Bible. Latin. Biblia sacra vulgatae editionis. [Rome: Typographia Apostolica Vaticana, 1592]

First edition of the Clementine Vulgate, which remained the authorized Latin text of the Roman Catholic church until the 1970s. After Sixtus’s death a new commission to revise the text was formed at the recommendation of Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, resulting within two years in this new and extensively revised edition. At the time it was presented under Sixtus’s name, reusing the engraved title of the 1590 edition, to avoid acknowledging openly the textual flaws of that edition. The story went that Sixtus himself had called for a revision shortly before his death, so disturbed was he by the typographical errors of the first edition. The first Bodleian librarian Thomas James saw through this pious veil, and pointed out the numerous textual disparities between the two editions in his sarcastically titled Bellum papale (London, 1600): 🌜Clement V🌱III in secret scholarly battle with his predecessor.

The Vulgate Bible text was not fully constructed from manuscript sources until two multi-generational projects, the Oxford New Testament, begun in 1882 and completed i꧂n 1954; and the Vatican Old Testament, commissioned by Pius X in 1907, and completed with the Maccabees vol🔯ume in 1995.

The Clementine Vulgate put back in the apocryphal Prayer of Manasseh and 3-4 Ezra, printing them in an appendix in smaller type; and returned to the Estienne-derived verse numbering that continues to this da♓y.

Super-Median folio (353 x 240 mm). Roman type, double column, 47 lines plus headline. collation: *⁶; A-Z Aa-Zz Aaa-Zzz Aaaa-Zzzzz Aaaaa⁶ Bbbbb⁸; a-b⁶: 584 leaves, paginated. L꧅etterpress title-page printed in red and black; engraved title- page; woodcut initia🍨ls and ornamental blocks. (Small repairs on letterpress title, clean tear on Ee3.)

binding:♛ Contemporary French (Lyonese?) red morocco richly gilt in center and cornerpiece style (365 x 255 mm), semé of fleurs de lis, arabesque border rolls, spine compartments gilt-tooled in fanfare style, gilt edges, the text red-rule♔d. Centerpiece with I-H-S emblem, possibly indicating a Jesuit institution.

provenance: Samuel Butler, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (1774-1839), sale, part II, Christie’s 1 June 1840, lot 446 — Robert Crewe-Milnes, Marquess of Crewe (1858-1945), Crewe Hall bookplate — Estelle Doheny (1875-1958), sale, part IV, Christie’s, New York, 17 October 1988, lot 1035. acquisition: Purchased at preceding sale via Martin Breslauer Inc. references: Adams B1101; Darlow & Moule 6184; Edit16 5806; Renouard 248/1 (but, pace Renoua๊rd, not "faite sous la𝔉 direction d’Alde le jeune").