First Estienne edition. 528; 361, [3] pp. Second part has special title page beginning Hai tou hagiou Paulou Epistolai [in Greek]. Woodcut Estienne devices to both titles. Without terminal blanks. 16mo. 17th-century gilt-tooled red morocco, unlettered gilt spine, silver clasps and catches, edges of text block gilt, marbled pastedowns (no free endpapers). Joints and hinges cracked but holding, spine lightly creased and somewhat darkened, lower clasp on front board loosening. Tears to bottom-edge of title page and following leaf, loss to text carefully replaced in minuscule early hand. Small spots to margins of a few leaves, interior otherwise clean. Provenance: George Bumstead; Cecil Dunn-Gardner (pencil note dated 1858 to rear endleaf); General Theological Seminary (bookplates, blindstamps, inkstamp to verso of title). USTC 149681; Darlowe & Moule 4616; Renouard 65 (2); Schreiber 90; Adams B1656. Armstrong, Robert Estienne, Royal Printer 136.

Item #378210

Produced in his twin capacities as a skilled printer and a trained classical scholar, the Biblical output of Robert Estienne (Latinized as Stephanus) "had perhaps more influence than that of any other single man in the sixteenth century" (Wordsworth in Darlow & Moule). He is known not only for the editions of the Bible that placed him on the Louvain faculty's index of prohibited books, but as a publisher of important dictionaries, Roman classics and contemporary educational writings. After his flight to Geneva around 1550, he also became an important publisher of the works of John Calvin.

This and the subsequent 1549 edition of the Greek New Testament are referred to as the "O mirificam" editions after the opening of the Latin preface. They are especially desirable as specimens of the typography of Claude Garamond, who was commissioned by the king to design the Greek type used in Estienne's editions of the New Testament.

"Estienne felt strongly the propriety of consecrating (as it were) the Royal Greek types in this way. He evidently felt also some stirrings of ambition as an editor; might not the resources of the King's Library, now at his disposal, enable him to produce a better text than that of Erasmus, especially as he could use also the Complutensian text?" (Armstrong). Estienne's editorial ambitions culminated in the folio edition of 1550, which included a full critical apparatus, but still reveal themselves in the texts of the O mirificam editions. The text of the 1546 edition largely agrees with Erasmus, but it indeed incorporates the Complutensian text and also makes a number of independent readings (Darlow & Moule).

An appealing copy of this important and beautifully printed work.