I've played around with posts showing aspects of the Complutensian Polyglot, Erasmus' New Testament(s), and Beza's 1598 Greek NT. I've got some spare time tonight, so I thought it would be cool to finally look at some of Robertus Stephanus' NT editions.

This is all the more cool to me because my employer (Logos Bible Software) has a page from an original 1550 Stephanus edition hanging in the lobby. Its the first page of the gospel of Mark, and it is very cool. I sure wish I knew more about the miniscule script ligatures. If I did, I might actually be able to read it. As it is, the page is hanging right next to the coffee machine so everytime I'm making an Americano I take a peek at the Stephanus page to see how much of it I can decipher.

Anyway, the good folks at bibles.org.uk have two editions of Stephanus to choose from: An edition from 1546 and the 1550 edition. We'll start with 1546; the 1550 will be in a subsequent post.

First off, let's just say that whomever had this edition used it. There are notes everywhere — in the margins, underlines, etc. While some may not like that or think it detracts from the value, I kind of like it. It means that this edition was used and used extensively. Here's the title page:

Pretty simple. Standard typographical device of the day. There's a library stamp there too that came along from somewhere. Below is the initial page of the first epistle to Timothy. There are a few things to note. The '1.' in the upper left corner actually indicates the chapter. I'm unsure if this was in the typography or the later addition of the user, but it is consistent throughout the portions of the edition I've examined. The '188' is the page number of the section. So, the Pauline epistles are a section (volume?) and this is page 188 of that section. The numbers running down the margin are actually verse numbers and they're rather reflective of the ordering of the text we have in our modern versification structures today. My guess is that both the chapter and the verse numbers are later and weren't in the original typeset edition.

The typographical device at the top seems typical. The five-line drop-cap is a bit ostentatious for my tastes, but I guess it worked for Stephanus. You can also see the underlining and marginal notation added by an owner of the text at some point in its lifetime.

Finally, let's peek at 1Ti 2.3-6 and see how it looks in comparison to the other editions we've examined.

This is at the bottom of the page, the last word of v. 6 is on the next page. But we can see that the owner underlined it and added a cross-reference to what looks to be Galatians (chapter 3?). Some of the underlining gloppiness makes the text hard to read, but at least we can get an idea of what it was like 450 years ago.

Next up: 1550 Stephanus.