Biblia Sacra. Genesis-Ruth (All published).

(BIBLE, POLYGLOT).

for Elias Hutter

Nuremburg

1599

Prepared by Elias Hutter. Title within woodcut historiated border featuring vignettes of Biblical scenes including the Tree of Knowledge, Noah’s Ark, and the Binding of Isaac. Divisional title. Text arranged in six columns across two pages in the following languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, German, Italian.

Darlowe & Moule 1426; David S. Berkowitz, In Remembrance of Creation, no. 179.

Hutter’s hexaglot Bible, an extraordinarily ambitious feat of scholarship. The Hebrew text employs Hutter’s unique method of combining solid and hollow types to help the reader identify the roots of each individual word. Root letters that are not evident (chaserim) are displayed as superscript above the word. Hutter produced four issues of his polyglot, with the sixth language differing - Sloven, Italian, Low-German, and French - depending on the intended audience. In the words of David S. Berkowitz, “The parade of linguistic learning is short of stupefying” (Remembrance of Creation, p. 104).