[BIBLIA ARABICA.]. الإنجيل المقدس لربنا يسوع المسيح المكتوب من أربع الإنجيليين المقدسين أعني متى ومرقس ولوقا ويوحنا.

a Typographical Landmark

[BIBLIA ARABICA.] الإنجيل المقدس لربنا يسوع المسيح المكتوب من أربع الإنجيليين المقدسين أعني متى ومرقس ولوقا ويوحنا [al-Injīl al-Muqaddas li-Rabbinā Yasūʻ al-Masīḥ al-maktūb min arbaʻ al-Injīlīyīn al-Muqaddasīn aʻnī Mattá wa-Murqus wa-Lūqā wa-Yūḥannā] – Evangelium Sanctum Domini nostri Jesu Christi conscriptum a quatuor Evangelistis sanctis id est Matthaeo, Marco, Luca, et Johanne. [(Colophon at end of prelims:) Florence: Typographeus Linguarum exhoticarum. 1774; (Colophon:) Rome: Typographia Medicea. 1591.]

Folio. Contemporary Italian half vellum over marbled boards, spine ornamented and lettered in ink; pp. [viii], 9-462, [2], uncut, text in Arabic with interlinear Latin within woodcut borders of double rules, 149 large in-text woodcut illustrations from 67 woodblocks by Leonardo Norsino “Parasole” after originals by Antonio Tempesta; minor rubbing to extremities, traces of bookplate removal inside front cover, browning to various degrees of several portions and leaves; several gatherings with small wormholes to margins (always far from printed surface), first and last leaves with tiny paper flaws; else a very clean and crisp copy.

Third edition of the Gospels in Arabic and Latin, apparently comprising the original sheets of the first edition of the Typographia Medicea, published in Rome in 1591.

Together with an edition of the Gospels purely in Arabic, the Gospels in Arabic with Latin interlinear text was the first publication of the Typographia Medicea, the Medici Oriental Press founded in Rome in 1584 by Grand Duke Ferdinando de’ Medici (1549-1609). This pioneering press was the first to issue Christian religious works in Arabic and Syriac, conceived as a means of promoting Catholic faith in the Middle and Far East. Over the thirty years of its activity, it produced about twenty-five books. For this edition of the Gospels, the Arabic text was printed using types designed by the French punchcutter Robert Granjon (1513-1590), whose elegant, large Arabic font is considered one of the earliest successful attempts at aesthetically pleasing Arabic type design. The illustrations, also used in the Arabic-only Gospels, are by the early Baroque painter and engraver Antonio Tempesta (known as “Tempestino”, 1555-1630).

Rather than serving as an instrument of proselytism among Muslims – since Islamic tradition discourages or forbids the illustration of living beings – this illustrated publication found a more receptive audience among the Eastern Arabic Churches, since the printer tactfully omitted any depiction of the Crucifixion in deference to Monophysite doctrine. By the late sixteenth century, the Medici had established influence in the Eastern Mediterranean, especially Mount Lebanon, and had assumed the role of protectors of the Maronite community. In the early seventeenth century, the Druze Emir Fakhr al-Din II (c. 1572-1635) became a powerful Medici protégé, ruling over a vast territory under their patronage. In the preface “to the Phil-Arabic reader” (“Lectori Philarabico”) of this 1774 issue, the editor, librarian and professor of Oriental languages at Pisa Caesar Malamineus (Cesare Malanima, 1736-1819) recalls these longstanding ties between the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and Mount Lebanon, and mentions the Maronite scholar Petrus Benedictus (Pietro Benedetti, Butrus Mubarak 1663-1742), who had preceded him as professor of Arabic at Pisa.

The Arabic text is based on the Alexandrine Vulgate and was edited by the Neapolitan scholar Giovanni Battista Raimondi (1536-1614), with the Latin revised by Leonardo Sionita. The first edition of 1591 lacks a title page and begins abruptly with page 9, continuing through page 462, with the colophon on an unnumbered page 463 (verso blank). This omission appears to have resulted from Raimondi’s unsuccessful attempt to secure a distinguished dedicatee; when no dedication was produced, no preliminaries at all were printed. Unsold sheets from the 1591 edition were transferred from Rome to Florence around 1610, when the Medici press ceased its activities. Title pages and preliminaries were later added for the two following editions of 1619 and 1774, the latter including Malamineus’s introductory essay. Recent bibliographical research suggests that neither the 1619 nor the 1774 issue constitute a true reprint; rather, both appear to have been assembled from unsold sheets of the original 1591 printing. “Examination of several volumes, especially of the watermarks (mostly low crowns with single or double diamond-shape centres) confirms that the papers as well as the pagination, texts, and images are identical to those of the 1591 printing” (Field).

Very rare: OCLC records only six copies in the US (Boston Public Library, Gordon College, New York Public Library, Newberry, Princeton, Trinity College). Library Hub adds four copies in the UK (BL, Cambridge, Cardiff, V&A).

Edit16 CNCE 5987 (1591 edition); Darlow/Moule 1637 & 1643; Graesse II, 531; Nagler XI, 377 (“Typographisches Prachtwerk”). See Richard S. Field, Antonio Tempesta’s Blocks and Woodcuts for the Medicean 1591 Arabic Gospels, Les Enluminures, 2012.

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