ANGELUS de Clavasio (gest. 1495), Summa Angelica de casibus conscientiae: cum multis et valde necessariis additionibus noviter insertis. Straßburg, Jmpensis Joannis Reynmande et Joannis Knoblauch, 1513, 31. August. Quart. (Reprint Vico Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2013) Titelblatt mit Bordüre, (15), CCCXII (312)gezählte Blätter. Half-linen. Order-no.: IC-86 ISBN 978-3-940176-76-9 available Most important Encyclopedy of Law and Religion in the late medieval epoch!

The Summa Angelica, the most important canon (law) lexicon of the late Middle Ages, was first edited in 1486. It is an alphabetically arranged compendium consulted by the clergy and laypersons when dealing with legal matters. The legal position of the church and also matters of everyday life were the focus of the Summa Angelica. In the preface, Angelus de Clavasio addresses expressly a legally versed readership. The index and table of authors differs scarcely from the canonical literature, the table of legal sources not one iota from the Roman law literature, of that era: Institutiones, Digestum Vetus, Infortiatum, Digestum Novum, Decretum Gratiani, Liber Extra etc. The Summa Angelica also gained fame because it was one of the books the reformer Martin Luther condemned as cursed papist literature to the flames in Wittenberg in 1517, feeding the bonfire he had ignited as a mark of protect against the church in Rome and the pope. Angelus Carletanus was born in Chiavasso, hence his epithet “de Clavasio”. He spent most of his life in Rome, where he also died in 1495.

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