Evangelium Sanctum

first book printed by the medici press

The editio princeps of the Arabic translation of the New Testament, widely accepted as being the first successful printing of any Arabic text using moveable type, and the first book ever published by the Medici Press in Rome.

The Typographia Medicea was a printing house in Rome established by Pope Gregor XIII and Cardinal Fernando de Medici (1549-1609) in 1584. The press was initially established to promote Christianity in the Near East, so they focused on translations of Christian texts in Arabic and Syriac. This Bible translation was edited by the renowned orientalist Giovanni Battista Raimondi (1536-1614), whose extensive travels around the Middle East had given him a comprehensive knowledge of Arabic, Armenian, Syriac and Hebrew languages. He and the French engraver Robert Granjon, who is responsible for the elegant Arabic typography of the press, formed a formidable team and together created a method for publishing texts in Arabic that "bettered all previous attempts [to print in Arabic] in Europe, and would remain unsurpassed long after the press had closed" (Boogert, Medici Oriental Press, Rome 1584-1614).

Two varying editions of this work were published in very quick succession: there is the Arabic-only text (which has some Latin on the title page and in the colophon only) which bears the date 1590 on the title page and 1591 in the colophon, and then there is an Arabic-Latin edition with interlinear translation to Latin throughout which was printed with the date 1591 on the title page. The work with the earlier date on the title and the text entirely in Arabic, as seen in the present example, is widely considered the true first edition of the work.

First edition, small folio (330 x 220 mm); printed entirely in Arabic with Latin text to title and colophon only, 368pp., complete, 149 large woodcut engravings in the text, some leaves evenly age-toned, some very slight occasional foxing, overall very clean internal condition; housed in early eighteenth0century quarter vellum over pasteboards, evidence of early worming to boards (not affecting internal leaves), 'Evangelia Arabic' ink inscription to spine, edges speckled in red, extremities a little bumped, overall a presentable volume.