First edition of the Arabic Infancy Gospel, with text in Latin and Arabic 1697

Various artists

PaperLeather
Currently unavailable via Gallerease

• About the artwork
  Evangelium infantiae. Vel liber apocryphus de infantia servatoris. Ex manuscripto edidit, ac latina versione & notis illustravit ...
  Utrecht, François Halma, Willem vande Water, 1697. 8vo. With the main text in Arabic with a parallel Latin translation on the facing pages. Contemporary vellum.
  
  First edition of the apocryphal Arabic Infancy Gospel, with the Arabic text on the versos and the Latin translation on the facing rectos. Sike, a noted orientalist from Bremen, based his edition on a manuscript that was formerly owned by Jacobus Golius, and the many notes include excerpts from the Quran and other works. The work narrates miracle stories from the first 12 years of Jesus's life, and probably originated in the fourth or fifth century. The wide range of non-Latin types, with not only Arabic and the more common Greek and Hebrew, but also a few words of Syriac, was unusual at this date.
  
  With shelf number label and a later manuscript presentation inscription. Some foxing, mostly along the margins, otherwise in very good condition. A couple minor stains on the binding, but otherwise also very good.
  
  Schnurrer, Bibliotheca Arabica 412; STCN (8 copies); Zenker, Bibliotheca Orientalis 1239.
• About the artist
  More than one artist has worked on this object.