Home
Shopping cart (0 items € 0)
Go Back

A nearly complete collection of the earliest Propaganda Fide exotic alphabets (1629-1776), including Arabic, Burmese, Ethiopic, Greek and Syriac

[PROPAGANDA FIDE].
(1) Alphabetum Armenum iussu S.D.N. Gregorii XV. ...
(2) Alphabetum Aethiopicum, sive Abyssinum.
(3) Alphabetum Arabicum ...
(4) Alphabetum Barmanum seu Bomanum ...
(5) Alphabetum Brammhanicum ...
(6) Alphabetum Chaldaicum, ...
(7) Alphabetum Chaldaicum ...
(8) Alphabetum Cophtum sive Aegyptiacum ...
(9) Alphabetum Graecum ...
(10) Alphabetum veterum Etruscorum ...
(11) Alphabetum Ibericum, ...
(12) [Alfabeta].
(13) Alphabetum Hebraicum ...
Rome, Propaganda Fide, 1629-1776. 13 works in 1 volume. 8vo and small 4to. Sheepskin parchment (ca. 1776).
€ 12,500
An extraordinary and nearly complete collection of the earliest alphabets of exotic languages, printed and published by the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, sometimes together with one or more short liturgical texts. In many cases the Alphabetum is the first publication to use the newly cut type and in some cases the type was the first or virtually the first ever cut for that kind of script. Together they show alphabets printed from types for Greek, Hebrew (meruba & rabbinical), Arabic, Syriac (serto, estrangela and East Syriac), Samaritan, Georgian, Armenian, Ethiopic, Coptic, Devanagari, Burmese and Etruscan.
The Vatican established the Propaganda Fide in 1622 to promote Catholic missionary work, especially in the Middle and Near East, and it set up its own printing office in Rome in 1626. The printing office acquired the largest collection of exotic printing types in the world, most of them exclusive to their press. In 1629 they began printing and publishing these small booklets displaying alphabets for exotic languages.
Ad 1 with 2 blank pieces of the title-page excised and patched from the back and some pages of ad 11 misbound. Some occasional browning and a couple minor abrasions or small tears. Otherwise in good condition.
Order Inquire Terms of sale

Related Subjects:

Book history, education, learning & printing  >  Book History, Calligraphy & Printing
Religion & devotion  >  Church History & Missions