'Novum Testamentum' - New Testament interprete Theodoro Beza, published Amsterdam 1628, 64mo (9cm x 5.5cm) full calf with the bookplate of Lord Somers

Please see pics for condition and if you have any questions please ask them before bidding.

A rare book being even rarer due to the provenance of one of its past owners.

John somers Educated at King’s School, Worcester, privately at Sheriff Hales, Staffordshire, and at Walsall grammar school, Staffordshire. Matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford in 1667, and admitted to the Middle Temple in 1669; called to the bar in 1676, and became a bencher in 1689. MP for Worcester 1689-83. Knighted in 1689, and created Lord Somers, Baron of Evesham in 1697, Somers played an important part in the 1688 revolution settlement, and was one of the lords of the Whig junto. He held numerous appointments in the course of his meteoric career: principally solicitor-general 1689-92, attorney-general 1692-3, lord keeper 1693-7, lord chancellor1697-1700, and lord president of the council 1708-10. He was President of the Royal Society 1698-1703.

Books

Somers amassed over ten thousand books and manuscripts, which he kept at his houses in London and Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire. A catalogue in Latin in two volumes (BL Add. 40751-2) divided material under the main headings of ‘Theologia’, ‘Jurisprudentia’, ‘Historia’, ‘Scientiae et Artes’ and ‘Literae Humaniores'. He left no will, and his library, or parts of it, came into the possession of his brother-in-law Joseph Jekyll. Material was auctioned in 1717 (Motteaux’s auction room), 1739 (Paul’s Coffee House), and 1801 (T. King); another sale, apparently spurious, was advertised in newspapers in 1721.