Beschreibung:

BIBLIA NEERLANDICA -- Old Testament, without Psalms but including the Apocrypha, in Dutch. Revision of an anonymous East-Flemish translation, dated 1360, from the Vulgate. Delft: Jacob Jacobszoon van der Meer and Mauricius Yemantszoon, 10th January 1477. 2 parts bound in one volume, chancery 2° (260 x 188mm). Collation part I: [1-25 1 0 26 6 27 8 (translator's prologue, Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Kings, -27/8 blank), 28-29 8 (Daniel, 29/8v blank), 30-32 1 0 33 8(8+1) (Maccabees, 33/8+1r incipit: de hem nythanors hooft , first colophon, woodcut arms of Delft, red-printed printers' device, 33/8+1v blank)]; pt II: [34-61 1 0 62 6 63 8 (Chronicles, Prayer of Manasses, Ezra, Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, Wisdom Books with Prayer of Solomon, Major Prophets with Prayer of Jeremiah), 64-66 1 0 (Minor Prophets, -66/4.7, 66/10r second colophon and red-printed device, 66/10v blank)]. 318 and 322 leaves only (of 319 and 324, lacking 27/8 blank and 66/4.7). Gothic type 1:104. Double column, 38 lines. Pinholes visible in outer margins. Printers' device (Juchhof 20) in red at the end of both parts, arms of Delft above colophon in pt I. The two parts were joined at a later date, probably in the 18th century, as can be seen from differences in the contemporary Dutch rubrication. Pt I: book initials in interlocking red and blue with green highlights and brown or red penwork, chapter initials alternating red and blue, paragraph-marks and capital-strokes in red, later manuscript running-titles in brown ink; pt II: first 6-line initial in blue and white with red decoration and green highlights, other initials, paragraph-marks and capital-strokes in red, contemporary manuscript running-titles in red ink. (Inner margin of fo. 1 repaired, fo. 33/8+1 supplied from another copy and repaired, defects to a few letters on 50/10v-51/1r, marginal repair to a few leaves, some minor stains.) Binding of c.1830: blue morocco over thick pasteboard, spine gilt-lettered in compartments, marbled endpapers, gilt edges, by John Mackenzie (his stamp on front endpaper). Provenance : some 16th-century manuscript annotations in Dutch and Latin in pt I, particularly in the margins of Ecclesiasticus -- 18th-century manuscript pagination in pt I -- Beriah Botfield (purchased for 5 gns). FIRST EDITION of the Dutch Old Testament, except for the Book of Psalms, which was published by the same press three years later (CA 549); the printed New Testament in Dutch was only available in the 15th century in the form of editions of Epistolae et Evangelia , an adaptation for liturgical use throughout the ecclesiastical year (ILC 942-964). The Botfield copy of pt I of the Delft Old Testament contains the Book of Daniel (quires 28-29), thus following the order of the books in Petrus Comestor's Historia Scholastica , the standard work on Biblical history for the Middle Ages. Such copies were no doubt sold separately to those desiring only the historical portions of the Old Testament (cf A.G. Roos, Catalogus der incunabelen van de bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen 45). In the complete 2-volume issue of the edition Daniel appears in pt II between the Major and Minor Prophets. The present set was formed by adding a copy of pt II without Daniel to a copy of the separate issue of pt I, before it was bound in one volume for Beriah Botfield. THE FIRST BOOK PRINTED AT DELFT, which was already active in manuscript production and quickly became an important centre of printing. The Botfield copy has fo. 22/3v in the corrected second state, with the mistakenly repeated line removed, leaving the column one line short. HC 3160; BMC IX, 16 (IB. 47101-2); Oates 3335-6; Goff B-648; CIBN B-456; CA 290; ILC 396; IDL 867; Cinquième Centenaire 117.