The first edition appeared in Seville in 1491. In the 1555 Gregorio López issued his influential edition with commentary, which became the standard edition, reprinted several times in subsequent centuries. According to Palau, López "revisó y corregió escrupulosamente los manuscritos y textos anteriores, en los que el descuido de copistas e impresores había llegado a introducir variantes de importancia y a falsear el espiritú del legislador. De modo que esta edición [i.e., la primera] fue declarada como texto único auténtico y legal en la práctica del foro."

In the years following issuance of the 1555 edition, corruptions began to enter the text yet again, and in 1759 a further revision was ordered to bring the text back to its original wording and sense. This is only the second edition of that revision. Its printer was Monfort, one of Spain's best 18th-century practioners of the black art. The main title-page is printed in black and red, the text in clear and precise roman with some italic in double-column format; López's notes are laid in below the text. A fine engraved headpiece adorns the "Prólogo" in vol. I and a handsome woodcut headpiece of a ship under full sail on the open sea introduces each partida. Additionally there is a modest use of historiated initials.

•  Palau 7007 (Siete partidas) & 7008 (index). Contemporary mottled calf, round spines, raised bands, gilt spines extra. Minor abrasions on some covers. All edges carmine. Silk place markers. A very few instances of worming, holes filled by means of the 18th-century version of leafcasting (i.e., a paper slurry "painted" onto the paper to fill the opening): a few letters lost in some words, but sense not obscured. A very handsome set of a very important book.

Single-click the image for an enlargement.

•  NSTC B1664; Goldsmiths'-Kress 19755. Recent dark blue morocco framed in double gilt fillets, spine with gilt-ruled raised bands and gilt-stamped floral decorative motifs. Title-page with a few small spots, others clean. Tables tipped in at the back of the volume. Neat and nice.

Copies of this constitution are difficult to come by: none have appeared at auction in the last 50 years, we are unaware of any having been offered by booksellers in the last 30 years, and searches of the standard library databases locate only one copy in the U.S. (New York Public Library).

•  Palau 59774; René-Moreno, Biblioteca boliviana, 762. Sewn as issued but a copy that has suffered vicissitudes: Waterstaining, especially at inner quarter of all leaves; silverfish or other insect damage to inner margins of early leaves. Upper outer corners of all leaves with significant loss of blank margins to hungry rodent. Tattered and dog-eared.   Still, . . .

•  Quarter green cloth with marbled paper sides, and red leather cover label with gilt-stamped title and gilt ruling.

This may be a later issue of the 1747 first edition; the last line of p. 7 here begins with “de l’esprit” and the first line of p. 223 with “tage au préjudice.” A companion volume to the present work, Principes du droit politique, was to be printed posthumously in 1754 and it is not present here — this volume being a very satisfactory stand-alone, arriving at a conclusion describing the “heureux accord de la lumière Naturelle & Révélée.” (Conceiving of the two works as vols. I and II of a larger whole is an anachronism in period to 1766 when de Felice was to bring them together for the first time.)

•  Quérard, I, 570; not in Brunet. Recent quarter calf over marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather labels and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments. Pages age-toned, with light foxing in spots; outer and lower edges of title-page showing offsetting from original turn-ins.

The foot of the first recto in each gathering is marked "Vol. I"; Sweet & Maxwell cite a second volume not printed until 1784. All 14 chapters listed in the table of contents are present here, and Burlamaqui seems to come to a rather thundering conclusion at the end of the work, one that affirms the validity of the Christian religion and the honorable nature of the "happy agreement between natural and revealed light." Definitely, a satisfactory stand-alone.

•  Sweet & Maxwell 592. Recently trimly rebound in quarter calf over marbled paper sides, spine with gilt-ruled raised bands, small gilt-stamped floral devices in compartments, and gilt-stamped morocco title label. Pages gently age-toned, some with light spots of foxing. Pleasing copy of a significant text in the history of law.

•  Not in Palau who notes only later compilations. Wrappers. Some worming in margins.

Rare in commerce: No copy has appeared at auction in more than fifty years. The fact that it was printed on the portable press of Bolívar’s Army of Liberation, and in the small town of Cúcuta on the border between Colombia and Venezuela, adds to its rarity.

•  Not in Palau. Late 19th- or early 20th-century cloth over paste boards; binding shows wear and some insect damage. Front free endpaper with institutional rubber stamp. Text with occasional light foxing. Withal, a very good copy of a book that is now nearly impossible to find in any condition.

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There were two editions of the constitution in 1843: This one, and another that extended to 27 pages.

•  Not in Palau.   Original printed wrappers, small strip excised from blank area at top of front wrapper. Few dust smudges on wrappers. Very good copy. (15169)

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There were two editions in 1853, the other being 24 pages in length.

•  Palau 59737. Original printed yellow wrappers, creased and a little dusty. Very good condition.

Not in OCLC.

•  Not in Palau. Original printed green wrappers. Waterstaining to inner area of wrappers, same faintly visible in one area of title-page.

For a page devoted to CONSTITUTIONS,  click here.
Or for SOUTH AMERICANA,  click here.

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This is the first printing of that new liberal constitution, from the small press in the out-of-the-way town of Rionegro. It is very rare: We trace no copies via OCLC, RLIN, or NUC. Further, searches of the OPACs of the National Library of Colombia and of the universities of Cali and the Andes failed to locate a copy.

The text of the Pandects is generally printed in the center of a page and is surrounded by the commentary and notes.

This is an annotated copy, with underlining, marginalia, and interliner comments in several different hands; one dedicated 19th- or early-20th-century reader has annotated the text, in Latin, in a neat clerical hand, virtually from the beginning to the end. A remarkable exercise in marginalia.

•  Adams J562; Schweiger, II, 478. Recent calf, blind-tooled in period style, spine preserving an earlier gilt-stamped leather title-label. Title-page darkened, with small inked inscription and signs of an earlier, erased marking. Inked commentary as described above, final blank leaf with additional early annotations.

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for an enlargement.

Rare.  The only copy we located in Latin America via METABASE is in the Biblioteca Monseñor Sanabria Martínez (Biblioteca Asamblea Legislativa de la República de Costa Rica). In the U.S. we locate only the copies at Bancroft and Harvard Law libraries.

Wrapper title is “Decretos y constitución política de la República de Costa-Rica, emitida en 1871 y adoptada en 1882.”

•  Not in Palau.   Original printed wrappers, wrappers dusty and with old pencil writing. (21258)

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•  Posada, Bibliografia bogotana, 231; Palau 59632. Sewn as issued, without the wrappers. Minor soiling to title-page and last (blank) page. Old inked numbers at top of title-page. A very good copy.