Hebrew Bible, Printed by Robert Estienne (Stephanus), Paris: 1543-46

In eight volumes, complete, 16^o (4  1/4  x 2  1/2  in.; 110 x 65 mm). Pages ruled in red ink. Owners' inscriptions on some title pages and endpapers. Bookplates. Marbled endpapers. Seventeenth-century red morocco, triple-filet border, gilt-ruled frame with central stamp and gold-stamped fleurons at four corners, edges gilt; rebacked with original spines laid down, some corners torn, a few small scuffmarks.

This complete set of pocket-sized Hebrew Bible volumes was printed by Robert Estienne (also called Stephanus), over a two and a half year period beginning in August of 1543 and ending in March of 1546. Estienne, the preeminent scholar-printer of the French Renaissance, had been appointed as royal printer of Hebrew in 1539 but even royal approval could not prevent the clerical opposition that beleaguered him in Paris, and in 1550, in order to escape his persecutors, he emigrated to Geneva. 

Estienne’s printer's device, a man standing under an olive-tree with falling branches, appears on the title-page of each part of this work.  The full titles in Hebrew are followed by brief Latin titles and the Hebrew incipits of the individual books are set in type within cartouche headpieces at the beginning of each text. 

This set includes the rare original Psalter (in most sets lacking or replaced by a later edition). Concerning this minuscule 16° edition, Renouard (Estienne, p. 65, no.1) wrote: “This small edition is a true typographic jewel, and perhaps the most beautiful example that has ever been printed in the Hebrew language.”

Vol. 1: Genesis, Exodus; Vol. 2: Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Vol. 3: Joshua, Judges, Samuel; Vol. 4: Kings, Chronicles; Vol. 5: Isaiah, Jeremiah; Vol.6: Ezekiel, Minor Prophets; Vol. 7: Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther; Vol. 8: Psalms, Proverbs, Job.

(Steinschneider 115; Renouard 65, 1; Adams B 1224; Vinograd Paris, 18.)