[BIBLE].

First illustrated edition of Robert Estienne’s (1503-59) Latin Vulgate Bible. Estienne issued his first folio Latin Bible in 1528, also with a polyglot index of names, followed in 1532, but this third is said by Renouard to be far superior (‘très belle edition, bien supérieure’, 48:1). As stated in the preface to the reader, for this edition of the Vulgate Estienne used ancient manuscripts in Parisian libraries (and possibly manuscripts from further afield), early printed editions and Augustine’s commentaries; much of the scholarship, including supervision of the woodcut illustrations, he attributed to the French humanist François Vatable (d. 1547). As Elizabeth Armstrong states: ‘The most serious attempt to investigate the manuscript tradition of the Vulgate was made between [1532] and the completion of the next folio edition in 1540. Returning to the [monastic library] at Saint-Germain, he discovered three ancient manuscripts in addition to the two already familiar to him’ (p. 72). The Old Testament is illustrated with woodcuts of Noah’s Ark and various Jewish rites, including a full-page woodcut of the Tabernacle, in which the artist’s excessively “pyramidal” Tabernacle is excused on account of his need to achieve the correct optical effect. At the rear is an index of names appearing in the Biblical text with their etymologies provided in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Chaldean.