Author

CATHERINE II, the Great.

Title

Nakaz [...] dannyy kommissii o sochinenii proekta novago ulozheniya.
Instruction [...] pour la commission chargee de dresser le projet d'un nouveau code de loix. Instruction fúr die zu Verfertigung des Entwurfs zu einem neuen Gesetz-Buche verordnete Commission. Instrvctio [...] coetvi convocato ad conficiendam ideam novi legvm codicis.

Published, Date

Imp. Akad. Nauk, Skt. Peterburg,1770.

Description

Quarto (24.5 x 21 cm). Title pages in German, French, Russian and Latin, 403 pp. with 4 head- and tailpieces engraved by C. M. Roth after I.d. Stehlin; occasional larger waterstain and light moulding to lower part of some pages. Contemporary German half calf over brown paper boards, spine with raised bands decorated in compartments, paper label to one lettered in German; rubbed.

Note

"The best and most luxurious edition" of Catherine's famous 'Great Instructions', such described by Count M.A. Korf, then director of the Imperial Library. Originally published and "signé de la propre main de Sa Majeste Imperiale" in 1768. These instructions were "largely compiled and adapted by Catherine personally from the texts of Montesquieu and Beccaria. Although the project was never brought to fruition, the impulse behind it stands as one of the nobler concepts of Catherine's reign" (Fekula 2013, for a later edition).

References

Burtsev 989; Drage 208; Fekula 2013; Sopikov 6456 ('best edition'); SK 2151.

Stock Number

84165