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.