Complutensic polyglot

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The first page of the Complutenser Polyglot
Complutensic polyglot

The Complutensic Polyglot (Latin Biblia polyglotta complutensia ) is the name of the first (1514–1517) printed polyglot in the complete Bible . It was initiated and funded by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros . In addition to the Latin text, it contains the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament , the complete Septuagint , the Hebrew Old Testament and the Targum Onkelos . Of the 600 copies originally printed, 123 have survived.

history

With the advent of the printing presses in the 1450s, it became possible to produce Bibles far more efficiently and cheaply than just copying them by hand. With great personal commitment, Cardinal Cisneros acquired many manuscripts and invited the most famous philologists of his time to work on the ambitious work of compiling a complete polyglot "to revive language studies in the Holy Scriptures". The scholars met in the town of Alcalá de Henares (formerly Complutum ), where Cisneros founded a university in 1499 . Work began in 1502 under the direction of Jacobus Stunica , who had a knowledge of Aramaic and Arabic . He was supported by the Latinist Hernán Núñez de Toledo and the Hebraic Alfonso de Zamora . The work was completed in 1517 after 15 years.

The bilingual Latin-Greek New Testament was completed and printed in 1514, but delivery was postponed until the Old Testament edition was completed in order to publish the work in full. In the meantime Desiderius Erasmus found out about the complutensic project, which was currently producing its own bilingual Latin-Greek edition, the Novum Instrumentum omne . In 1516, Erasmus obtained an exclusive four-year publication privilege from Emperor Maximilian I and Pope Leo X.

The Complutensic Old Testament was completed in 1517. Because of the exclusive rights of Erasmus, the polyglot was only allowed to be put on the market from 1520. It is believed that it was not widely used before 1522. Cardinal Cisneros died in July 1517, five months after the polyglot was completed, and never saw his publication. "Only 600 copies were made and sold for 6½ ducats after the cardinal with the income of a king and the needs of a monk had spent 50,000 ducats , almost half a million marks, on the work."

For the New Testament, the Erasmic edition, known as the Textus receptus , became more powerful .

content

The Complutensic Polyglot was published as a series in six volumes. The first four volumes contain the Old Testament . Each page consists of three parallel columns of text: Hebrew on the outside, the text of the Latin Vulgate is in the middle and the Greek Septuagint with Latin interlinear version on the inside column. The introduction interprets this in such a way that the synagogue and the Eastern churches stand on the sides like the thieves on Golgotha , and the Roman church like Jesus in the middle. On each page of the Pentateuch the Aramaic text of Targum Onkelos and its Latin translation are added at the foot. The fifth volume brings the New Testament in parallel columns of the Greek text and the Latin Vulgate. The minuscule 140, 234 and 432 were probably used for the Greek text . Volume six contains various Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek dictionaries and study aids. This sixth volume has survived less often.

Printing and Reprints

The character set that Arnaldo Guillén de Brocar used for the Complutener Polyglot was described by typographers such as Robert Proctor as the culmination of the development of Greek typography in the early years of printing, before Aldus Manutius ' manuscript-based character sets took over the market for the next 2 centuries . Proctor based his Otter Greek character set from 1903 on the polyglot. The GFS Complutensian Greek of the Greek Font Society is also based on the Complutensian Polyglot.

A splendid facsimile edition in folio format was published in Valencia from 1984 to 1987. Volumes 1 to 5 with the biblical text are reproductions of the edition in the library of the Jesuits in Rome, the rare sixth volume with the dictionaries is a reproduction of the edition in the Madrid University Library.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Complutensis" is the adjective to designate the Roman settlement "Complutum" from which the city of Alcalá de Henares emerged .
  2. ↑ Heinz Schilling: 1517: Weltgeschichte einer Jahr. CH Beck, Munich 2017, ISBN 3-4067-0069-1 , pp. 232-236
  3. ↑ Eberhard Nestle: From the Textus Receptus of the Greek New Testament:http: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dvomtextusrecept00nestgoog~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3Dn14~ double-sided%3D~LT%3DVom%20Textus%20Receptus%20des%20griechischen%20neuen%20Testaments%20griechischen%20neuen%20Testaments 3A ~ PUR% 3D An extended lecture, Barmen 1903. P. 9