Beschreibung:

BIBLE, in Latin: Biblia Sacrosancta . Basel: Nicholas Brylinger, 1544. 8° (184 x 123mm). Collation: a-z 8 A-Z 8 AA-Yy 8 . Woodcut device on title, woodcut historiated initials. ENGRAVING OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS BY GEORG PENCZ DATED 1547 (Hollstein XXXI, Pencz 40] mounted on rear pastedown. (Some browning and occasional staining, a1.8 and a2.7 strengthened at hinge.) Contemporary German blindtooled pigskin over wooden boards, outer border of Biblical scenes, initials 'D.S.' and 1547 added above and below central panel, title lettered on spine and along fore-edges (rubbed and repaired, without two fore-edge clasps). Provenance : JOHANNES BUGENHAGEN (1485-1558), German reformer (inscription on front pastedown dated 25 June 1548, and probably annotations in the text) -- extensive contemporary annotations in at least 2 other hands, one written on rear pastedown dated May 1548 -- Schultz family of Freistadt (inscriptions on rear flyleaves recording births of Micheas in 1553 and Anna in 1554 and the death in childbirth of their mother Katharina in 1555, the initials 'D.S.' on binding are presumably those of the father Schultz who recorded these events) -- Hutchison, 1850 (title inscription). BUGENHAGEN'S COPY of the first Brylinger edition of the Bible. The reformer-printer at Basel, Nicholas Brylinger, reprinted Robert Estienne's influential Bible, which is generally considered the first critical edition of the Vulgate. It was censured by the Theology Faculty at Paris, but editions, included those further revised by Estienne, continued to appear and ultimately formed the foundation of the official Roman Vulgate. Brylinger's portable octavo editions clearly met their intended Protestant audience. A copy of his 4th edition (1557) was owned by Philip Melanchthon (now in the Massachusetts Historical Society, cf. D. Berkowitz, In Remembrance of Creation , no. 156), and the present copy was owned by the German reformer, Johann Bugenhagen. Personal minister to Martin Luther, he had translated Luther's Bible into Low-German and had worked with Melanchthon and others on revised versions of the Bible. Bugenhagen has written Biblical verses from John, xvii:24-26 at the front of the present Brylinger Bible in his own idiomatic version, and not merely a transcription of the printed text. His autograph is dated 25 June 1548, a day when Bugenhagen and Melanchthon sent a joint letter to Nicolaus Medler regarding negotiations of the Interim of Augsburg. While none of the annotations in the volume has been positively identified as Melanchthon's, one note on Xx1r is initialed 'P.M.'. Further evidence of its continued Protestant ownership is an anonymous manuscript summary of Martin Luther on Proverbs. RARE. Not in Adams or Darlow & Moule. CERL records copies in Munich, Warsaw and Paris (Bib. de la Société biblique); Copinger records his own copy and that at Stuttgart, and there is in addition one at NYPL (imperfect). For other inscribed books owned by Bugenhagen, see Otto Vogt, Johannes Buegenhagens Briefwechsel , rev. ed. Wolgast and Wolz, 1966. VD-16 B-2621.