This Bible is illustrated with two full-page and 130 in-text woodcuts (including some repeated images), a few of which have early hand-coloring, mostly but not entirely in green or yellow. One full-page cut shows the six days of Creation — partially hand-colored in green, brown, red, blue, and yellow — while another depicts the manger scene. The text is followed by the Interpretationes nominum hebraicorum, a dictionary of Hebrew names often appended to manuscript and early printed Bibles.

Binding: Contemporary blind-tooled, alum-tawed pigskin over beech boards, elaborately worked using embossing rolls with religious vignettes and busts. Covers with etched metal corner bosses and remnants of leather and metal clasps.

•  Adams B988; c.f. Darlow & Moule 6101 & 6091. Binding as above, spine with hand-inked title; overall dust-soiled and darkened with several short tears to leather; leather no longer tight to the boards. Straps, clasp locking-mechanisms, and lower front metal corner now lost. Title-page and final two ff. of Interpretationes lacking; front pastedown separated from board and back pastedown lacking. First and last few leaves with insect damage to outer edges. First text page (contents) with old institutional rubber-stamp and shadow of pencilled numeral. A few leaves separated; a number of leaves with short tears from lower margins, a few extending into text, in many cases with traces of old repairs. Two leaves with lower outer corners torn away, one repaired some time ago. Pages age-toned, some waterstained. Scattered contemporary inked marginalia; some light underlining and a few instances of early inked doodling. Despite its faults, this is rare and imposing.

Provenance: 17th-century spine label with initials “S.F.” and a tree design between them. Ownership signature of Gordon Duff; Yale University (bookplate) — deaccessioned.

•  Edition: Moreau, II, 930; Shaaber, British Authors Printed Abroad, P57; not in Darlow & Moule. Binding: Fogelmark, Flemish and Related Panel-Stamped Bindings, plate XXXII R.46 & pp. 48–49. Volume rebacked and much of old spine reapplied. Lacks title-leaf. All initials highlighted in red; occasional early underlining. Missing leaf notwithstanding (though it does lower the price), a very nice copy in a notable early binding.

Melanchthon (1497–1560), the great Humanist and Luther's friend and supporter, wrote the preface to this edition. The three leaves bearing that essay are missing from this copy and this may be due to a Catholic or Inquisitorial censor removing them so that the text of the Bible proper could be used by Catholic readers. All of Melanchthon's writings, including introductions, were on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. The text of the Bible proper, here, is complete.

The text of the O.T. "follows the Aldine Bible of 1518; with variant readings, and restoration of the usual order in Provers and Ecclesiasticus. The Apocrypha are grouped together as in No. 4602 [i.e., the Strassburg edition of 1524–26]. The N.T. text appears to agree with the quarto edition printed at Basel in 1545" (Darlow & Moule). The New Testament just referred to was the sole Greek-only Testament that Froben published and it follows the text of the fourth Greek N.T. of Erasmus, meaning that the N.T. here is also a close reprinting of the Erasmus fourth.

Provenance: Late-17th- / early-18th-century ownership signature of "Pet. Wedderburn; 18th-century bookplate of Lord Eliock; later pencilled signature of "[?].T. Coleridge" (not Samuel Taylor Coleridge; possibly, however, Justice John Coleridge). At back, "Ex dono D. Al: Brown, M.D." and another ownership inscription entirely in Greek.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with armorial bookplate of prominent attorney Richard S. Coxe, of whom it was once said that “he was employed in more cases upon the docket of the Supreme Court of the United States than any other lawyer in the country” (Dictionary of American Biography); front free endpaper with affixed handwritten description of the volume by Coxe; front fly-leaf with inked presentation inscription by Coxe, dated 1859.

•  ESTC S121318; STC (2nd ed.) 2056.4; Rumball-Petre 240; Darlow & Moule 6166. On Coxe, see: DAB, IV, 487–88.   19th-century calf, covers framed and diced in blind; rebacked with spine also blind-diced, but smaller; spine with gilt-stamped leather title, place, and date labels. Edges and extremities lightly rubbed, spine leather with a few small cracks. Front pastedown with private bookplate as above and smaller institutional bookplate. Title-page text excised from original leaf and mounted, some time ago; outer margin of last page excised and leaf mounted. One early inked textual annotation. First few leaves with small area of worming in lower margins; one leaf with short tear from lower margin, extending into text without loss. Pages age-toned, with scattered light spotting throughout and instances of faint waterstaining; upper edges trimmed closely, occasionally affecting pagination or headers. Turn-ins with gilt roll; all edges marbled to match endpapers.  (24877)

Elias Hutter (1553–1609) was an orientalist and professor of Hebrew at Leipzig. The text here is drawn from his famous and sought after polyglot New Testament in 12 languages (Nuremberg, 1599), and so shares in the censure Hutter received for there translating and inserting "in some versions missing passages which he found in others" (Darlow and Moule)—but, he was open about that. The present work was apparently for devout students of Hebrew, both to further their knowledge of that language and to give them comparative texts for study and meditation on the week’s lessons. Polyglot lectionaries are not common, and this is the only polyglot lectionary of the epistles and gospels listed by NUC Pre-1956 before the 19th century.

•  Not in Darlow & Moule, but see 1430, 1431, 1432, 1433, and 1434 for Hutter’s polyglot New Testament in 12 languages, and his St. Matthew’s Gospel, St. Mark’s Gospel, polyglot Psalter, and polyglot New Testament in four languages. Sheep, spine simply gilt with a red leather title label; leather rubbed and abraded, front joint opening. Pages with some instances of light waterstaining or browning. All edges red.

Incontestably, the culmination of his studies was this volume, still a standard in the field. Having his own printing press, and cutting the Syriac types himself, certainly ensured his total control over the production.

•  Darlow & Moule 8966.   Contemporary plain vellum over paste boards. Ex-libarary with call number on spine, one small numerical stamp in a lower margin, acquisition information in a gutter margin, and a (touching!) typed note about the purchase of the volume tipped-in among the preliminary leaves. Without the added engraved title-page. Old private bookplates and ownership inscriptions of the 18th and 19th centuries; rubber-stamp on the lower edge of the closed volume. A very good copy.  (23163)