La sainte Bible. Bible de Genève (Charenton)

Three quarto volumes in uniform contemporary full dark red morocco. Spines with raised bands richly decorated in gilt, boards tooled in the Du Seuil manner with double gilt panels and floral cornerpieces around the central compartment, gilt rolls to the board edges, elaborate gilt turn-ins, all edges gilt.

Bindings rubbed, with the corners slightly turned. Small loss of leather at the head of the New Testament volume and a loss at the foot of the lower joint of the first volume. The opening endleaf of volume I is becoming detached. The first six leaves of the New Testament show marginal browning from earlier damp exposure, extending towards the inner margins and gradually diminishing. Further dampstaining to the final two leaves of volume I.

Protestant edition of the Geneva Bible published under the Charenton imprint and sold by Antoine Cellier, a bookseller established in Paris. The set displays the composite structure characteristic of the substantial Bibles offered by his establishment: the general title and the title to the second volume are dated 1675, while the New Testament has a separate title page dated 1674. The conjunction of parts bearing different dates demonstrates their assembly within a single publishing unit, although it does not establish the precise sequence in which they were printed. Cellier's output includes a three-volume quarto Bible dated 1675-1674.

The set comprises the Old and New Testaments, the Apocrypha, the Psalms of David in the French verse translations of Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze, with extensive musical notation, and Eusebius Pagit's History of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments in the Form of a Catechism, translated from English and followed by the Abridgement of Sacred Chronology. This final work, likewise published by Cellier in 1675, forms a separate section with its own title page.

The third volume also contains the Form of Ecclesiastical Prayers and a series of fundamental texts of Reformed worship: On Baptism, On the Lord's Supper, On the Articles of Faith, On the Ten Commandments, On the Sacraments, and the Confession of Faith. The set therefore extends far beyond the biblical text itself. It forms a domestic library of the Reformed faith, intended to accompany the believer through prayer, psalm singing, catechetical instruction, preparation for the sacraments and the study of doctrine.

Four title pages articulate this extensive collection and bear three distinct devices. The general title to the first volume and that of the New Testament carry the same device, depicting a printing workshop between two figures. The title to the second volume has a different and more elaborate design. That of the Psalter depicts the divine tetragrammaton within a glory surrounded by angels. Numerous typographical ornaments continue this decorative variety throughout the text.

Two early manuscript provenances survive. The name "Wilhelmine de Wrede" appears on an endleaf and on the title page of the New Testament. The title page of the second volume bears the inscriptions "de Beaulieu" and "Fr. de Beaulieu Marconnay", the latter dated 1751. The name recalls the Protestant Beaulieu-Marconnay family, which sought refuge in the German states following the Revocation, although the owner of the present set has not yet been securely identified.

The Geneva Bible was by this date the result of more than a century of translation and revision. Derived from Olivétan's French Bible, established from the Hebrew and Greek texts, it had been successively corrected by several generations of pastors and philologists. Théodore de Bèze directed one of its major revisions, published in 1588, but the text transmitted under his influence remained the culmination of a collective tradition rather than the work of a single translator.

The reading of Scripture was accompanied by song. The complete Genevan Psalter of 1562 contained forty-nine psalms versified by Clément Marot and 101 by Théodore de Bèze. Its melodies were developed and revised by successive Genevan cantors, foremost among them Loys Bourgeois, who also adapted tunes by his predecessor Guillaume Franc. Through their direct melodic forms and their repeated publication alongside the Bible, the psalms became one of the most recognisable expressions of Huguenot worship, both in church and within the home.

The place of sale stated on the title pages gives the set particular historical significance. The Edict of Nantes excluded Reformed worship from Paris and required it to be conducted at least five leagues from the capital. A first temple was nevertheless constructed at Charenton in 1607 for the use of Parisian Protestants. Following its destruction in 1621, Salomon de Brosse designed a new building, completed in 1623, whose vast proportions reflected the size of the congregation it served.

A major centre of Protestant bookselling developed around the temple. Parisian booksellers maintained stalls or counters there for the sale of Bibles, psalters, sermons and controversial works that could not be circulated as freely within the capital. The wooden booksellers' stalls in the courtyard were destroyed by fire in June 1671, and the temple itself was damaged. Antoine Cellier was among the principal Protestant booksellers associated with Charenton, while religious publications formed the largest part of his output.

This edition of 1674-1675 belongs to the closing years of an increasingly precarious settlement. Ten years later, the Edict of Fontainebleau revoked the Edict of Nantes. The temple at Charenton was immediately and systematically demolished, and the principal centre of Reformed worship outside Paris disappeared with the network of booksellers, pastors and worshippers that had grown around it.

A handsome and substantial contemporary red morocco set, bringing together the Bible, the Apocrypha, the Genevan Psalter with music, Pagit's catechism and the principal liturgical texts of the Reformed Church. Its composite structure, differing dates and early ownership inscriptions preserve the material history of the French Protestant book during the final years in which Charenton still enjoyed its fragile freedom.