Psalterium, hebraeum, graecum, arabicum, & chaldeum, cum tribus latinis interpretationibus & glossis. Genua, Petrus Paulus Porrus, 1516 by [BIBLE - ARABIC] AGOSTINO GIUSTINIANI - 1516: RARE FIRST EDITION FIRST POLYGLOT PRINTING AND EARLIEST ARABIC PRINTING OF ANY PART OF THE BIBLE

Rare First Edition

First polyglot printing and earliest Arabic printing of any part of the Bible

Second book printed in Arabic with movable type

The first biographical sketch of Christopher Columbus and the first published account of his second voyage

Giustiniani, Agostino, Psalterium, hebraeum, graecum, arabicum, & chaldeum, cum tribus latinis interpretationibus & glossis. Genuae : impressit miro ingenio Petrus Paulus Porrus : in aedibus Nicolai Iustiniani Pauli, 1516 mense VIIIIbri [Genua, Petrus Paulus Porrus, 1516].

Folio (30,2 x 22,5 cm), stiff vellum binding, handwritten title in sepia ink at spine, sprinkled edge, ff. [200], signature: A¹⁰ B-Z⁸ &⁸ ɔ6, printer device at leaf ɔ6r, below the printer device the motto Petrus Paulus Porrus mediolanensis, Taurini degens, title page within woodcut arabesque border and leaf A4v-5r printed in black and red, text on 8 columns on double page, printed in Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Roman. 13 woodcut initials, 5 Latin, 4 Hebrew, 2 Greek and 2 Arabic.

The types used were produced specifically for this publication. Edited by Agostino Giustiniani who, according to a note to Psalms 78, was assisted by Jacobus Furnius in the correction of the Greek text, and by Baptista Cigala in the Arabic.

First Book printed in Genua in XVI century

Title page, four leaves containing an epistle from Jacobus Antiquarius addressed to Giustiniani, dated Milan, VIII I kalen aprilis 1516; a preface by Giustiniani addressed to Pope Leo X, dated Genoa, Cal. Aug. 1506, repeated in Hebrew, Chaldean, Greek, and Arabic then the text of the psalms.

Polyglot edition of the Book of Psalms, the first polyglot printing of any part of the Bible, predating the Complutensian Polyglot Bible by one year.

Polyglots allowed scholars to compare the various versions of the scriptures by arranging them in parallel columns and developed from the traditions of Jewish scholars.

The Polyglot Psalter was the second book printed in Arabic with movable type, following the Kitāb ṣalāt al-sawā'ī, a book of hours for the Lebanese Melchites, printed by Gregorio de' Gregori in Fano in 1514.

It also contains the first edition of the Aramaic text of the Psalter and offers for the first time Kabbalistic texts from the Zohar, foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah.

The book is arranged in seven columns of text: Hebrew; a literal Latin translation of the Hebrew; the Latin Vulgate; the Greek Septuagint; Arabic; Aramaic, in Hebrew characters; and a Latin translation of the Aramaic. Arranged around the edges are various commentaries or "scholia".

"A monument of Renaissance typography, this Psalter was linguistically the most ambitious work attempted up to that date, and the first Polyglot work ever published. It provides the Psalms in five languages. The Arabic text is one of the first two texts, and the first Biblical text, ever printed in this language. The Hebrew types used in this book were apparently never used again." (B. Sabin Hill, Hebraica from the Valmadonna Trust, The Pierpont Morgan Library 1989, no. 18)

In the notes related to Psalm 19, at leaves C7-D1, it can be seen the name of Christopher Columbus. This note, which stretches around the text for another three pages, is the first biographical sketch of Columbus and the first published account of his second voyage to appear. His illegitimate son Ferdinand, who travelled with him on his later voyages, disputed the account given, and went on to write his own account of his father's life. Consequently, this Psalter was suppressed and ordered to be destroyed, although numerous copies survived.

"Rembering that Christopher Columbus frequently proclaimed that he had been chosen by God to exemplify the thought or prophecy expressed in verse 4 of Psalm XIX:

Laudatoria Dauidis.

qui sujpiciunt celos enarrant

gloriam DEI, & opera manuum eius

annunciant qui suspiciunt inaera,

he inserted in the margin, close to the verse, a lengthy biography of the bold navigator, his countryman and contemporary.

This untimely note, which may have been the cause of the persecutions suffered by our author, is frequently quoted. Fernando Columbus devotes an entire chapter to a refutation of what he mildly terms -the 12 twelve lies uttered by Giustiniani-." (Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima.)

Agostino Giustiniani, born Pantaleone Giustiniani (Genoa, 1470 - Mare di Corsica, 1536), was an Italian Catholic bishop. He was bishop of Nebbio, as well as an illustrious scholar and teacher of foreign languages ​​and one of the most important geographers, renowned for his accurate description of Liguria.

In 1487, at the age of seventeen, Pantaleone entered the Dominican Order, changing his name to Augustine and clashing with the family who wanted for him - only son - a more noble future by virtue of the high offices that his ancestors had held for the Genoese republic.

During his travels as a teacher in many Dominican monasteries in Europe he deepened his literary studies, especially of the Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic languages. In his travels he finally happened to stay in Rome where he was appointed bishop of Nebbio, Corsica, in 1514. In that year he began to prepare a polyglot edition of the Bible in the languages ​​he studied.

In the role of bishop, he participated to the 5th Lateran council between 1516-1517, but following some disputes he had to leave the bishopric of Nebbio and accepted the proposal to move to France, to the court of King Francis I, where he filled the chair of Jewish and Arab languagesat the University of Paris.

In the five years he spent in the French capital, he travelled to other European countries such as England and conceived the project of a polyglot edition of the Bible.

"Giustiniani, after elucidating the texts of Job, Plato, Xenophon, and Maimonides, concentrated all his powers on a laborious, difficult, but necessary edition of King David's Psalter, in the Hebrew, Chaldean, Greek, Arabic and Latin languages. It was the initiatory step towards the first publication of a polyglot edition of the entire Bible printed with the types belonging to each version. In a community abandoned to the lust of lucre, it is scarcely necessary to say that the undertaking was viewed with supine indifference. Giustiniani persevered, but there were obstacles which it was beyond his power to surmount; and although he knew that he wished nothing for himself, his appeals remained unheeded. He caused two thousand copies of the Psalter to be printed on paper, and fifty on vellumum" (Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima)

In reality, Giustiniani only managed to give birth to the text of the Psalter, printed at his expense in 1516 in Genoa, in the home of his brother Nicolò, by the typographer Pietro Paolo Porro, called for the occasion on purpose from Turin.

Conditions: Light waterstains in the firs leaves, few marks of use along the volume; in general a very good copy.

Provenance: Collezione Calleri stamp at inside front board

References: Notes on the Polyglot Psalter, St. John's College, University of Cambridge; Adams B-1370; Henry Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima. 88; Brunet IV, 919; European Americana 516/4; Leclerc 1212: "Le premier livre polyglotte qui ait été imprimé avec les caractères propres à chaque langue..."; Sabin 66468: "In this interesting sketch of the life and voyages of his fellow-townsman, Bishop Giustiniani gives an interesting account of the discovery of the new world, and states some facts not mentioned elsewhere"; Sander, 5957; Gesner, Bibliotheca universalis, pag 92; Maittaire, Annales Typogr., Vol. II, Part 1, pages 276-7 ; Panzer, Annales Typogr., Vol. 1, page 63; Lelong, Bibliotheca Sacra, Part 1, page 400