BIBLE - COMMENTARY - LATIN & OTHER LANGUAGES]. [John PEARSON, et al., compilers].

Critici Sacri: sive Annotata doctissimorum virorum in Vetus ac Novum Testamentum. Quibus accedunt tractatus varii theologico-philologici. Editio nova in novem tomos distributa, multis anecdotis commentariis, ac indice ad totum opus locupletissimo, aucta.Amsterdam, Utrecht, H. & the widow of D. Boom, J. & G. Janssonius van Waesberge, G. Borstius, A. van Someren, J. Wolters, W. van de Water [printing shared between Hendrik Wetstein and an unidentified printing office], 1698. Folio (38 x 23.5 cm). 9 volumes numbered as 8. With half-title; 2 title-pages in red and black, each with the same large engraved emblematic scene; 7 part-titles; 13 engraved plates (7 large folding) designated A & 1-12, mostly maps, plans and bird's-eye views, including

      (124) pp., 1132, 922 cols.; (4) pp., 566, 432, 496, 304 cols.; (8) pp., 1060, 1196 cols., (2) pp.; (2) pp., 992, 408, 272 cols.; (4) pp., 1020, 440, 838 cols.; (4) pp., 740, 352 cols., (2) pp., 464, 168 cols.; (4), lxiv pp., 1000, 800, 550 cols.; (4) pp., 1376, 1190 cols.; (4) pp., 616 cols., (2) pp., 232 cols., (2) pp., 1544 cols., (72) pp. STCN (8 copies),A great monument to biblical scholarship, comprising nearly 10,000 pages of commentaries by well over fifty sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scholars, perhaps the most ambitious universal Bible commentary ever compiled. The present second (first Netherlands) edition includes 13 stunning large engraved plates and is also a typographic monument of the greatest importance. The commentaries and criticism are arranged not by author, but by the Bible passages they discuss, so that one can readily read and compare the views of all the leading scholars concerning any passage. The present edition mentions the compilers only at the end of the preface taken over from the first edition (London 1660), principally John Pearson (1613-1686), Bishop of Chester and later Professor of Theology at Cambridge, with his colleagues Anthony Scattergood, Francis Gouldman and Richard Pearson. They brought together texts by Erasmus, Sebastian Münster, Joannes Drusius, Benedictus Arias Montanus, Isaac Casaubon, Edward Brerewood, Kaspar Waser, Hugo Grotius, Petrus Cunaeus, Joseph Scaliger, Johannes Cloppenburg, James Ussher and many more. Volumes 1-4 cover the Old Testament, volume 5 the Apocrypha and Jewish antiquities, and volumes 6-8 the New Testament. The dedication to Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg, and the five-page note to the reader are new to this edition.The main (Latin) text is set in roman types supplemented by italic, with numerous extensive passages in Greek and Hebrew (some running over several pages and some with a parallel Latin translation), one extensive passage in Syriac and shorter passages in Arabic, textura (used for Dutch and English) and fraktur (used for German). Neither the plates nor the engravings in the text or on the title-pages are signed, but they are fine pieces of work. The world map, ten other plates and one engraving in the text are based on those first published in Plantin's Polyglot Bible (1568-1573) where most were prepared by Arias Montanus. The world map shows how the world was repopulated by Noah's three sons after the flood, and the origin of the present version (and that with "Tom. VI. pag. 553, probably from the 1660 Critici Sacri ) has long puzzled cartographers (see Shirley 125 and his corrigenda). Its inclusion of the northern part of a large land mass south of the East Indies has encouraged speculations about an early sighting of Australia. The lovely scenes of the Garden of Eden and the Flood in the margins of the present version do not appear on any of the earlier ones. The present versions of Arias Montanus's maps are not in Laor (cf. 45, 46 & 945) or Poortman & Augusteijn (cf. chapter 14, items 1-4).Isaac Walton's London Polyglot Bible (1655-1657) secured England's place in the world of biblical scholarship. While both its preparation and its publication stimulated a great deal of new scholarship, its parallel presentation of eighteen Bible texts in nine languages left limited room for commentary. The 1660 Critici Sacri in nine volumes was the first and most extensive attempt to fill this gap, the only comparable work being Matthew Poole's five-volume Synopsis Criticorum (1669-1676). Both were printed by James Flesher in London. English book production still lagged behind Dutch at this date, however, so the present second edition reaps the typographic benefits of the Dutch Golden Age. It was published by a syndicate of six bookseller/publishers in Amsterdam and Utrecht, but the typographic materials and their distribution in the book suggest that the printing was shared by Hendrik Wetstein and another unidentified printing office. The rich c