Testament Novi. Edition Vulgata Lugdani, [i.e. Lyon]. Sub Scuto Coloniensi [i.e. J. and F. Frellon] , 1546. Vulgate Edition. 16mo in 8s.464pp, 325pp, [27]. With final blank leaf. Collated and complete in two sections as issued, with signatures as follows: a-z8, A-F8, AA-ZZ8. Handsomely bound in contemporary blindstamped pigskin over wooden boards. With later label affixed. Rubbed and worn, with some lo to corners, surfaces. Cracking to joints, chipping/tearing to spine. With remains of metal clasps to upper board, other components no longer present, with consequent hole to lower board. Small 'daisy' flower devices to centre and all corners of both upper and lower boards. Evidence of label removal to spine. Some worming to endpapers and first two signatures (a and b), and rear endpapers/final few leaves of text, mostly affecting only single letters and with no loss of sense. Jesuit Monastic library ink stamp of 'Kloster Gorheim', Germany to title page, with 3 further ownership inscriptions to prelims/title, including Bibliotheca Weisserar (?). Hinges straining in part, some tears at gutter margins to beginning of text, with signatures a-g partially detached, protruding from the text block. Internally, but for the worming and the occasional mark or stain (including leaves c3, and t1), and the odd small corner tear or crease, this is a clean example and much better than the often found soiled and dirty Sixteenth Century Bibles. A BEAUTIFULLY PRINTED EXAMPLE, WITH NUMEROUS WOODCUTS THROUGHOUT, the Gospel of Matthew alone contains 27 woodcuts. Woodcut title device of the Frellon publishing house to title, numerous vignettes at open and close of many chapters, and woodcut initial letters sporadically throughout. Whilst these woodcuts are expertly executed, and bear similarities to the works of both Hans Holbein (the Younger, 1497-1543) and Lucas Cranach (the Elder, 1472-1553), we have been unable to pinpoint their exact artist. PRINTED THROUGHOUT IN LATIN, with side-notes indicating comparative chapters in the Old and New Testament. Printed without verse divisions as was customary of the age, published only five years before the ground-breaking Stephanus divisions in the 1551 Greek/Latin New Testament. A BEAUTIFULLY PRINTED AND PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED LYONESE EDITION of the standard Catholic Bible (indeed by the thirteenth century 'version vulgato' simply meant a commonly used translation), published in France and printed throughout in Latin, in the midst of a European Reformation which saw numerous editions of the Bible printed, including those by Melanchthon and Erasmus in the very same year. The original Vulgate Bibles were produced in manuscript, from Saint Jerome's original fifth century translations from the best Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible. Printed throughout Europe during the late C16th in the midst of the Counter-Reformation. An authorized version was promulgated during the Counter-Reformation, and the Clementine Vulgate of 1592 became the standard biblical text of the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, until it's replacement after Vatican II in the late Twentieth Century.