Bible in Latin, trans. Sanctes Pagninus

Super-Median quarto (238 × 174 mm). Collation: a-c⁸ d⁶ (title with Giunta device, Greek commendatory verse, commendatory letters of Adrian VI, Clement VII, and Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, contents summaries of Old Testament books, prologue); A-Z AA-PP⁸ (Hebrew Old Testament books, Genesis-Malachi); QQ-XX⁸ YY⁴ (Greek Apocrypha: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 1-2 Maccabees); a-l⁸ m¹⁰ (New Testament; colophon); n-v⁸ x⁶ (Interpretations of Hebrew Names): 554 leaves, PP8 and YY4 blank. Old Testament foliated 1-355; New Testament foliated [1] 2-98. Red and black printing, woodcut title border, woodcut initials. Leaves browned, with soiling, three leaves with strengthened inner margins. Seventeenth-century vellum, red-sprinkled edges. Leaves browned, with soiling, three leaves with strengthened inner margins.

Joannes Andreas Gentilis (title-page signature) — Francis Fry (autograph notes on endleaves) — Estelle Doheny (morocco label) — St. John's Seminary (bequest of Mrs. Doheny; sold on behalf of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Christie's New York, 17 October 1988, lot 1077)

Darlow & Moule 6108; Adams B1008

Super-Median quarto (238 × 174 mm). Collation: a-c8 d6 (title with Giunta device, Greek commendatory verse, commendatory letters of Adrian VI, Clement VII, and Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, contents summaries of Old Testament books, prologue); A-Z AA-PP8 (Hebrew Old Testament books, Genesis-Malachi); QQ-XX8 YY4 (Greek Apocrypha: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 1-2 Maccabees); a-l8 m10 (New Testament; colophon); n-v8 x6 (Interpretations of Hebrew Names): 554 leaves, PP8 and YY4 blank. Old Testament foliated 1-355; New Testament foliated [1] 2-98. Red and black printing, woodcut title border, woodcut initials. Leaves browned, with soiling, three leaves with strengthened inner margins. Seventeenth-century vellum, red-sprinkled edges. Leaves browned, with soiling, three leaves with strengthened inner margins.
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First edition of Pagnino’s translation, with chapters divided into numbered paragraphs. Pagninus (1470-1536) was a Dominican in the convent of San Marco, Florence, in the years of Savonarola. He there began intense studies in Hebrew and Aramaic under the instruction of a converted Spanish Jew. His learning was widely acknowledged and respected in the Catholic hierarchy, but his decades-long plans for a polyglot Bible were superseded by the Complutensian Polyglot; his 1528 Latin translation, with a close literal rendition of the Hebrew texts, became his major achievement. Contrary to the medieval and early printed Vulgate tradition, Pagninus separated the Old Testament into two parts: the canonical books of the Hebrew Bible, and the “apocryphal” books found only in the Greek Septuagint. He further omitted the traditional prologues of the Vulgate Bible by Jerome and others. Pagninus’s numbered paragraphs have been seen as a pre-Estienne system of versification, but their basis is generally not that of individual verses, but rather of larger sense divisions (e.g. Ecclesiasticus ch. 51: 8 Pagninus paragraphs vs. 38 verses; 2 Maccabees ch. 15: 11 paragraphs vs. 40 verses; Luke ch. 1: 34 paragraphs vs. 80 verses; Apocalypse ch. 22: 8 paragraphs vs. 21 verses).