling in shape, size and style those in the Swiss BL, Davis592. It bears a gilt centrepiece with the arms of Geneva and a motto which can be translated Not a day without a line . This was first hinted at by Pliny to describe the Greek painter Apelles s work; it was formulated as Nulla die sine linea in the medieval period, and, as here, by the Neo-Latin poet Fausto Andrelini in 1509, with the broader meaning No day goes by without writing a line or simply without doing some work (Nikitinski, p.430). The motto was especially popular among C16 and C17 lawyers, as far as north as the Inns of Court, and appears in emblemata iuris , i.e., symbolic representations appropriated to represent the law (e.g., in Rollenhagen s Emblematum ) (Goodrich, p.254). The early owner, unidentified, may have thus been a Genevan lawyer.

.Very good, handsomely bound copy of this immensely influential work by Jean Calvin (1509-1564), .a French theologian who contributed to the introduction of the Reformation to France and Switzerland. First published in Latin in 1536, the Institutio presented a systematic analysis of Protestant doctrines with the purpose of dissociating the new religious ideas from attacks against established political authority launched by the Anabaptists and condemned by Francis I, to whom the work is dedicated. The 4 parts discuss fundamental theological questions like the knowledge and understanding of God s divine nature, the doctrines of justification by faith alone and of predestination which differentiated Calvin s thought from Luther s. His influential theories inspired, among others, the religious and political ideas of the French Huguenots and the Scottish, English, and Irish Presbyterians. This edition has two remarkably detailed subject indexes, one by loca , the other by specific keywords.