[Bible, in Latin]

BIBLIA LATINA

      Nuremberg Anton Koberger 1478 Koberger's 3rd Latin Bible, 51 lines and headline, double column, canon marginalia in the Gospels. A profusion of 3- to 13-line rubricated initials in red, blue and magenta, many with lovely flourishes, red and blue paragraph marks and additional rubrication throughout. Royal folio (412 x 287mm); 16-1/8 x11-1/8, most probably a Koberger binding of contemporary German stamped calf over thick wood boards, the boards center-paneled and decorated in blind in a pattern resembling a foliate tool within lattice compartments and with a border of alternating rosettes and a separate foliate tool, embossed brass catches (3 of 4 remaining) with remains of straps and with endpapers from a printed edition of Persius. Some expert restoration in a few places. 468 leaves, complete. A very handsome and important copy with great likelihood coming from Koberger's workshop. THE THIRD EDITION OF THE KOBERGER LATIN BIBLE, issued three years after his first great folio Bible. Anton Koberger was for a number of years the leading publisher of his time. The total list of his printings for the forty years from 1473 to 1513, when he died, comprises no less than two-hundred and thirty-six separate works, including fifteen impressions of the Biblia Latina, eight of which presented material differences of notes and commentaries which entitled them to be considered as distinct editions. In the actual number of separate works issued, Koberger was possibly equaled by one or more of his contemporaries, but in respect to literary importance and costliness, and in the beauty and excellence of the typography, the Koberger publications were not equaled by any books of the time excepting the issues of Aldus in Venice (Putnam II, p. 150).
This third printing of Koberger's Latin Bible is essentially a reprint of his editions of 1477 and 1475, largely based on the Fust and Schoeffer edition of 1462. The tractate of Menardus is included which is a summary of the books of the Bible with a guide on how to best study them. It was first printed not after 1474. A beautiful example of the magnificent productions during the first generation of printed Bibles, the state of preservation and the impressive German binding making it all the more so.