1630 Le Jay Map of the Exodus from the Paris Polyglot Bible

No known examples in private hands.

This is an extremely rare 1630 map of the Holy Land by Guy-Michel Le Jay depicting the Exodus. It was produced for the first printed volumes of Le Jay's monumental multilingual Bible, known as the Paris Polyglot Bible. Inexplicably, this beautiful map was omitted from the final production of that Bible in 1645, contributing significantly to its rarity. Moreover, no other separate examples with text have surfaced.

A Closer Look

This north-oriented map portrays the Holy Land at the time of the Biblical Exodus: it spans from the Nile River delta to the River Jordan, the Dead Sea, and the Sea of Galilee, flanked by the land of Canaan and the land of the Ammonites; it extends from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. The modern regions covered include parts of Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Syria. Mountains are shown pictorially and imaginatively.

The map's focus was not contemporaneous geography, however, but Biblical. The central theme is the route of the Exodus and Wandering, with its stations numbered. Incidents along that path, the angelic visitations with Moses, the parting (and closing) of the Red Sea, the presentation of the Ten Commandments, the showering of manna in the desert, are depicted along the route. In the upper right-hand of the map, a diagram presents the marching order of the Twelve Tribes of Israel during the Exodus, with the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant at its center. An east-oriented inset map in the lower right shows Canaan and the countries of Manasseh and Gad before the arrival of the Children of Israel. In the Mediterranean at the upper left, the stippled waters are plied by an excellent sailing ship, and prowled by a fearsome sea monster.

The geographic detail and overall composition are drawn from Abraham Ortelius' 1570 Palestinae Sive Totius Terrae Promissionis, but the embellishments are unique to this work.

A Mayfly Edition

The printing of Le Jay's new polyglot Bible - a lavish production in Latin with translations of sections into Arabic, Syriac, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Samaritan - began in 1628, with volumes seeing completion as early as 1629. The full work, comprising nine books in ten volumes, was not completed until 1645. Its bibliography is complicated by the fact that the earlier volumes were available as soon as they were printed; moreover, it appears that these volumes were revised dramatically at least once during the Bible's print history, with the result that the 1645 edition of the work did not contain the same maps that appeared in earlier editions. This map, along with Sortes Filiorum Israel in Terra Chanaan Tempore Iosue, and very likely more of the larger maps engraved by Blanchin for Le Jay, do not appear in the 1645 edition of the Paris Polyglot Bible. The typesetting exhibited on the present example does appear in the 1645 Volume 1, but it is accompanied instead by a smaller label and a table. Georgetown University's example of the 1645 edition of the full work has been thoroughly digitized, and we do not find these maps in any of the volumes. It is possible that these maps were made available separately from the books: the examples we find in institutional collections lack the text and therefore appear to be either proof states or items that were available separately.

There are very few institutional examples of the pre-1645 editions of any of the volumes of the Paris Polyglot Bible, and none of these have been digitized; it is not known in which specific editions this map (and any others excised from the final edition) first appeared, or when they were cut. We suspect that our example appeared in a printing of that volume between 1629 and 1635. These books are extremely rare; those that still exist are poorly cataloged, and we have been unable to examine earlier editions of the volume to confirm our theory.

Publication History and Census

This map was engraved by Jean Blanchin for inclusion in the first volume of Guy-Michel Le Jay's Biblia. Dated 1630, it may have been included in the 1629 first edition of that volume. It is not known how long it remained in print: it may have remained in the Le Jay Bible until it was cut from the 1645 edition, or it may have been cut earlier. Only two examples of the map are cataloged in institutional collections: one in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and the other in the National Library of Israel. Neither of these examples exhibits any of the typesetting present here.

Cartographer

Guy-Michel Lejay (1588 – July 10, 1674) was a French lawyer, scholar, philologist, and ecclesiastic best known for financing and overseeing the publication of the monumental Paris Polyglot Bible (1628 - 1645), also known as the Lejay Bible. Born in 1588, Lejay trained in law and developed an interest in ancient and Oriental languages, although his own linguistic abilities were reportedly limited. A wealthy advocate, he revived an ambitious project originally conceived by Cardinal Jacques Davy du Perron, the historian Jacques-Auguste de Thou, and the Orientalist François Savary de Brèves to produce a multilingual edition of the Bible. Beginning in 1628, Lejay assembled a distinguished team of scholars, including the Oratorian Jean Morin, the converted Jewish scholar Philippe d'Aquin, Godefroi Hermant, and several Maronite scholars from Lebanon. He engaged the royal printer Antoine Vitré to undertake production, employing specially cast Hebrew, Samaritan, Syriac, and Arabic types, some produced by the celebrated typefounder Jacques Sanlecque. Despite repeated delays arising from ecclesiastical opposition, scholarly disagreements, and disputes among his collaborators, the magnificent nine-volume work, bound in ten enormous folio volumes, was completed in 1645. Celebrated as a masterpiece of seventeenth-century typography, the Paris Polyglot included the first printed edition of the Syriac Old Testament and represented one of the most ambitious scholarly publishing enterprises of its age. Its extraordinary production costs, however, consumed much of Lejay's fortune and left him heavily indebted. Cardinal Richelieu reportedly offered to reimburse his expenses in exchange for having the work associated with his own name, but Lejay refused. He likewise declined an opportunity to sell a substantial number of copies to English buyers at a discount, inadvertently encouraging the publication of Brian Walton's competing London Polyglot (1654 - 1657), which further undermined the commercial prospects of his edition. In recognition of his achievement, Lejay received confirmation of his nobility and was appointed a royal councilor in 1646. Having subsequently entered the priesthood, he was appointed dean of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine at Vézelay in Burgundy in 1647. He lost his position on the Council of State during its reorganization in 1657, although Cardinal Mazarin reportedly granted him financial assistance. Lejay died on July 10, 1674, aged 86, having devoted much of his fortune and seventeen years of his life to a publishing achievement that secured his scholarly reputation but brought him financial ruin.   Further Details...

Source

Le Jay, Guy-Michel, Biblia hebraïca, samaritana, chaldaica, græca, syriaca, latina, arabica, quibus textus originales totius Scripturæ Sacræ, (Paris-Vitré) 1630-1635.    

Condition

Very good. Old marginal mends with no loss to printed image.

References

OCLC 494957726. Laor, E., Maps of the Holy Land: Cartobibliography of Printed Maps, 1475 - 1900, #434.