Martin Luter “SEPTEMBER BIBLE 1522”

MARTIN LUTER "SEPTEMBER BIBLE 1522"

9 000,00 PLN

First ever facsimile of a breakthrough translation of the New Testament from 1522 by Luther himself, published on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. A scientific copy of a unique in the world copy, belonging to Johan Gramman, the Apostle of Prussia.

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Jewellery binded

The Luxurious version of the Book has been decorated in a modern jewellery. In a stylized neo-Gothic masterpiece on the canopy from the monument of Martin Luther in Wittenberg there is the Protestant Reformation emblem - designed by Martin himself - the so-called Luther Rose with an amber heart. In the background, the initials of M. L. - the one from whom it all began. All elements of the obverse are enriched with 24-carat gold and aged silver of the highest quality. The whole was planted with jewellery stones - turquoise, malachite and amber. The combination of precious metals, natural leather, stones and other natural materials, as well as the whole finish make the book, on the one hand, present itself as a work of art and, on the other hand, it is ascetic enough.

500 YEARS OF REFORMATION

On September 4, 1517, the 500th anniversary of the REFORMATIONS, Marcin Luther published his position against the sale of indulgences. His famous 95 theses, no longer against indulgences, but such and similar abuses, were sent to German bishops on 31 October 1517, contrary to popular belief, not nailed to the door of the church in Wittenberg. Martin Luther, who by his act did not want to break with the Catholic Church - and only called for discussion and theological consideration of the matter - as it later turned out, began a movement that we today call the Reformation. Soon, thanks to the invention of printing, his theses were widely known throughout Germany. Initially, Pope Leo X considered Luther's speech to be an irrelevant fact, but thanks to the broad echoes t he called Luther to Rome in order to force him to revoke his theses. According to an old proverb - Roma locuta, causa finita - Rome said, the matter was over, there was no discussion. This led to Luther's separation from the Catholic Church and the initiation of a religious-political movement aimed at the renewal of Christianity. These significant event took place exactly 500 years ago.

THE BOOK WHICH CHANGE THE WORLD.

One of the principles of Martin Luther's teachings was the Sola Scriptura - only writing, this meant that the basis of the new, renewed religiosity was to be Scripture, read and considered by the faithful. Luther realized that in order for this postulate to be fulfilled, a new, faithful translation of the Bible into German was necessary. Martin translated the New Testament on the basis of the Greek version critically prepared by Erasmus of Rotterdam, during 10 weeks at the castle in Wartburg. Since its publication in September 1522, this translation has been called the September Bible or the September Testament.

He turned out to be a real bestseller. Released in a huge circulation of 3,000 copies at that time, despite the high price of 1.5 guilders, it was sold out within three months. It was one of the most important works of the German reformer. It is worth to say that the translation of the New Testament is entirely Luther's work. In his work he used the court language of the Electorate of Saxony, although he enriched it with expressions and phrases used by the simple people. Luther's principle in translation was simple: "You have to listen to mothers on the roads, children in the streets, ask the average man in the marketplace and look at his mouth, listen to how they speak and translate according to it".
That is why the language of translation is "spoken" and not "written", because Luther cared not only for the quality of the translation, but also for the text to be understandable to the average reader. For example, he translated the Greek word barbaros, a barbarian as: undeutsch - non-German, someone from outside the circle of Roman-Hellenic culture. Thanks to such a methodology, words and phrases commonly known in translation appeared and most of them still function in the German language - it is thanks to Luther in the German language that such expressions as "throw pearls before hogs" or the words known from the beginning of Luke's Gospel "And it happened in those days ..." still function today. There is a lot of more similar examples. The Luther Bible has shaped and influenced German for several centuries.

THE PERSONAL COPY OF THE BOOK

Printing of his September Bible Martin Luther entrusted his friend Lucas Cranach the Old. Cranach was not only the court painter of Frederick the Wise - Saxon elector and protector Luther - but also had his own publishing house with goldsmith Christian Döring. The Leipzig typographer Melchior Lotter Elder (1470-1549), who after 1517 printed many of Luther's writings, undertook to print, and then, at his request, in 1519 he founded an agency of his Leipzig publishing house in Wittenberg, in the house of Lucas Cranach (which housed both a printing house and a publishing house).

The book, which was the personal Bible of Johann Grammann, was transferred to the book collection of Albrecht Hohenzollern in Königsberg, and later became the property of the University of Toruń together with the rest of the famous library. This is the most valuable of the three copies of the September Bible in Poland, mainly thanks to the numerous handwritten glosses of the famous reformer and humanist.

THE MOST VALUABLE EDITION FOR 500 ANNIVERSARY OF REFORMATION

The copy, which belonged to Johann Gramman, text is spread out legibly in one column. The layout of the page is clear due to the fact that there is a lot of free space and wide margins on the page. In many places you can see Gramman's handwritten notes - perhaps created during consultations with Marcin Luther himself. Hymns and lists of names are printed in short lines (like poetry), which further increases the amount of free space and enhances the clarity of the text. The selection of gothic fonts is characteristic. This is not an accidental choice and has had an important polemical meaning. The Font called antique was associated in Germany with Italian latin prints , which were associated with Catholicism and Rome.

The German rejection of antique and the choice of Gothic font was also an act of emancipation of the German language. The division of the text can be seen on several levels. Each part /chapter begins with a highlighted line printed in larger writting. At the beginning of the parts / chapters there are decorative initials with scenes in the middle. The text of the New Testament is divided into fragments of approximately 15 lines. Another concept comes from Luther himself, who adapted the printed text for loud reading. The individual sentences of the translation are separated by punctuation marks, and inside the sentences the unit of meaning is separated by a diagonal line (/). The illustrations by Cranach (1472-1553) play an important role, especially those decorating the Apocalypse, which are intended to associate Rome with Babylon.