TOPEXEMPLAR,Biblia germanica. Biblia, Das ist: Die gantze Heilige Schrift Altes und Neues Testaments - 1720

RARE BIBLE EDITION IN TOP CONDITION

Biblia germanica.

Biblia, That is: The whole Holy Scripture Old and New Testaments.

You are bidding on a powerful and beautiful edition in 2 parts in one book. Printed in Nuremberg, at the publisher Endter Sohn & Erben, from the year 1720.

With engraved title page, 12 large portraits of Luther and the Electors, 5 double-page copper plates and maps and 30 copper engravings (incl. intertitles) (2 double-page).

Collation: 67 leaves, 664; 904 pages, 8 leaves.

Bound in a richly blind-stamped pigskin leather binding of the period over wooden boards, with gauffered gold cut, and with 8 large corner mounts, 2 large central pieces and 2 clasps with hooks (all in bronze with biblical figures in relief and pierced ornamental frames), slightly rubbed, spine repaired at the bottom.

Magnificently equipped twelfth edition of the so-called Weimar Electors' Bible. In addition to the portraits at the beginning, contains 2 Jerusalem plans by Fleischmann (Laor 1022/23), 3 maps of Palestine, Syria, Arabia and Egypt by Sandrart after Visscher (Laor 814-16), 18 numbered intertitles and collection plates after Sandrart, 9 Prophets and Evangelists’ portraits by Montalegre as well as plates of Noah's Ark (with back text and 1 leaf of accompanying text), the “Stifft-Hütten” and the Augsburg Confession (both double-page). On the magnificent binding, the centerpieces show bronze reliefs of Moses with the Tablets and Christ as Ruler of the World, and on the corner mounts the four Evangelists. Additional figures and putti adorn the clasps.

CONDITION: Very fine copy with slight signs of use, good binding. Slight browning, occasionally faint finger- or brown-speckling, copperplate title with repaired edge tear, title and first leaves with carefully restored small edge losses without text contact, lower margin partly slightly water-stained, with the last leaves somewhat more affected and at the end with small repaired losses in the lower inner hinge, 1 double-page plate with a small edge tear in the inner hinge, 1 double-page plate with a repaired corner tear, 1 Evangelist plate stained, inner cover with handwritten ownership note. Overall a very good and handsome copy — rare to come by on the market.