NEW TESTAMENT. Latin text.:

NOVUM TESTAMENTUM. Interprete Sebastiano Castalione.

      Basel, Ioannes Oporinus, 1553. NEW TESTAMENT, Latin text. Second edition, 8vo, 170 x 95 mm, 6.75" x 3.75", 501 pages with side notes, ruled throughout in reddish brown, title lined in yellow on title page, decorated initials to each book with same early yellow colouring, bound in full contemporary calf, rebacked to style with gilt motif and title between raised bands, covers panelled in blind with gilt motif at corners and in centre, all edges gilt, original red ruled endpapers. Corners worn with slight loss of leather to tips, lower cover worn with some loss of surface and loss of leather on fore-edge, small scrape to upper cover also, inner paper hinges repaired expertly, small armorial bookplate on first pastedown, closed tear to 2 margins, 1 just affecting text, neatly repaired, all still legible, tip missing from 2 corners, a few marginal notes and a few underlinings, both in very pale ink, contents otherwise clean, binding tight and firm. A very good copy of a scarce Latin New Testament. The translator Sebastien Chateillon (1515-1563) was an associate of Calvin and an important figure in the early years of the Reformation. Through the influence of Calvin he was appointed rector of a school in Geneva, from which he was expelled on theological grounds in 1544. He subsequently became a professor of Greek in Basel and there published his famous Latin version of the Bible (1551). Calvin had refused permission for this in Geneva when he realised that Chateillon's translation threatened his authority on a number of points of theological interpretation. A separate edition of Chateillon's New Testament was issued also in 1551. A striking characteristic of Chateillon's Latin version is his use of classical substitutes for recognised ecclesiastical terms such as fanum for templum, respublica for ecclesia, collegium for synagoga. Chateillon also made a French version of the Bible from the Hebrew and Greek published in 1555 also in Basel. See Darlow and Moule, II,1 3720 and II,2 6131. Image attached with this item, if you use addall please click BUY IT to see image. More images sent on request.