Beschreibung:

BIBLE, New Testament in Greek -- Novum Iesu Christi Domini Nostri Testamentum. Sedan: Jean Jannon, 1628. 32° (81 x 47mm). Title in Greek and Latin, Greek text. (Small holes in title.) Late-17th-century Hungarian enamelled silver binding set with small pearls and jewels, gilt flowered end-papers, edges blue with acorns gauffered in gilt (lacking one clasp, six pearls from the upper cover and four from the lower), modern cloth box. Provenance : unidentified inscription in Greek (on verso of title); Major J.R.Abbey (armorial bookplate, collection number 1747). Jean Jannon's miniature edition of the Greek New Testament "printed in a superb tiny Greek type, la petite sédanoise , which has been highly praised by many bibliographers and printing experts as the finest ever created for a miniature edition" (Bondy. Miniature Books p.8). Each cover is of silver overlaid with silver-gilt cloisonné enamel in foliate designs in blue, green and red, the green and red being opaque, the blue partly translucent, and partly opaque. The corners set with the four evangelists, the centres with applied plaques: on the upper cover the risen Christ, on the lower a cruciform plaque set with small rubies and emeralds with the figure of Christ crucified at the centre. Around both covers a border of small pearls. The spine ornamented with an enamelled tulip design, the one remaining clasp similarly decorated. Similar enamelled filigree is found on Hungarian goldsmiths' work of the 17th-century (cf. Chefs d'oeuvre d'Orfévrerie à l'Exposition de Budapest , Paris, 1884, vol.I, plates 55 & 110).