Bible, Polyglot [The Complutensian Polyglot]

6 volumes, folio (14 1/4 x 10 in.; 362 x 254 mm). Woodcut arms of Cardinal Jiménez printed in red on title-pages (that of vol. 5 printed in black), titles within woodcut border, floral and historiated woodcut initials, woodcut printer's devices at end of vols. 4–6. Vol. 1: Lacks initial blank, light toning, occasional text browning and foxing (chiefly marginal), some staining to lower inside margins in quires b–m, one fore-edge with short tear and staining. Vol. 2: some light text browning. Vol. 3: Lacks final blank, top inner margins dampstained (A–E), light to moderate text browning, with a few leaves very browned, fore-edge tear on p2 cutting through 4 lines of Hebrew text. Vol. 4: Light to moderate text browning, occasional marginal foxing, closed tear on G2 slightly affecting text. Vol. 5: Lacks final blank, occasional toning, quires 2G–2H, 2M, and a few leaves and their conjugates browned. Vocabularium: Lacking pi2 and final blank, quire a (Latin index) supplied loose in facsimile (photocopy), a few headlines shaved and a few leaves browned, some light text browning in about a half-dozen quires. Vols. 1–5 uniformly bound in eighteenth-century tree calf, paneled gilt with a Greek key border, smooth spines gilt, red and brown lettering and numbering pieces, marbled endpapers, edges sprinkled pink and blue, extremities scraped, upper hinge in vol. 1 cracked. Vocabularium: Eighteenth-century mottled calf, the spine in 6 compartments gilt with raised bands, edges stained red; some worming and marginal oxidation to lower board, subtle restoration to joints and spine, endpapers renewed.

Vocabularium: College of Saint Ambrose, Valladolid (Latin inscription on title-page)

Formatting the Word of God 2.4; Adams B-968.1; Darlow & Moule 1412; Delaveau & Hillard 1–2; Norton, Printing in Spain 1501–1520, 27; Palau 28930; PMM 52; Pelikan, The Reformation of the Bible/The Bible of the Reformation. With Catalog of the Exhibition (1996), 20; Proctor, The Printing of Greek in the Fifteenth Century (1900), p. 144, "the finest Greek fount ever cut."

A full set of the Complutensian Polyglot, the first polyglot bible and a monumental tour-de-force of Renaissance typography. Although printed between 1514 and 1517, its papal privilege is dated 1520, and it only appeared for sale in 1522—four years after the Aldine Septuagint and six years after Erasmus's Greek New Testament. While Erasmus's Greek New Testament was the first ever published, the Complutensian version was the first to be printed (Pelikan).

The concept of a polyglot bible was modeled after Origen's Hexapla, which had six columns of text: one in Hebrew and the rest in various translations into Greek. The Old Testament layout in the Complutensian takes the Vulgate text as the central part of each page, surrounded by the Hebrew and Greek Septuagint. In the Pentateuch is also given the Aramaic Targum Onkelos or translation (here entitled Chaldean) at the foot of the page. Both the Greek and the Aramaic versions are accompanied by literal Latin translations. For the Hebrew text, superscript letters were employed to refer to the relevant word or phrase in the Vulgate, partly so that the book could be used by those whose Hebrew was less than good.

The arrangement of the New Testament is much simpler, with the Greek and Latin texts in parallel columns. Rather than the small and unattractive Greek font used in the Old Testament, it has a splendid large type with no ligatures. This was much admired by Robert Proctor, who in his monograph on the printing of Greek sang its praises, and whose own Otter type was modeled on it. This type was used in other Greek books printed by Brocar.  

One of the most important aspects of the book is the provision of linguistic apparatus, something which was also the case in the Plantin Polyglot, the Paris Polyglot, and, to a lesser extent, the London Polyglot, as well as in smaller undertakings. This apparatus, printed in 1515, comprises a Hebrew and Aramaic dictionary, the Vocabularium followed by a Latin Index, the Interpretationes nominum (a common feature of Bibles), two leaves on variant spellings of names, etc., and finally brief Introductiones artis grammatice hebraice. Similarly at the end of the New Testament is an Interpretatio nominum and a rudimentary Greek lexicon printed in three columns.

The project was initiated in about 1502 by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros of Toledo, who founded in 1498–1500 a university at Alcalà dedicated to the three biblical languages of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. The town, known in Latin as "Complutum,"gave the Bible its name. Ximénez financed this epic undertaking from his own personal fortune and assembled a host of eminent biblical scholars under the editorial aegis of Diego López de Zúñiga. This included the Greek scholar Demetrios Ducas, Elio Antonio de Nebrija, who was tasked with correcting the Latin text, Fernando Nuñez de Guzman, Juan and Pedro de Vergara, and three converted Jews, Alfonso de Zamora, Alfonso de Alcalá, and Pablo Coronel.

Six hundred paper copies and six on vellum were produced, of which over 150 are still attested in various libraries. It was well received by the scholarly community and used for many later printings of the Bible, including the Plantin Polyglot of 1569–1572.