Institutio Christianae Religionis [...]. By John Calvin. Geneva: Robert Estienne, 1553, folio.
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All editions of Calvin's Institutes printed during his lifetime are exceptionally rare, particularly this first Estienne edition. The first two editions (1536 & 1541), for example, are unobtainable with no copies recorded to have sold in at least the last 50 years, with the third (1543) being practically unobtainable also. This first Estienne edition is one of the rarest and most desirable of the 16th century editions of Calvin's Institutes. Estienne's second edition of the Institutes (1559) became the definitive edition, of course being based on this first Estienne edition in both content and typography.
The introduction to Calvin’s Institutes, published by Westminster Press in 1960 writes the following about Estienne's printing of this edition:
"One of the greatest of Renaissance printers came to Geneva from Paris in 1550 and resumed there, in close association with the Geneva ministers, his lifework in the production of Bibles and religious texts that he had found it impossible to continue in France. This was Robert Estienne (Robertus Stephanus), a distinguished member of the great Estienne family of scholar printers to whom the New Learning and the Reformation owed a measureless debt. In February 1553, he brought out the finest edition of the Institutio that Calvin had yet seen, a folio volume 13.5 by 8.75 inches, almost faultlessly printed in handsome type. It contains 441 pages."
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Size: 230 x 326 mm (approx.)
Condition:
[a1-z8, A1-I6, K2-K5, (5)].
Bound in early boards, rubbed with some loss and staining, but overall a nice binding well preserved given the fragility of bindings like this, with both boards securely attached which were seemingly covered in marbled paper at some time which has now largely faded where extant. Title leaf loose but present. Some dampstaining, mostly to each end of the page block, but largely clean throughout with text legible. Some loss to final few leaves in the Index.
[Adams C359].
