NEW TESTAMENT (ST WENCESLAS BIBLE)

Prague, 1677
Folio, 32.3x20.3 cm. Copper-engraved allegorical title page, 11 unnumbered pages, 512 numbered pages + 6 leaves of index, in Czech. Each of the Gospels is introduced by a full-page copper engraving depicting the respective evangelist together with miniatures of selected gospel scenes. The following Acts of the Apostles is introduced by the final full-page engraving depicting the Salvator Mundi and the 12 apostles. Initials, vignettes (typographic woodcuts). Sturdy vellum binding, spine with 4 raised bands, coloured coating and the numbering "A / 16". Published by the Catholic publishing house Dědictví svatého Václava (Bequest of St Wenceslas), printed by the press of the Jesuit Klementinum College in Prague in 1677. Binding damaged, ties surviving only fragmentarily. Book block in good condition, complete, only the leaves occasionally browned and foxed, lightly restored. The New Testament was published separately as the first volume in 1677; the Old Testament was not completed in print until 1712 and 1715. The translation was made by Czech Jesuits (chiefly Jan Barner, Matěj Václav Šteyer and Jiří Konstanc). They used the Latin Vulgate as their textual basis, but also consulted the older Bohemian Brethren`s Bible of Kralice. This was the official Catholic translation of the Bible into Czech, intended during the Counter-Reformation to replace the non-Catholic Bible of Kralice. It maintained the continuity of literary Czech during the Baroque period.