Lot 28: Hugo Grotius's foundational text on international law

[EARLY PRINTING - LAW]

GROTIUS, HUGO. De Jure Belli ac Pacis… Amsterdam: Janson-Waesberg, 1701. "Editio novissima." Contemporary blind-stamped parchment, manuscript spine title. 7 3/4 x 4 1/2 inches (20 x 11.75 cm); [10], xxxiv, 904, [16], 32, [104] pp., with engraved portrait frontispiece, and an additional engraved allegorical title. Moderate wear, soiling and scuffing to parchment, spine title somewhat faded, contents with intermittent light spotting and toning, a few small losses in margins, one affecting a small portion of text on an index leaf, ownership inscriptions to title and front pastedown.

A 1701 Amsterdam edition of Hugo Grotius' influential work on the theory of international law, De Jure Belli ac Pacis ("On the Law of War and Peace"), including his texts Mare Liberum ("On the Freedom of the Seas") and De Aequitate, Indulgentia et Facilitate, as well as an extensive index, and annotations by both Grotius and the German scholar Johann Friedrich Gronovius.