[BIBLE - NEW TESTAMENT - LATIN].

Sanctum Jesu Christi Evangelium Secundum Matthaeum Secundum Marcum Secundum Lucam Secundum Joannem. Acta Apostolorum, Hieronymo interprete.INCLUDING: Pauli Apostoli Epistolae ... Epistolae Catholicae ... Apocalypsis Beati Joannis.[colophon:] Cologne, Johann Soter for Peter Quentel, 1527. 16mo (9.5 x 7 cm). 2 parts in 1 volume. With 1 title-page and 1 part-title, 8 decorative (mostly historiated) woodcut initials (2 or 3 series) plus 19 repeats, and occasional vine-leaf ornaments. Set in roman type, with small caps used for emphasis. Blind-tooled brown morocco (ca. 1860?) by John Wright in L...

      235; "170" [= 171], (20), (1 blank) ll. VD 16, B-4245 (3 copies); cf. Darlow & Moule 6104 (similar Colines New Testament of 1525); not in Adams; BMC STC German, for the binder: Maggs, Bookbinding in the British Isles, 1996, no. 256; Ramsden, p. 154. Rare early edition of a miniature Latin Vulgate New Testament. The first part contains the four gospels and Acts; the second the Epistles and Revelations. An index with readings for holidays and special Sundays follows part two. Although wholly reset and printed on different paper stocks (bull's head, Basel crosier and no mark, rather than small fleur-de-lis), the present edition follows Soter's 1526 edition nearly line for line (departing on the last two pages of part 1), uses the same initial letters and even copies an error in the pagination. That edition appears to have followed the 1525 16mo edition of Colines at Paris or Thibault at Antwerp, perhaps the first New Testaments in such a small format. Less than a decade after Martin Luther proclaimed his ninety-five theses, there was growing demand for Bibles inexpensive enough to reach a wide range of educated laymen, rather than remain the province of the priests, and the notion that everyone should read the Bible was to become a tenet of the Protestant revolution. Hence the turn to smaller formats. The book is also an early example of small caps used to emphasize words (in this case names) in the text, a task later often delegated to italic. The roman type, measuring 63 mm/20 lines (9 point), is in the "Venetian" style that was not to be chalenged outside Italy until 1529. The binding is stamped "J[ohn] Wright" on the front pastedown. Wright worked in Noel Street, Soho, in 1851, and Ramsden calls him "a binder of the highest order." With some marginal annotations in a contemporary hand. With tears into the text on 2 pages repaired slightly affecting text, but otherwise in very good condition. With one of two one blank leaves. A very rare and early miniature New Testament.