Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1634
The Institution of the Christian Religion. Written in Latine by M. John Calvin. Transated into English according to the Author's last Edition. With sundry Tables to finde the principall matters intreated of in this Booke. And also the declaration of places of Scripture therin expounded. By Thomas Norton. Whereunto there are newly added in the margine of the Booke, Notes containing in briefe the substance of the matter handled in each Section. Imprinted at London by Anne Griffin, for Joyce Norton, and R. Whitaker, 1634.
Small folio in later full leather with gold text and details on the spine. Gold thin line rolls and blind botanical rolls marginating front and rear boards. Later restoration to tail of spine, now partially discolored. Corners bumped and chipped. Marbled page edges. Later portait of Calvin laid down on verso of fly leaf as a frontis. Title page in facsimile, trimmed and laid on matching paper. Library stamps and some prior owner's notations on first and last few leaves. Some additional pencil and ink marginalia sparsely throughout. Decorative head and tail pieces, as well as capitals. Black line borders. Set in single column. Volume has a slight curve. Some scattered areas of toning, as well as faint area of dampstain at fore-edge in the rear tables (not into text), but otherwise, clean, bright, and tight throughout.
John Calvin (Jean Cauvin), 1509-1564, was a French reformer in Geneva. Calvin studied biblical languages and classical and Christian antiquity in Paris at the College Royal. His Institutes of the Christian Religion was first published in 1536 and has never been out of print. He greatly expanded it through numerous editions in French and Latin over the course of his life. His reputation in exegesis remains strong, as demonstrated by the popularity of his commentaries on the Bible, often republished and translated. A major subset of Reformed Protestantism is eponymously called Calvinism. (See Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, vol 1).
On a rather humerous note, in our own reading we count four places in which Calvin states that he values brevity: 2.3.2, 3.6.1, 3.11.5, 3.14.1 (pages 126, 327, 349, 369 in this copy, which runs to 749 pages. It seems about half way through the book Calvin gave up trying to convince himself or us that he could possibly be brief).
Ffep, blank, title, (20), 749, 153, blank, rfep
Page 17 of the otherwise-unnumbered prelims is erroneously numbered 107.
