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Aquinas's Summa theologiae, first complete edition
Michael Wenssler, 1485
THOMAS AQUINAS (c.1225-1274). Summa theologiae. Basel: [Michael Wenssler,] 1485.
Very rare first complete edition of Aquinas's Summa, with all three parts. Its three main sections were previously printed separately in various editions, but the present edition by Wenssler is the first appearance of the complete text together. ABPC records only four copies at auction, and only one of those (the Klotz copy, lacking half a text leaf) is comparable to the present in completeness.
All the many writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas are preparatory to the great Summa, which was begun in 1265 and aimed at being the sum of all knowledge. Structured around the scholastic practice of disputatio, the Summa consists of a series of theological questions, followed by arguments pro and contra which explicate Aquinas’s doctrinal views on every issue. Combining authority and argument, Thomas brought his distinctive philosophical outlook to bear on Christian religion, integrating the newly translated works of Aristotle alongside previously developed Platonist conceptions of being and intellect. Art historian Erwin Panofsky famously compared the Summa to a Gothic cathedral, both of which embody "the whole of Christian knowledge, theological, moral, natural, and historical, with everything in its place and that which no longer found its place suppressed" and are arranged "according to a system of homologous parts and parts of parts." It is most often encountered in volumes containing only one or two of those original parts; this is a rare example of a near-complete specimen of the most important book of the European Middle Ages, retaining many original material features such as pink leather index tabs. Goff T-194; HC 1434*; Bod-inc T-163; BMC III 729; BSB-Ink T-278; ISTC it00194000.
Four parts in one, royal folio (384 x 268mm). I: 176 leaves; II.1: 162 leaves [of 164, without initial and final blanks]; II.2: 241 leaves [of 242, without initial blank]; III: 157 leaves [of 160, lacking index leaf Uu5 and without initial blank and blank stub of S10]. Red Lombard initials, some passages with red capital strokes and underlining (dampstaining around edges, a few leaves with abrasions or chips in blank margins, some toning). Modern blind-ruled calf, retaining contemporary vellum pastedowns and flyleaves, manuscript fore-edge title, pink leather index tabs. Provenance: occasional neat marginal annotations and manicules, with two letters flourished in the same ink - Germinus Woringens (? inscription dated 1645) - Charles Brewer (deacon of the Church of Saints Chrysanthus and Daria in Bad Münstereifel, purchase inscription dated 3 October 1687) - Johannes Joseph Helden (pastor and Master of Philosophy; ownership inscription dated 1808 at Caesarea Regia University in Prague, with note of purchase dated 1806).