Augustin. Si la torture est un moyen seur a verifier les crimes secrets; dissertation morale et juridique, par laquelle il est amplement traité des abus qui se commettent par tout en l'instruction des

by NICOLAS

£2,500 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

NICOLAS, Augustin. Si la torture est un moyen seur a verifier les crimes secrets; dissertation morale et juridique, par laquelle il est amplement traité des abus qui se commettent par tout en l'instruction des procés criminels, ... ouvrage necessaire à tous juges… Amsterdam: Chez Abraham Wolfgang près de la Bourse. 1681. Small 8vo. Contemporary mottled sheep, boards ruled in blind, spine blind-ruled in compartments and lettered directly in gilt, edges sprinkled red and blue; pp. 224, [8], woodcut initials, head-, and tailpieces; extremities a little rubbed, joints splitting at foot, tail of spine chipped, remnants of paper label to foot of spine; title a little dust-soiled, light variable toning and spotting, but overall a very good, crisp copy; eighteenth-century annotations in ink to front free endpaper, and 3 ff. loosely inserted notes in the same hand; manuscript ink correction to A2; eighteenth-century ink shelfmark and engraved armorial bookplate of Alexandre Le Mareschal of Beauvais (1802–1875) to front pastedown. First edition of one of the earliest European works to openly criticise judicial torture, particularly in the prosecution of witchcraft, with eighteenth-century annotations referring to contemporary controversies on the abolition of torture. Augustin Nicolas (1622–1695), magistrate, royal councillor, and sometime president of the Parlement of Dijon, published Si la torture est un moyen seur à vérifier les crimes secrets as a sustained attack on the use of tor

• Binding: Hardcover

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