Summa Angelica de casibus conscientiae by Angelo Carletti di Chivasso printed in 1491 in Strassburg by Martin Flach.
The first edition of the Summa Angelica appeared in the year 1476 and from that year to the year 1520 it went through 31 editions, 25 of which are preserved in the Royal Library at Munich. The "Summa" is divided into 659 articles arranged in alphabetical order and forming what would now be called a dictionary of moral theology. The most important of these articles is the one entitled "Interrogationes in Confessione". It serves, in a way, as an index to the whole work.
This incunabulum ( a book, pamphlet or broadside that was printed (not handwritten) before the year 1501 in Europe) was donated to the library by Prof. A. van Selms. It is the oldest book in die Library and is still in excellent condition, the binding intact and a few pages showing slight water damage.
Blessed Angelo Carletti di Chivasso was a noted moral theologian of the Order of Friars Minor ; born at Chivasso in Piedmont in 1411 and died at Coni, in Piedmont in 1495.
As noted in catholic hagiography, Angelo as Blessed Angelo was "known from early age for the holiness and purity of his life". He attended the University of Bologna where he received the degree of Doctor of Civil and Canon Law. It was probably at the age of thirty that he entered the Order of Friars Minor.
