Leighton Library, Dunblane

Scotland's oldest purpose-built independent library founded in 1687

Leighton Library has 1615 edition of "Vitae romanorum pontificum" by Robert Barnes

Added at 06:58 on 30 July 2025

The Leighton Library has a 1615 edition of "Vitae romanorum pontificum" - the last work of English reformer & martyr Robert Barnes who was executed #OnThisDay 30 July 1540.

This is a compilation of, and commentary on, various acts from the reigns of past Popes. It is a reformer’s final rebuke - a chronicle that dared to challenge centuries of papal tradition with the pen of a condemned man.

Barnes used historical narrative as a theological weapon. Rather than abstract argument, he exposed what he saw as corruption and doctrinal drift in the papacy through documented acts and decisions of successive popes.

< Leighton Library has a 1656 first edition of "Poems: I. Miscellanies. II. The mistress, or, Love verses. III. Pindarique odes. And IV. Davideis" by Abraham Cowley