FINELY-BOUND LAW DISSERTATION
[Suicide] Houck, Friedrich Gotfried (praes.) [Oosten de Bruyn, Gerrit Willem van (resp.)]: Dissertatio inauguralis, de crimine autophoniae. Trajecti ad Rhenum [Utrecht], ex officina Joannis Broedelet, academiae typographi, 1748.
Rare, grandly-bound, illustrated and wide-margined dissertation on the subject of suicide (self-administered and assisted) in Roman law and society. It includes discussion of Stoic teaching on death. The student (1727-1797), who would have commissioned the binding, adds a dedicatory letter to his teacher Peter Wesseling (1692-1764). He was himself to become a historian, lawyer, and an original member of the learned society Teylers Tweede Genootschap (de la Porte).
The intaglio frontispiece found here is not present in all copies. Designed it appears for Utrecht legal dissertations, it includes depictions of Lady Justice, a cherub holding the ancient Roman Law of the Twelve Tables, another with a fasces (symbol of authority) and a book titled Corpus juris, and a view of Utrecht, including the famous Dom Tower. Unless perhaps folded, the print can only appear in luxury "large-paper" (extra-margined) copies like ours as it is much larger in size than the printed text. Thus, a copy at Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KW 444 H 20, digitised on Google Books) has smaller margins and does not have our plate.
Description
One volume, 28.5 cms. x 22.5 cms in binding, quarto, pp. [10] 97 [3] + intaglio frontispiece by F. v. Bleswyk after Gerard Melder. Signed: [pi]1 *1-4 A-M4 N2. Title-page with intaglio vignette by J. Wandelaar. Roman, italic, Greek and Hebrew letter. Woodcut initial, headpiece made from typographical ornament. Light or medium browning, slight foxing and soiling, bound in 18th-cent. Dutch mottled brown calf, ornately panelled and decorated in gilt with central gilt lozenge to covers (tools used not identified in Storm van Leeuwen's section on Utrecht bindings). All edges gilt. Binding rubbed and worn, loss to top joint and at head- and tail-cap, but still impressive.
Provenance: label to foot of frontispiece, "F.B. Coninck Liefsting" (Focco Bernardus Coninck Liefsting (1827-1913), judge of the Netherlands Supreme Court).
Bibliography
STCN 203841522. OCLC shows one copy outside Netherlands (NYPL).
Eleá de la Porte, Verlichte verhalen, de omgang met het verleden in de Nederlandse Verlichting (Amsterdam 2023).
Jan Storm van Leeuwen, Dutch decorated bookbinding in the eighteenth century (4 vols., Leiden, 2006).