First edition of one of the earliest printed works devoted to finance, one of the first to carry printed signatures, and the author’s first printed text. Written during the Council of Basel, this treatise presents Segovia’s contribution to the debate surrounding the theory and practice of census in medieval theology and economics. In it he sets forth an extended argument for the moral neutrality of financial transactions involving lifetime or perpetual annuities relating to assets (or “census”) in distinction from usurious loan transactions (or “mutuum”).
John of Segovia was born toward the end of the 14th century and probably died in 1458. A canon at Toledo and professor of theology at Salamanca University, he came to prominence at the Council of Basel (143149) where he became one of the chief supporters of the revolutionary party. After the deposition of Eugene IV in 1439 he was appointed to the committee responsible for electing the antipope, Felix V, in November of that year, and in recognition of this service he was made cardinal. His Historia generalis concilii Basiliensis Libri XVIII, an extended account of the Council, remains a primary source of our information on it. At the end of the schism he resigned his cardinalate and became Bishop of Caesarea in 1447.
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