"A SUPERIORITY ABOVE ALL CONTEMPORARY EDITIONS": RARE AND COMPLETE 1483 INCUNABLE BIBLE IN LATIN FROM VENICE, AN IMPORTANT EDITION, WITH INITIALS RUBRICATED IN RED AND BLUE

(BIBLE). [Biblia Latina]. (Venice: Johannes Herbort de Seligenstadt, 1483). Small folio (8 by 9 inches), very early vellum boards, ink title on spine; a2-a10, b-x, y10, A-X, y, z10, 1-3(8), 4(7). Housed in a custom clamshell box.

Beautiful and complete 1483 incunable edition of the Bible, bound in early vellum, with initials rubricated in red and blue throughout. One of the important 'Fontibus ex Graecis' editions, which provide a corrected text of the Vulgate Bible.

The fourth-century ascetic priest and scholar Jerome "devoted himself to the work that would be his great literary monument: the translation of the Bible into Latin… Jerome's version, the Vulgate, eventually became the standard Bible of the entire Latin-speaking church" (González I:204); its supremacy would face no serious challenge until the earliest medieval reformers' vernacular translation efforts. This edition is from the Venetian press of Johann Herbort. Herbort set up his own press in 1481 after working for Johannes de Colonia and Nicolaus Jenson, also in Venice; he continued to print until his death in 1484. Herbort's bible is one of a group known collectively as the "Fontibus ex Graecis" editions. "In 1479 there appeared a folio Bible without name of printer or place, but attributed to Johannes de Amerbach: Basel… According to the B.M. Catalogue, this is the earliest of a series of corrected Latin Bibles, which claim for themselves—apparently with justice—a superiority above all contemporary editions. They are known as the 'Fontibus ex Graecis' editions, from the opening words of the Latin distichs found in them… Copinger, however, records an anonymous and undated edition, assigned by him to the date '1478,' which he considers to be the earliest of the 'Fontibus ex Graecis' editions… Masch, who also regards this undated edition as the first of the series, enumerates ten other 'Fontibus ex Graecis' editions, the other nine bearing the dates 1479, 1481, 1482, 1483, 1485, 1486 (2 editions), 1487 and 1489—all without name of printer or place. The remaining 'Fontibus ex Graecis' editions he divides in two classes:—(1) derived, i.e. reprints giving name of printer and place; (2) spurious, i.e. editions which, though presenting another text, appropriated to themselves the Latin distichs in order to deceive the unwary" (Darlow & Moule II: 2, 911). Herbort's bible is one of the derived editions: although without the opening lines which give these editions their name, it is based on Amerbach's revised second edition. This edition includes marginal notes in the New Testament referencing the text of the Old Testament. Bible complete; without one preliminary leaf containing a letter to the reader from Franciscus Moneliensis praising the work of Herbort and a poem by Quintius Aemilanus) and the final blank leaf. The elaboration of the rubrication on the first leaf present suggest that this copy was never bound with the leaf containing the Moneliensis letter; copies held at Harvard and Northwestern are also without this leaf. Without a title page, as issued; the imprint is contained in the colophon at the end of the book. Proctor 4691. Goff B-579. Copinger 58. Bookplates. Early marginal notations in pen, later marginal notations in pencil. Folio numbers in pen added to upper right corner at a very early date.

Scattered soiling, occasional mostly marginal dampstaining to text; leaf 253 with marginal tear with loss, not affecting text. Trimmed a bit close, occasionally affecting headings only. Early vellum binding with expected wear. An important and early bible in excellent condition.