Bible. Latin. Vulgate. 1529

Textus Biblie

      [colophon: Impressum autem Lugduni {i.e.,Lyons}:: per Joha[n]nem Crespin,, M.ccccc.xxix {1529}].. Full calf old style: Round spine with gilt-accented raised bands and with title, place, and date gilt-stamped directly on spine; blind rules extending onto covers from each band to terminate in a trefoil, and covers framed in blind double fillets. Title-leaf crinkled; the occasional stain; moderate soil, light old staining, and/or wear variously to upper outer corners, lower gutter corners, and the odd foremargin, with a number of strengthenings to these instances. Marginalia slightly trimmed in 19th century. Library rubber-stamp on lower edges of closed volume; heavy library pencilling to a rear blank; no other such marks. = Overall a good and satisfactory copy of a nicely illustrated Renaissance book.. Folio extra. [18], 268, [17] ff. . Handsome and substantial are two terms that immediately come to mind regarding this large Renaissance-era Latin-language Bible. In addition to the main text, the volume has "concordantiis veteris et noui testamenti . . . quas utriusqz iuris professor . . . Johannes de Gradibus concordantibus congruisqz apposuit locis." Further we are told it was "reuisa, correcta [et] emendata . . . accedunt . . . ex . . . Iosephi libris exhauste auctoritates, quas . . . Ioha[n]nes de Gradibus concordantibus congruis[que] apposuit locis. . . ."#11; The text is printed in double-column format in a modified gothic type with liberal use of four-line woodcut, historiated, cribl!, and other initials, and illustrated with = more than 120 woodcuts. The woodcuts of the Old Testament are of good size, measuring approximately 3.8 x 6 cm (1.5" x 2.25") and with their four-element frames each one fills a text column left to right (5.5 x 8.5 cm; 2.25" x 3.25"). The cuts, "with the exception of the Creation, are close copies of those used in Jacques and Jean Mareschal's Lyons Bibles of 1523-1541" (Mortimer). They are also closely related to those used in Sacon's Bibles, which were by Hans Springinklee. The bottom border element on some has the initials "P B A" and the left and right elements of other frames read "Pour" "LEM." The New Testament illustrations are smaller, 5.5 x 3.5 cm (2.25" x 1.375"), and each fills only half a column left to right.#11; There are three much larger woodcuts: On folio CXXIX verso is a multi-image, half-page cut of King Solomon, measuring 13.5 x 16.2 cm (5.375" x 6.5"), and on D4 recto a three-quarter-page rendering of the Nativity measuring 20.5 x 18 cm (8" x 7"). = Genesis opens with a gorgeous six-panel cut that is yet a bit larger, depicting God in His six days of Creation.#11; The title-page is printed in black and red, with the type contained in a four-element border that incorporates a scene of the Last Supper, images of the Creation different from those illustrating Genesis, and a very large capital element (i.e., tympanum) with the words "Ad Laudem et Gloriam Sanctissime Trinitatis" above images of God the Father and two angels. In the four corners of the title-page are the four Evangelists. The printing of the Canons is also in black and red, framed within columned "temples" fully printed in red.#11; Provenance: Inscription of a monastery to title-page, minute name of "Fray Baptista O'Sullivan, with an 1890's date, to a rear blank.#11; Evidence of readership: Scattered throughout are short marginal notes in a late 17th- or early 18th-century continental hand, in Latin, as well as underscoring and marks in the margins of important passages or words or thoughts.#11; This is the second Crespin edition, the first having appeared in 1527.