Malleus maleficarum, in tres diuisus partes, in quibus concurrentia ad maleficia, maleficiorum effectus, remedia aduersus maleficia, et modus procedendi, ac puniendi maleficos abunde continetur, praecipue autem omnibus inquisitoribus, & diuini uerbi concionatoribus utilis, ac necessarius. Auctore r.p.f. Iacopo Sprenger Ordinis praedicatorum, olim inquisitore clariss. Hac postrema editione per f. Raffaelem Maffeum Venetum. d. Iacobi a Iudeca instituti Seruorum summo studio illustratus, & a multis erroribus uindicatus. His adiecimus indices rerum memorabilium, et quaestionum. Author: Sprenger Jakob Second Italian (and Venetian) edition, following the first Italian one of 1574, also by Bertano. Publication: Venetiis apud Io. Antonium Bertanum, 1576 NOTE: so-called "B variant" with respect to the almost identical edition which reports as editorial data to the title page "ad Cadentis Salamandrae insigne", with typographical brand. This variant, instead, shows in both the title and the colophon the only mention to Bertano as a printer and his repeated typographical brand. Physical description: [64], 505 [i.e. 503], [9] p. Page numbering error: 33(37), 371(numbered twice),402(480), 433(434), 442(542). Underlining (16th-century, coeval to the first owner) on pages: 283,284,285,286,287,288,289,290,291,292,293,294,317,318,319,341,343,344,345,362,363,364 Size: 15 x 11 cm. Printer: Bertano, Giovanni Antonio - Venice Binding: coeval full parchment, firm and in excellent condition with title written on the spine. Malleus Maleficarum (literally "The Hammer of the Evil ones", that is "of the witches") is a Latin treatise published in 1487 by the Dominican friars Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Institor Kramer, in order to suppress heresy, paganism and witchcraft in Germany . It is the best known of the three main treatises published on the matter at the end of the fifteenth century: the other two were Formicarius by Johannes Nider (1475, written between 1436 and 1437) and De lamiis et phitonicis mulieribus (Of the witches and fortune tellers) ) by Ulrich Molitor (1489). Sheet A5r shows the famous Bull of Innocent VIII (dated 1484, first year of his pontificate) which is committed to fighting heresy and witchcraft, giving the powers to fight the 'enemies of the faith' to the authors of the Malleus, who had made an express request to the Pope himself. The Bull, since the first editions of the treatise, was inserted as a preface to the work of Sprenger and Kramer. It saw the light at a time when witchcraft was beginning to be seen as a form of Satanism. Condition: copy in excellent condition and complete with all sheets. Well preserved book; there is only a very small woodworm hole listed below: very small woodworm hole from page 234 to 367 (vertical wormholes with very small loss of text about 1cm at the widest point). Woodworm on the external side without text loss from 311 to 352 (less than 1 cm and almost invisible).