31 - BENOIST, René. The Holy Bible.

BENOIST, René. The Holy Bible. Paris, Gabriel Buon, 1568. Large 4to (25 x 17 cm), vellum cover, ribbed spine, title painted in black and red in the style of illuminations. Gilded edges. Later binding. Three volumes in one: 9 folios, 421 paginated leaves—title page, 350 paginated leaves—title page, 7 folios, 182 paginated leaves. Vellum slightly discolored; restorations in the margins of some leaves. New edition of the Bible translation prepared by René Benoist (1521–1608), parish priest of Saint-Eustache and future confessor and close friend of King Henry IV, published in 1566. It was accused of Calvinism and banned from sale; as a result, René Benoist was expelled from the Sorbonne’s Faculty of Theology. The edition, edited by Sébastien Nivelle, Gabriel Buon, Nicolas Chesneau, and Michelle Guillard, presents in two columns the Latin Vulgate revised by Jean Benoist and René Benoist’s French translation. A complete set of the three volumes (in a single large in-4 volume), comprising the Old Testament (first two volumes) and the New Testament (third volume). Each volume has its own title page. The title page of the first volume is missing. A bound copy, preserved in a beautiful (later) painted vellum binding, of this rare, banned Bible.