ΤĤΣ ΚΑΙΝĤΣ ΔΙΑΘĤΚΗΣ ĂΡΑΝΤΑ [Tes Kaines diathekes hapanta]. Noui Testamenti omnia. by Bible. NT. Greek. [Desiderius Erasmus (1467-1536); Thomas Platter (1499-1582)] - 1538

First Thomas Platter issuing of the Erasmian Greek New Testament

8º, (155x90mm); [8], 382, [2] h.; sign. i-viij, a-z8, A-Bb8 (viij and Bb7, blank); four woodcuts within title-page with icones of the four evangelists; xylographic capitals and borders; great woodcut, motto 'Durum patiencia frango', of the bookseller and publisher Johann Schabler (Johann Wattenschnee), in Bb8v.

XVIIIth c. leather binding; decorated ribbed back with red moroccan label; gauffered border in boards; golden fillet in board edges; red stained edges; bookmark preserved. Title-page fore margin too short affecting woodcuts, with top tip broken; slight traces of old moisture in lower margin of the first three signatures and in outer margin from V4 to Aa2; very little contemporary notes in ff. 233, 235 and 236. Very clean (not washed), complete of the exhortation of Johann Oekolampad, the two blank leafs, viij and Bb7, and Schabler's device, something of which is often lacking.
Prov.: Armorial exlibris glued over pastedown endpaper, 'Godard'; handwritten exlibris in XVIth c. letter, which we are unable to decode, in last leaf verso, Bb8v.
Refs.: Darlow & Moule, 4611; Reuss, p. 34, 13ª.

One of the most active agents in the spread of Humanism and Reformation in their earliest days was the book merchant Johann Wattenschnee
(circa 1455, ca. 1540). After working at Lyon and Paris, he was settled in Basel, first as bookseller and later as publisher, with the name of Johann Schabler.
As publisher, Schabler produced most of his catalog with Johann Bebel, since 1523 when, whith the printing press newly opened, he commisioned
him to print the third of the versions (1522) corrected by Erasmus of the Greek New Testament. For the title-page design, Schabler tasked to Urs Graf (ca. 1485-ca. 1528) four allegoric woodcuts of the four evangelists. And, to play as introduction to the New testament, he include the appeal for individual reading of the Sacred Scriptures made by the theologian of the Reformation, Johann Oekolampad, who had been sheltered in Basel in 1522. Tes Kaines diathekes hapanta thus printed was published in 1524, being followed by two reprints in 1531 and 1535, also by Bebel.
In this last year, Thomas Platter, who had settled in Basle four years before (after leaving Zurich due to the death of Zwingli, of whom he had been a sort of secretary), acquired his citizenship. Since his arrival, Platter had been working simultaneously as a teacher in the Pedagogium by the intercession of Oekolampad, and as proofreader for Herbagius. But since he had seen that printers gained money!(1), he formed a printer society with Balthasar Ruch (Balthasar Lasius), Ruprecht Winter and Oporinus (Jean Herbst) with the presses and types they bought to Cratander (that who had protected Oekolampad when he came to Basel in 1522) when he close his business. From their presses came out, amongst others, several works by Vives, Galen and Aristotle, as well as the first edition of Chrsitianae religionis Institutio
by Calvino and the correspondence between Zwingli and Oekolampad.
At the end of 1537, shortly before the plague arrived in the city, Platter, after a fight with Lasius, left the firm. When they broke up, the materials were distributed (rejecting an offer from Bebel, who wanted to buy the workshop) and Platter, contracting a large debt, bought a couple of houses, set up his own workshop in one of them and began to print by order: "Plusieurs personnes me donnèrent de l'ouvrage, between autres messire Wattenschnee, Frobenius, Episcopius, Hervagius ... J'imprimais pour le compte d'autrui"(2).
The commission of the first of these people, Wattenschnee, was precisely to replace Bebel in the production of the Tes Kaines diathekes hapanta(3), so that, with the same woodcuts of the four evangelists and the same initial capital showing Adam and Eve in the paradise carved by Graf – which Bebel had been employing and which was probably owned by Wattenschnee / Schlaber, Platter produced, in early 1538, the first of his New Testament editions in Greek, with Schlaber's device at the end.

It could be presumed that the fact that Platter quoted Schabler at the top of the list of his first clients implies that the New Testament was the first book he printed alone. Unfortunately, his production does not allow us to make a precise chronology to prove it, because the same colophon of the Tes Kaines diathekes hapanta of March 1538 appears in ten further of his imprints, since Platter followed the mercantile practice of dating them in March and August to take them to the corresponding annual fairs of Franckfurt that were celebrated in the beginning of April and September (4). Something that he had already done with Lasius in the almost 30 titles they had printed in common: all its colophones are dated in March or August of 1536 or 1537(5).
The copy we offer is well complete of the Oekolampad exhortation, which is often lacking as he was one of the authors whose work was totally condemned in the Tridentine Index of 1564, and earlier in those of Leuven, 1550, and the Pauline, 1559, in which it was noticed that Platter was an author of which the complete work was prohibited and a printer dedicated to publish books wrote by heretics.
(1) Among the editions of the wellknown autobiography by Platter, we have chosen the beatiful French edition from 1862 by Flick in Geneva, La vie de Thomas Platter écrite par lui-même. See p. 110.(2) Ibid., p. 116.(3) Althought someones say Bebel was alive until 1550 (because his name appeared in the title-page of a reprinted work by Aristotle), the fact is that there are not news about him beyond 1538. Neither attention should be paid to the records in which the engravings are attributed to Hans Holbein, nor to those who indicate that the final device belonged to the bookseller Johann Walder.(4) About Franckfurt fair, a modern clasics is Peter Weidhaas: Zur Geschichte der Frankfurter Buchmesse.- Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003.(5) Production figures according to our own count (we can supply them), which are higher than what is usually said.