INTRODUCING MARITIME AND COMMERCIAL LAW

STRACCHA, BENUENUTI. [BENVENUTO STRACCA].

De mercatura, seu Mercatore tractatus.

Venetiis [Venice], Cum Preivilegio [Paolo Manuzio], 1553.

8vo. In a contemporary unrestored vellum binding with three raised bands. Later paper labels pasted on to upper and lower part of spine. "Stracc. / de /Mercat." written in contemporary hand to spine. Upper and lower part of front hinge slightly cracked. "sum Marii D'Abbatis" written in contemporary hand to pasted down front free end-paper. Early oval stamp on verso of title-page with monogram. Aldine woodcut device to title-page (Ahmanson-Murphy device no: B2). Occasional marginal annotations and very light occasional marginal water-staining. Tiny wormhole in blank outer margin not affecting text. A very nice, clean, and completely unrestored copy. (40), 287, (1) ff. (with the four blanks 5+6-8 and 2N8). As usual with the typopgraphical errors: "63 '64', 85 '87', 87 '85', 102 '106', 165 '167', 174 '176', 176 '178'". These errors are to be found in all published copies.

Exceedingly rare first edition of Stracca's highly important work on merchant-, economic insurance-, and insurance-law. With the present work, Stracca provided the first systematic exposition of commercial law, in particular maritime law, which he was the first to view as distinct from civil law. He was furthermore the first to consider these aspects of the law from a practical point of view, thereby breaking with the late Medieval scholastic law-tradition.

Maritime law, often referred to as admiralty law, was developed in Venice in the middle of the 13th century, prompted by the extensive Mediterranean sea trade in which the republic engaged. Legal agreements concluded between consortiums were ad hoc and even though by the time of Straccha, the practice was both well-established and quite refined when one compares to the rest of Europe, no full and systematic exposition of the subject had been published, until Straccha wrote his influential treatise. The work was extremely influential and extremely popular with eight reprints in the 17th century (after the present first edition from 1553: 1555, 1556, 1558, 1575, 1576, 1595, 1599). Numerous reprints in the course of the 17th century bear witness to its longstanding influence.

"In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, continental jurists began to regard the affairs of merchants as matter of sufficient interest to warrant special attention and separate treatment in legal writing. Beginning with Benvenuto Straccha's De Mercatura, seu Mercatore Tractatus published in Venice in 1553, a substantial literature on commercial law developed." (Rogers, The Early History of the Law of Bills and Notes, p. 151)

Stracca's work deals with the merchant class and commerce in general; mercantile contracts, maritime law, and how to deal with bankruptcy. "His work contains information of interest to economists. He shows the usefulness of trade and navigation; discusses the restrictions on certain branches of trade, and expresses comparatively moderate opinions on the theory of usury." (Palgrave).

The aspect of insurance was particularly important to Venetian traders, for whom the loss of a single ship could mean bankruptcy. Initially, smaller companies went into coorporation with other smaller companies and created consortiums in order to spread out the risk. Eventually, the practice of insuring oneself through such consortiums became commercialized which lead to the emergence of companies that profited from this line of business: "A separate sector in which there were many opportunities for making profit from money was insurance. In this sector the damnum emergens [ensuing expense] had a purely hypothetical basis, not a real one. Certainly the element of risk played a plausible role in the case of transport by sea: a subject that was particularly dear to the Ancona jurist Benvenuto Stracca, author of one of the first treatises on trade law and editor of a large collection of writings on mercantile doctrine and jurisprudence." (Palgrave).

Not in BM STC
Renouard 156:6. "Ce volume imprimé en petites lettres rondes est rare."
Einaudi 5491.
Kress 69.
Goldsmiths 52.
Adams S.1911.
Ahmanson-Murphy 444
Houkes p. 237

Order-nr.: 50627