Bidspirit auction | Régia officina Typográfica

Régia officina Typográfica - Estatutos da Universidade de Coimbra - Régia officina Typográfica, 1773. Published in Lisbon in 1773 at the Royal Printing Office, by order of King José I, this magnificent set of three volumes (18 cm) constitutes the historic edition of the ”Statutes of the University of Coimbra, ” compiled by the Board of Literary Provision for the celebrated Pombaline reform of education. Comprising Volume I (XXII + 374 p.), Volume II (XIII + 584 p.), and Volume III (XIV + 399 p.), the work includes at the beginning the important Royal ”Charter of Confirmation” and is in very good general condition, perfectly bound by elegant period half-bindings in brown leather with corners, plates in handmade marbled paper with a gilded transitional border, smooth spines decorated with heraldic floral motifs and gilded borders, carmine edges, and sound and firm text block. The first volume stands out for its high collectible value, displaying on its flyleaf an erudite old handwritten annotation in graphite pencil that chronologically lists all the previous statutes of the university since King Dinis (1309), establishing this collection as a bibliographic piece of the highest order for the history of the Enlightenment in Portugal.