Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Censvra Generalis contra errores, quib[us] recentes hæretici sacram scripturam asperserunt.

Valladolid, F. I Fernández Córdoba [1554].

4to (208 x 150 mm.). Contemporary foliation: 27 leaves. Title in a double-rule frame with the mottoed woodcut arms of the Spanish Inquisition.

Gilt-ruled black morocco.

With:
           [Caption title:] Ex scholijs, N.T. Vatabli nomine nuper editis, loca que sequuntur censura Vissa sunt & annotatione digna.  Spain [3 March 1575]. manuscript. 4to. Contemporary foliation: 28-43 leaves. In multiple sizes of a single cursive hand in brown ink, mostly double-column.

            Ad I: First Edition. In 1552, the Spanish Inquisitor General, F. de Valdés y Salas (1483-1568), ordered that all Bibles then in Spain be inspected for heresy. Functionally all Bibles in Spain had been imported; the only Spanish printing of the Vulgate before 1555 was in the massive Compultensian Polyglot (1514-20). Many editions were thought to harbor Protestant content, but the mass confiscation and destruction of tens of thousands of Bibles was impractical and would have disastrous financial consequences.
            Accordingly, while the General Censure banned all Bibles without imprint information, it also required the cancellation of all introductions, summaries, commentaries and indices in 65 editions of the Bible issued across Europe between 1526 and 1554. A further refinement identified 130 biblical verses touching on points of conflict between Catholic and Protestant doctrine to be expunged.
            Under threat of fines, imprisonment and excommunication, owners of these editions had two months to present them to local officials for sanitizing. Otherwise, inquisitors would seize condemned volumes from universities, monasteries, cathedrals, bookstores and private homes. A copy of the General Censure was sent to every Spanish diocese, its title authenticated by the Spanish Inquisition’s Secretary, Pedro de Tapia (as here).
            The book had New World impact: “THE FIRST INQUISITORS IN PERU BROUGHT IN THEIR LUGGAGE…THE ‘CENSORSHIP OF BIBLES’” (Pérez, tr.).
            I have located two copies in American collections (Harvard, Hispanic Society). In good condition, lower edges mostly uncut (bottom inner blank margin repaired on title verso, some edge fraying, spotting and fingersoiling); 18th-century Jesuit College title inscription.
¶Pérez, Censura, libros e inquisición en el Perú colonial, 1570-1754 144-7; Bujanda et al., Index des livres interdits V: Index de l’Inquisition espagnole 77-90, 148-62, 276-302 & 619-24; Breslauer & Folter, Bibliography: Its History & Development 19; Alcocer Martínez, Catálogo razonado de obras impresas en Valladolid 1481-1800 193; Palau, Manual del librero hispano-americano 51343 “raro”.
            Ad II: THIS CONTEMPORARY WORKING MANUSCRIPT OF INQUISITORIAL EXPURGATIONS enabled the publication of a Bible banned in the General Censure.
            The General Censure gave special attention to the so-called Vatable Bible printed in Paris by Robert Estienne in 1545. This edition presented the Vulgate alongside a new Latin translation accompanied by the scholia of Fr. Vatable (d. 1547). Slightly emended, the Old Testament was permissible, while the New Testament and Vatable’s scholia suffered a total ban.
            As “the best source of information on the significance of the Old Testament Hebrew text” (Barthélemy, tr.), the Vatable Bible continued to generate keen scholarly interest in Spain. In 1569, a printer sought a license to print a corrected edition. This proved perilous. After three of the theologians appointed to supervise the project were imprisoned (one dying there), the Inquisition relocated the effort to Madrid.
            OUR MANUSCRIPT PRESERVES THE RECONSTITUTED COMMITTEE’S ANALYSIS OF ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN ANNOTATIONS IN THE VATABLE BIBLE.
            In the first column, Bible verses in question (marked V for versus) are followed by their accompanying problematic annotation from the Vatable scholia (marked N for nota). In the second column, the committee expresses its opinions in two to thirteen lines, designating the annotations suspect, misinterpreted, erroneous, false or heretical and the doctrinal reasoning. The first hundred entries concern New Testament passages, and the final seventeen deal with the Poetic Books of the Old Testament. Each section names the scholars who contributed. After nine years and the implementation of these changes, the Vatable Bible finally appeared in print at Salamanca (1584-86).
            Upper margin with oil stains, final verso with old adhesive residue, edges frayed, last leaf neatly repaired at the inner margin with loss of a few letters on two lines.
¶See Barthélemy’s Critique textuelle de l’ancien testament II: 32-43 and Hubbard’s “The Bible of Vatable” in Journal of Biblical Literature 66 (1947) 197-209.

Item #12081

Price: $65,000.00