THE STATUTES AND PRIVILEGES OF THE REVERENDA FABBRICA: NO COPY IN AUCTION RECORDS. 4to. [22.2 x 16.6 cm]. (4), 152 pp, (12). With large woodcut of St. Peter on title-page. Bound in contemporary vellum with manuscript title on spine; all edges marbled in red. A fine, unsophisticated copy. First edition of this collection of decrees and edicts relating to the privileges enjoyed by the Reverenda Fabbrica di San Pietro. From its establishment in 1523 as a commission of 60 experts tasked with the construction and maintenance of the Basilica to its reconstitution in 1593 under Clement VIII, the Congregatio had morphed into a powerful and wide-ranging organization, as reflected in the present document. While in earlier periods the Reverenda Fabbrica had been tasked with commissioning projects from the likes of Michelangelo, by the present date its vast resources necessitated the often mundane legal protections described here, including laws governing gifts and legacies for the Basilica; civil and criminal cases against its employees or contractors; and the privileges which its members were allowed to grant to others. On pp. 125-129, for example, we find an edict (in Italian) “to secure and bring from the mountains of Cottanello to Rome, at the orders of His Holiness Pope Innocent X, twenty-four columns of mixed stone to complete the magnificent ornament made by his Holiness in the six great chapels of the Sacrosanct Basilica Vaticana…”. For the project, according to the text, a new road was opened to allow the passage of the stones, but in certain places this road was also co-opted by locals transporting “grain, fodder, or vegetables” as well as buffalos, to the impediment of the Fabbrica’s activities. The edict thus singles out particular residents of these communes to cease their activities and allow the carriages and workforce of the Fabbrica to operate in peace. Elsewhere, we find punishments for those who engage in fraudulent activities with the Congregation (they will be excommunicated!); laws against debtors to the Congretation; restrictions on paupers harassing members of the Congregation; a 500 ducat fine against printers who publish anything referring to the Fabbrica (p. 12); and so on. The present first edition is held in the US at Columbia, NG, U Penn, Berkeley Law, Yale, and Harvard. By the time of the second edition of 1762, the congregation had undergone considerable changes, having been divided into two distinct sections under Benedict XIV in 1751. Aside from a copy of the 1762 privileges edition sold at Swann in 2023, we have been unable to trace any copy of any edition in auction records. * cf eg. Calvi, Bibliografia generale di Roma #1984n (only having seen the 1762 edition).