18TH-CENTURY THEOLOGICAL MANUSCRIPTS FROM THE CELEBRATED COLLECTION OF SIR THOMAS PHILLIPPS

ANONYMOUS. Two theological manuscripts. Italy, early 18th century. Quarto, modern tan boards; pp. 6, pp. 34. $500.

Original 18th-century manuscript discourses on Gallicanism, from the library of famed collector Sir Thomas Phillipps.

These two manuscripts, both written in the same elegant, calligraphic hand, respond to the work of Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux and a widely acclaimed preacher who played a major role in the 1682 Assembly of the French Clergy. “Against the centralizing efforts of the papacy of his time, [King Louis XIV] proclaimed and defended the ‘liberties of the Gallican church” (González II:144), expressed in classic form in four articles which Bossuet drafted and which the Assembly approved. The articles asserted the monarchy’s independence from the papacy in civil matters, and declared the pope’s authority subject to that of general councils and answerable to national church custom. Texts in Italian. These manuscripts were item 7548 in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, “the greatest collector of manuscript matter the world has ever known” (De Ricci, 119). “In the fifty-plus years that he collected, Sir Thomas amassed over 50,000 books and 100,000 manuscripts, perhaps the largest private library ever” (Dartmouth College Library). Phillipps particularly valued a manuscript “because there was only one of them, and if it were lost, it was lost forever” (A.N.L. Munby).

Fine condition, with a notable provenance.