BIBLIA Quincuplex Psalterium. Gallicum. Romanum. Hebraicum. Vetus. Conciliatum.

Renouard 5, n° 1; Schreiber Estienne n° 8; see Darlow-Moule n° 6095 and Harvard French n° 62 (both only for the second edition 1513).

First edition, very rare, of this adaptation and translation by Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples. This edition is considered to be the first work of French Protestantism; in fact, it featured at the head of the catalogue of the exhibition organised by the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1936 under the title “La France protestante” (Protestant France). This important work was also used by Martin Luther to prepare his lectures on the psalms in 1513, and we know of his notes in this text. Due to its rarity, Droz published a facsimile of the 1513 edition edited by Guy Bedouelle.

“Quel que soit le sens qu’on donne à l’herméneutique du jeune Luther, le Quincuplex Psalterium est considéré généralement comme ‘chainon entre l’herméneutique médiévale et la théologie moderne de la Réforme’. D’autre part le Quincuplex contient cinq versions latines du psautier : les trois de (ou attribuées à) saint Jérôme, la version utilisée auparavant par les églises, et la version ‘conciliée’ de Lefèvre. Or, avant, les trois versions, romains, gallicane et hébraïque, de saint Jérôme n’existaient qu’en manuscrit. Ainsi Lefèvre a-t-il rélisé l’édition princeps de ses psautiers, et c’est à ce titre cette fois que le Quincuplex est connu et retenu pour l’établissement de la Vulgate contemporaine” (Droz, Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance, n° CLXX et CLXXI, 1979).

“Lefèvre’s epoch-making work was awaited impatiently by the learned world, and is the topic of many a letter among extant humanist correspondence of the period: thus, Cardinal Ximenéz, the future editor of the first polyglot Bible, in a letter to Charles de Bovelles, praises Lefèvre’s scholarship and the usefulness of his Psalterium. This famous volume is also Henri Estienne’s typographical masterpiece and is commonly singled out as one of the outstanding monuments of early 16th century French typography: e.g., by Updike (Printing Types I , 192-193), who comments on Henri Estienne’s skill in solving the difficult typographic problem of printing five different versions of the Psalms along with a commentary” (Schreiber).

Title slightly smudged, small waterstain at beginning and towards the end.

Provenance: Chastelet et Gallang [?] (inscriptions on the title).