The Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Bible Collection
at
Bridwell
Library
September 8 - December 12, 2009
The Complutensian Polyglot Bible
Libri Veteris ac Novi Testamenti multiplici lingua impressi. 6 vols. Edited by Diego Lopez de Zuñiga, et al. Alcalá de Henares: Arnaldo Guillén de Brocar, 1514–17 [published 1521].
This six-volume polyglot (multilingual) Bible is commonly known as the “Complutensian Polyglot,” after the place of its publication, Alcalá de Henares (“Complutum” in Latin). There, Archbishop (later Cardinal) Francisco Ximénez de Cisneros (1436–1517) sponsored the prodigious work of translation and printing that resulted in the first polyglot edition of the entire Bible. The texts included are the first printing of the Greek Septuagint and New Testament, the Latin Vulgate, the Hebrew Old Testament, and an Aramaic translation in the lower margin. Both the Greek and the Aramaic are accompanied by an interlinear Latin translation. Ximénez wrote that the Bible’s layout, with the Vulgate between the Hebrew and Greek (as seen here at the beginning of Leviticus), was a metaphor for the Roman Church rising triumphantly between the Synagogue and the Eastern Church, much like Christ’s Cross rose between the two crucified thieves on Calvary.