SANCHEZ (Thomas).

Disputationum de S[ancto] Matrimonii sacramento. Venice, Joannes Guerilius, 1619. 3 volumes in 2 in-folio, vellum, three-ribbed spine with title in ink (19th century binding). Famous treatise on marriage by the Spanish Jesuit Thomas Sanchez (1550-1610), whose original edition appeared in Genoa in 1592. The work, which was intended for confessors, is a perfect example of the Catholic Church's obsession with classifying sins, especially those of the flesh: it offers an incredibly detailed catalogue of all possible varieties of lust. Read Sanchez to learn the vocabulary of cases of conscience and to see all the filthy questions that confessors can ask their penitents, says the anticlerical Pierre Larousse in his great dictionary. The work is sought after today for its outrageously pornographic aspect. Volume III, a contemporary manuscript leaf in Latin has been bound between pages 32-33. Stamps on the titles. From the Jean-Claude Carrière library (I, 2013, n°257). Some light foxing, small paper loss to 2 leaves (with damage to the running title for one of them), 2 leaves detached, worm work in the inner margin of a quire. Small wormholes in the spines. Lining and endpapers renewed.