Summa Angelica de Casibus Conscientiae by Angelo
Carletti di Chivasso printed in 1491 in Strassburg by Martin
Flach
The first edition of the Summa Angelica
appeared in the year
1476, and from that year to the year 1520 it went through 31
editions, 25 of which are preserved in the Royal Library at
Munich. The "Summa" is divided into 659 articles arranged in
alphabetical order and forming what would now be called a
dictionary of moral theology. The most important of these
articles is the one entitled "Interrogationes in Confessione". It serves, in a way, as an index to the whole work. This incunabulum
( a book, pamphlet or broadside that was printed (not
handwritten) before the year 1501 in Europe),
was donated to the
library by Prof. A. van Selms . It is the oldest book in the
library and is still in excellent condition, the binding intact
and a few pages showing slight water damage.
Blessed Angelo Carletti di Chivasso
was a noted moral theologian of the Order of Friars
Minor ; born at Chivasso in Piedmont in 1411 and died at Coni,
in Piedmont in 1495.
As noted in Catholic hagiography,
Angelo as Blessed Angelo was "known from early age for the
holiness and purity of his life". He attended the
University of Bologna where he received the degree of Doctor of
Civil and Canon Law. It was probably at the age of thirty
that he entered the Order of Friars Minor.
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