Beschreibung:

BIBLE – NEW TESTAMENT – SYRIAC. Novum Domini nostri Jesu Christi Testamentum Syriace. Plantin’s first separately published Syriac New Testament, in miniature format. [BIBLE – NEW TESTAMENT – SYRIAC]. [LEFÈVRE DE LA BODERIE, Guy (ed.)]. Novum Domini nostri Jesu Christi Testamentum Syriace. Antwerp, Christoffel Plantin, 1575. Long 24mo in 8s (11 x 6.5 cm). With Plantin's woodcut golden compasses device. 380, [19], [1 blank] pp. Set in Hebrew type (4 sizes of meruba) with incidental roman. The pages proceed from right to left like a normal Syriac or Hebrew book. Recased in old vellum, sewn on 3 cords, with a hollow back, with new endpapers added. sheets of long 24mo with 3 quires per sheet, giving quires of 8 leaves with vertical chainlines, and Plantin himself referred to the book as a 24mo in a letter to Arias Montanus and in his catalogue. Most of the paper shows no watermark, but the sheets that do show a watermark apparently have it not centred in a half-sheet, but slightly further to the outside, so that it falls in the gutter of leaves 4 and 5 of the quire, rather than being divided between the fore-edges of leaves 5 and 6. In at least the present copy the quires K-X are printed probably on two watermarked stocks (one watermarked "M [trefoil] C" and the other simply [trefoil]) with each consecutive group of 3 quires showing 1 mark. Quire b has horizontal chainlines with the watermark ("C[?]P") divided between the fore-edges of leaves 7 and 8. Plantin's catalogue describes the book as a 24mo of 8½ sheets, but if the last quire is a half sheet of 24mo (with 4 blank leaves unused and not present) it is very oddly trimmed. It might be 2/9 of an 36mo, 4/15 of a 30mo or possibly even 2/3 of a small 12mo. In very good condition. A lovely little Syriac New Testament, well printed by Plantin.