Bodin, Jean Angevin (1530-1596): Les Six Livres de la Republique

JEAN ANGEVIN BODIN (1530–1596)

LES SIX LIVRES DE LA REPUBLIQUE
BOUND WITH : HERPIN RENÉ APOLOGIE DE RENÉ HERPIN POUR LA RÉPUBLIQUE DE J BODIN

A Geneve, Par Estienne Gamonet, M.D.C.XXIX
(1629)

Description: [in 8vo] – Pages. (20) , 1060, (44) + Leaves (80).

Jean Bodin (latinized Bodinus) was a 16th Century French jurist, natural law philosopher and precursor of Mercantilism. Born in Angers to a prosperous artisan family of Jewish origins, Bodin studied and taught Roman law at the university in Toulouse before becoming a lawyer in Paris around 1561. Bodin put forth what is generally acknowledged as one of the first statements of the Quantity Theory of Money, detailing the relationship between price levels and the money supply, generally speaking. Because money flows in the opposite direction of goods, Bodin recognized that exports of goods increased prices while imports lowered them. He was generally favorably-disposed towards free trade, believing it stabilized prices, helped bring nations together and promoted peace. Bodin also articulated a plan for a government-run commodity buffer stock scheme to stabilize wheat prices and an international agreement for monetary standards.

In 1571, Bodin entered the service of the king’s brother, the Duke of Alençon (later Anjou), and accompanied him to England. In the period 1576-1577, served as a delegate of the Third Estate in the Estates-General of Blois and threw his political lot in with Michel d’Hôpital, whose politiques faction was trying to construct a “third way” between the extremists of the Catholic Holy League and the Calvinist Union. Bodin urged for negotiations with the Calvinists rather than resumption of the religious wars and he opposed the sale of the monarchy’s lands to raise funds for any such endeavor. It was in fact during the height of his active political involvement that Bodin composed his celebrated Six Livres de la Republique (first ed. 1576), wherein he expounded his Theory of sovereignty, which were in many ways consonant with the political positions he had expounded at the Estates-General.

This copy also include as appendix to the main work the 1629 edition of the APOLOGIE DE RENÉ HERPIN POUR LA RÉPUBLIQUE (first printed in 1583) realized by the same Swiss printer in Geneva (Gamonet).

Full Contemporary stiff vellum. Woodcut printer’s device on title page, xylographically decorated capital letters, tail and head pieces in the text. A few wood cut in the texts. As a whole very nice copy with fresh interiors and rare spots of light browning, red faded painted edges and handwritten title on spine..

Cfr.: BAUDRILLART, Jean Bodin et son temps (Paris), 1853); FRANCK, Reformateurs et publicistes de
l’Europe (Paris, 1864); JANET, Histoire de la science politique (Paris, 1887); PMM Printing and the
Mind of Man, 94.
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