Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

Lot 7

BIBLE, POLYGLOT
Biblia sacra polyglotta, 6 vol., [Thomas Roycroft, 1655-1657]

11 November 2015, 13:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £2,125 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

BIBLE, POLYGLOT

Biblia sacra polyglotta, 6 vol., edited by Brian Walton, engraved frontispiece portrait of Walton by Lombard, engraved architectural title by Wenceslaus Hollar after Webb, engraved double-page map of the Holy Land, double-page plan of Jerusalem, 4 engraved plates (3 double-page, one shaved at margins) by Wenceslaus Hollar, lacking letterpress general title and preface in volume 1, the treatises on the Bible and plates bound in volume 6, frontispiece laid down, small repairs to approximately 6 leaves, some headlines shaved in volume 2, occasional spotting or light dampstains, later half vellum over marbled boards, soiled with loss of some marbled sides, lacks spine labels [Darlow & Moule 1445; Wing B2797], folio, [Thomas Roycroft, 1655-1657]

Footnotes

Edited by Brian Walton "this was the most accurate and best-equipped of the great polyglots" (Darlow & Moule). The printing of the work began in 1653, two presses being kept employed, and between 1654 and 1657 all six volumes appeared. Nine languages are represented in the work (including Persian and Ethiopic which had not been included in the three earlier great Polyglots), although no single book of the Bible appears in more than eight versions. "The polyglot Bible was regarded at the time of its appearance as a monument to the intellectual capacity of an English nation previously eclipsed by some of its European brethren. It was also a successful commercial speculation. Though not the first book printed by subscription in England it was one of the earliest and most ambitious" (DNB).

Provenance: Birmingham Free School Library, stamp on titles.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

ADVERTISING POSTERfor 'The Suffragette' newspaper, [c.1913-1914]

ARCHITECTURE - STUART (JAMES) AND NICHOLAS REVETT The Antiquities of Athens, 4 vol. bound in 2, 1825-1830

ILLUMINATED ADDRESS – CLARA CODD Illuminated printed address signed by Emmeline Pankhurst, [1909]

ARMENIAN - HISTORY, THEOLOGY AND PRINTING. Group of books/a map in Armenian, c.1825-1901 (12)

MUSIC & RECORDINGS – ETHEL SMYTH Collection of printed music, song sheets and records, [c.1911-1912]

BANK NOTES - MANUFACTURING BRADBURY (HENRY) On the Security and Manufacture of Bank Notes, FIRST EDITION, Bradbury and Evans, 1856