Isaac-Louis LE MAISTRE DE SACY

First bilingual edition translated and annotated by Le Maistre de Sacy. Ruled copy. Text in double columns.

Contemporary full burgundy morocco binding. Jansenist spine with raised bands. Roll tooling on edges and board-edges. All edges gilt. Trace of dampstain in lower margin of first leaves fading away, reappearing on some leaves in the middle and at the end.
Before appearing in its entirety in 1696 under the secular title Bible de Port-Royal, Pierre Thomas du Fossé gathered the various manuscripts left by Le Maistre de Sacy at his death in 1684 and published them punctually. He continued the unfinished work and published separately first the translations of the Vulgate by Le Maistre de Sacy. Each chapter is followed by its explanation and commentary. Before this considerable work by the writers of Port-Royal, never had the Bible been so accessible to a wide public; this work which was inaugurated by the translation of the New Testament as early as 1666 by Antoine Arnaud and Le Maistre de Sacy.

First edition of the Port-Royal translation of the New Testament. The work was initiated by Antoine Le Maistre, and continued by Antoine Arnauld and Louis-Isaac Le Maistre de Sacy. The preface was revised by Pierre Nicole and Claude de Sainte-Marthe. This edition is generally attributed to Daniel Elzevier of Amsterdam and is finely printed. Frontispiece after Philippe de Champaigne, engraved by Van Schuppen. According to Brunet, who provides an extensive description of this first edition (V. 749), it was printed by Elzevier and sold by Migeot; he also notes that there were two printings of this first edition, the second distinguished by the absence of a title page in the second volume. First title page printed in red and black. Copy entirely ruled in red. Although the second printing is characterized by the missing title page, another issue—possibly earlier—without privilege also exists; the present copy includes both the privilege and a title page in the second volume. One may therefore wonder whether there were not in fact three distinct printings of this first edition.
Contemporary full green morocco bindings. Spines with raised bands, richly gilt. Gilt titles and volume numbers. Triple gilt fillet borders on covers. Gold-stamped decorative paper endpapers. Gilt edges. Inner dentelles. Spines slightly faded. Some rubbing. Opposite the frontispiece, a manuscript page reproducing Brunet’s note on this edition.

A handsome contemporary morocco-bound copy.