Omnium homicidiorum examen in duas partes dispertitum, Quarum prima, Ad fiscum potissimè spectantia dilucidat, secunda, Quae reis principaliter prosunt accuratè complectitur.
Venice: Lorenzo Basilio, 1728.
Price: $3,900.00
Octavo: 19 x 12.5 cm. [16], 243, [5] pages. Collation: a8, A-P8
SOLE EDITION.
Bound in contemporary carta rustica. Untrimmed, with deckled edges preserved throughout. Fine condition with just a few leaves spotted. Extremely rare. OCLC and KVK locate 4 copies outside of Italy, only 1 of which is in North America (Harvard Law Library).
The work has been attributed to Bartolommeo Mlechiori, who also authored a book on criminal law, “Miscellanea di materie criminali, volgari e latine, composta secondo le leggi civili e venete” (Venezia, 1741). The author’s name appears only once in the book, on the final leaf of text as “Bart. Melchi.”
Problems addressed in Part I include: examination, by the court, of murder victims (with a special section on identifying victims of poisoning); identifying a murderer via cruentation (the common belief that the body of the victim would spontaneously bleed in the presence of the murderer); where to try murder by decapitation when the head is found in one jurisdiction and the body in another; charging and incarcerating those accused of murder; modern versus ancient forms of punishment for the crime of murder; whether a person can claim ecclesiastical immunity from prosecution; punishments for accessories to the crime; whether causing the death of a child in utero, killing a deformed child, or causing the death of a child through exposure, are to be considered murder; whether killing someone willing to die or committing suicide should be considered acts of murder.
Part II deals with problems such as: whether one who attempts murder be judged the same as a murderer; if a wounded person dies of wounds that were in fact curable (or if the victim dies because of poor medical care), is the one who inflicted the wound guilty of murder?; Whether killing in self-defense is justified; whether killing one’s wife or husband for cheating is justified, etc.