In his attempts to re-establish the Roman Empire, the Emperor Justinian (r. 527-565) revised the Roman legal system to better manage the territories of the empire. This was produced in four parts. The fourth, the Novellae Constitutiones, although initiated after 534, was not compiled until after Justinian's death.

This 1558 edition of the Novellae is printed in Greek. It was edited by the Scottish diplomat, lawyer and book collector Henry Scrimgeour (c. 1504-72). Born in Dundee, Scrimgeour studied at St Andrews before travelling to Paris, where he came to the attention of the French king, Henri II (r. 1547-59). He later embarked on a diplomatic career in northern Italy and Switzerland. It was while in Switzerland he edited the new edition of the Novellae which was published by Henri Estienne, under the patronage of the banker Ulrich Fugger.

Binding information

This was one of the books selected in the 1960s by Olwen Hedley as being an example of fine bookbinding in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Hedley’s ‘Additional Bookbindings’ serves as a supplement to the catalogue of fine bindings compiled in 1893 by the Royal Librarian Richard Rivington Holmes.

Bound in light-brown goatskin, it has the coat of arms of Jacques Auguste de Thou (1553-1617), a French historian and book collector, stamped in gold on both covers. Each compartment of the spine is tooled with initials in the distinctive style of spines of books from de Thou's library.