Bibliopoly

SALMASIUS Claudius.

De usuris liber.

Description

Leiden, Elzevier, 1638. 8vo: device on title-page. A nice binding of antique style speckled calf. The first edition of the first of de Saumaise's three works in which he defended the legality of charging moderate interest on loans. Official Church teaching had for centuries forbidden usury, Protestant and Catholic alike maintaining the ban in ecclesiastical law. Saumaise 'made the first unequivocal assertion of the modern doctrine of interest' (Clark) and this must be considered a key work in the history of capitalism. Kress 536.