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BÈZE'S GREEK & LATIN NEW TESTAMENT
CONTEMP. BLIND-TOOLED & PANEL-STAMPED PIGSKIN
[BIBLE - NEW TESTAMENT - GREEK & LATIN]. BÈZE (BEZA), Théodore de. Jesu Christi D.N. Novum Testamentum, sive Novum Foedus.
(Geneva), (Henri Estienne), 1582. Folio (34.5 x 22 cm). Text in 3 parallel columns giving De Bèze's Greek text, his Latin translation from the Greek, and the Latin Vulgate, with extensive commentary at the head and foot. With the large Estienne woodcut publisher's device on the title-page, 8 woodcut head- and tailpieces plus numerous repeats, and about 20 decorative woodcut initials (4 series, 1 including Greek) plus numerous repeats. Contemporary, richly blind-tooled pigskin over wooden boards, in a panel design (front and back board the same) with a panel-stamp portrait of Johann Freidrich II (1529-1595), Duke of Saxony (with monogram MB), and three rolls (1 with initials CS). With a 1780 owner's inscription of Johan Heinrich Wepler and earlier and later indications of provenance.
| Orders and Information | € 3250 |
De Bèze's second major edition containing his Greek New Testament text, his Latin translation from the Greek, and the Latin Vulgate, with the extensive commentary in Latin. His first major edition appeared in 1565, generally following Robert Estienne's 1551edition but with 24 new readings in the Greek text. In the present 1582 edition he revised it again, introducing new readings in 14 passages. The Latin and the notes are also revised.
De Bèze (1519-1605), a French Protestant and one of the Reformation's greatest scholars, was a professor of Greek from 1549 and became Calvin's coadjutor and the successor to his chair of theology at Geneva. He spent much of his life trying to establish an accurate text for the New Testament, building further on the work begun Erasmus (1516) and Robert Estienne (1550).
With occasional contemporary manuscript notes in the margins and some underlining, an early owner's inscription erased but still partly visible on the title-page, another dated 1780 by Johan Heinrich Wepler (1755-1792), professor of Philology and Theology, and author of Philologische und kritische Fragmente (part 1, 1782), and a bookplate and ink stamp of the Rochester Theological Seminary.
The panel-stamp portrait of Johann Friedrich, Duke of Saxony (5 x 9 cm) has his name "JOHANNE FREDERIC" on a scroll, the engraver's monogram MB below left, and below the portrait the legend "VICTVS ERAS ACIE FIDEI CONSTAN|TIA TANDEM VICTOREM ANTHE HO|MINES FECIT ET ANTE DEVM." The portrait is different from the similar ones described in Foot and Goldsmith. One roll has allegoric figures of the female virtues Faith, Fortitude and Charity: "FIDES|EST·SV," "FORTI|TVDO" and "CARIT|AS·BE·," and is signed CS. Haebler, Rollen- und Plattenstempels, pp. 402-403, records CS tools from the years 1576-1614 and associates them with Wittenberg and Zwickau, and possibly with a binder Conrad Stallfurth (he records more than one MB) but he does not record the present tools.
Somewhat browned, but still a good copy, with a few small wormholes. The binding lacks 1 of the 2 brass clasps and catchplates, the head of the backstrip is damaged, and there are some small tears on the back board, but it is also still good. Bèze's second major edition of the New Testament in Greek and Latin, with a contemporary binding with a monogrammed panel stamp and an initialled roll.
