- 101
Psalter. Polyglot.
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Description
- Psalterium, Hebreum, Grecum, Arabicum, & Chaldeum, cum tribus latinis interpretationibus & glossis [edited by Agostino Giustiniani]. (Genoa: Pietro Paolo Porro for Niccolò Giustiniani, November 1516)
folio (315 x 220mm.), title printed in red and black, first page of text with headings printed in red, title within woodcut strapwork border, woodcut initials, woodcut printer's device at colophon, eighteenth-century red morocco, spine gilt in compartments, gilt edges, slight damp-staining, covers slightly stained and indented
Provenance
Jean Ballesdens (c. 1600-1675), classical scholar and member of the Académie française, whose library was dispersed in 1676, and much of which subsequently entered the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris, inscription on title-page
Literature
Censimento 16 CNCE 5916; Darlow & Moule 1411; Sander 5957
Catalogue Note
"this genoa psalter was apparently the first polyglot work ever published" (Darlow & Moule, p.2). It was printed in an edition of 2050 paper and vellum copies, and the three columns of Latin are a literal version of the Hebrew, the Vulgate, and a version of the Chaldean paraphrase.
Agostino Giustiniani (1470-1536), a Dominican and the bishop of Nebbio (Corsica), later became the first professor of Hebrew and Arabic in Paris. He built up an extensive library which passed to the state of Genoa after his death. Giustiniani's scholia included, at the end of Psalm 19 from the text "et in fines orbis terre verba eorum", a section on the Genoese Christopher Columbus, who had died in 1506.