GIGANTI, Girolamo.

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Tractatus de pensionibus ecclesiasticis, Second Venetian edition, enlarged from the first of 1542, of this legal treatise on ecclesiastical pensions by the Venetian jurist Girolamo Giganti (d. 1560), one of a few such 16th-century works dedicated to the subject. According to the title page, this edition contains additions by the author published here for the first time ("cum additionibus eiusdem auctoris nunc primum in lucem editis"). "Annual pensions", explains Richard H. Helmholz, "were a long-established feature of ecclesiastical life. They had many legitimate uses", but they were also subject to legal contest and abuse. Helmholz notes that while "no separate title of the Corpus iuris canonici was devoted to the subject", such pensions were "treated by name in titles dealing with ecclesiastical obligations and in time the subject spawned a modest academic literature" (pp. 72-3). The work takes the form of one hundred quaestiones, each addressing a particular aspect of the subject, and includes forms or examples of applications for pension transfers and cancellations. This edition includes the original dedication to Cardinal Benedetto Accolti, dated 1542, as well as a table of contents listing the quaestiones and a detailed index. The title page has no printer's name, only the woodcut device depicting a crowned salamander surrounded by flames. A similar device and imprint was used by many Venetian printers at this time.Between the first and second editions published in Veni

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