B. Lamy - Apparatus Biblicus, ad Sacram Scripturam - 1767

Bernard Lamy
Apparatus Biblicus, or Guide to the Holy Scripture, more clearly and more easily understood
Fifth Venetian Edition.
Venice, Published by Laurentius Basilius, 1767.

In-8vo (20 × 12 cm bound).
Pp. XXXII, 670, [2], with XII folded plates engraved on copper (maps, plan of ancient Jerusalem, Tabernacle, Solomon’s Temple, garments of the High Priest, figures of Jews, Hebrew-Greek alphabets, etc.).
Contemporary limp parchment binding with manuscript title on the spine (“LAMY APPARAT BIBLICUS”).

Classic work introducing the study of Sacred Scripture by the French Oratorian theologian and mathematician Bernard Lamy (1640–1715). The treatise, divided into books, provides an extensive historical-geographical, antiquarian, and philological apparatus: history and antiquities of the Jewish people, description of the Tabernacle and the Temple, geography of the Holy Land, Biblical languages, customs and practices, plants, animals, and objects mentioned in the Bible. The beautiful folded plates (signed A. Luciani) constitute one of the main merits of the edition.

A fundamental text of sixteenth- and seventeenth-/eighteenth-century biblical scholarship, reprinted and translated several times (also into English). The Venetian edition of 1767 is among the most complete and sought after for the presence of the twelve engraved plates. Complete copies of all the folded plates, in an age binding, are always appreciated on the antiquarian market and by collectors of biblical and illustrated books of the eighteenth century.

Contemporary parchment binding in fair overall condition. Signs of creasing along the inner edge of some plates (not affecting the text). Frontispiece restored (as shown in the photo). Interiors generally fresh, with the typical foxing of the period; the plates are complete and legible.