The Liber Belial (or Consolatio peccatorum), written in 1382 Giacomo Palladino (1349-1417) alias Jacopo from Teramo - that in his brilliant career was also bishop of Taranto - was one of the books most translated and printed in Europe between the fifteenth and sixteenth century.
The author imagines that the devils, after the descent of Jesus into Hell and the liberation of the souls of the Patriarchs, bring a lawsuit against Jesus Christ and give proxy to Belial.
The process that follows is described in all its phases in a context of political and theological allegories (was in progress the great schism of the West). Despite the obvious content of legal interest the Liber Belial isn’t studied so much perhaps for its recognized extravagance.
This book, edited by Francesco Mastroberti, presents a legal-historical survey on the edition in the vulgar italian (Venice 1544) of the Liber Belial through the dissolution and examination of legal citations contained.
With the text transcribed and annotated there is also a table of comparative legal citations found in lateran manuscript (XVth century) and in the oldest european print editions
