De auctionibus libri duo : quorum prior venditiones, posterior locationes quae sub hasta fiunt, exequitur : adjecto passim voluntariarum auctionum jure

typis Johannis à Waesberge, bibliop., Trajecti ad Rhenum, first edition, 1653. Later wrappers and paper spine-label, woodcut printer's vignette on title-page, title in red and black, 4to, 20 cm,. [8].,465, [32] pp.Signatures: [three dots]4 A-3R4 [-3R4]. Scarce first edition, and a handsome copy, of this early modern discussion of auctions and the complex laws governing them. Matthaeus' work is one of the earliest and most extensive works on auction sales in the 17th century from a legal point of view; the rules governing them, their location, the sale of confiscated merchandise, etc. Anton Matthaeus was an eminent Dutch professor of jurisprudence and criminal law at Utrecht and according to Pollard and Ehrman 'produced the most elaborate of all these treatises on auctions'. - Matthaeus commences by defining the requisites for auctions as being: advertisement, admission to the public, and a system of bidding. In the case of stolen or confiscated property, for example, Matthaeus deals with the prickly question of whether the owner or the creditors have the upper hand and first rights to the goods on sale. He also addresses the question of under what circumstances an auction can be cancelled. Two signatures (one early) on front free endpaper, early inscription on title-page and one annotation to text, a little edgewear to front free endpaper, some waterstaining to fore-edge margins of first few leaves, a little agetoned, Good.