?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 500
Salamonius, Marius (pseudonym) De Principatu Libri VI.
Paris: Excedebat Dionysius du Val, 1578.
Second edition, octavo, Salamonius styled himself as "Patritius Romanus" and has yet to be identified; typographical ornaments to title, printer's woodcut device to verso of title; early monastic ownership inscription and note mentioning the addendum found after the text; title slightly frayed at top edge, with small hole in blank bottom margin; several small holes in final few leaves; bound in full contemporary limp parchment, rare at auction, 6 3/4 x 4 1/4 in.
This work is an early philosophical treatise that lays much logical groundwork for the idea of a social contract, which did not exist at the time. A Monarchomachic wave began in France in the late 16th century as scholars proposed that removal of a tyrannical ruler who did harm to the people was morally and philosophically sound. "[In De Principatu] the basis is laid for the idea of a sovereignty of the people as a historical entity. And [...] we have formulations of the purpose of societal existence, primarily utilitarian but also echoing the Aristotelian 'good life,' limiting the functions of government to those of the modern welfare state." (Quoted from Eric Voegelin's History of Political Ideas, volume 5, University of Missouri Press, 1997, pages 42-44.)
