Institutes of the Christian Religion

16 August 1559, in Geneva

The colophon of the definitive Latin edition records that Robert Estienne completed printing it at Geneva on 16 August 1559.

It was Estienne's last dated work; he died on 7 September.

The colophon securely establishes completion of printing, although it does not necessarily identify the first day copies were sold.

Four books, eighty chapters

The edition recast Calvin's treatise into four books and eighty chapters, advertised on its title page as so greatly enlarged that it could almost be considered a new work.

The volume ran to [16], 564 and [28] pages — theological text, preliminary matter and an index — roughly five times the size of the first Latin edition.

That four-book structure broadly echoes the Apostles' Creed, though the individual books are not merely paraphrases of four creed clauses.

How many editions is itself a question

This was Calvin's final authorially revised Latin form of the Institutes. The corresponding definitive French edition followed in 1560.

Bibliographies count editions differently, because they variously include reprints and intermediate impressions. The Folger calls this the definitive fourth edition, while other scholarly lists count five or more Latin editions.