Not Only Sumptuous, But Also Erudite

[beamjockey]

In a book I am reading, I found a mention of "the sumptuous and erudite Complutensian Polyglot of 1514-17."

I just liked that phrase. It might seem less exotic if I had ever heard of the Complutensian Polyglot (an edition of the Bible) before.

I am sure there are those who think about the sumptuous and erudite Complutensian Polyglot of 1514-17 all the time. Perhaps some of them even read this blog. But for me, the phrase still has plenty of novelty. I think I'll say it aloud one more time. "The sumptuous and erudite Complutensian Polyglot of 1514-17."

It will be very difficult to find a way to work this into conversation.

Comments

[msminlr.livejournal.com]

You'd just about have to be discussing something like the Book of Kells.

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

That's what fandom is for: just that kind of discussion, late at night in the consuite....

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Can I get the Complutensian Polyglot as a NookBook?

[tceisele.livejournal.com]

I see the Wikipedia page for it says nothing about its sumptuousness and eruditeness (at least, not in those words). Maybe that should be corrected.

I am sad to see that "Complutensian" just means it was published in Complutum (a small city outside of Madrid). It is such a great word, that it really should have meant something more, well, exotic.

Of course, I was sad to find out that "squamous" and "rugose" just mean "flat" and "wrinkled", too.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

On the bright side, I'm sure that if one visited the suburbs of Madrid, one might find a sumptuous, erudite, and callipygian Complutensian maiden.

[jsburbidge.livejournal.com]

The phrase I always associated with it was a quip by Cardinal Ximenes (who produced it) that the Vulgate text was centred between the Hebrew and Greek texts "like Christ crucified between two thieves".

Alas, it's a beautiful book, but the state of scholarship in the various texts has advanced enough to make the text itself useless for serious purposes, unless your serious purpose is a bibliographic/codicological study of the transmission of the various biblical texts over time.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

...useless for serious purposes, unless your serious purpose is a bibliographic/codicological study of the transmission of the various biblical texts over time.

And that, indeed, is exactly the context in which I encountered a reference to it.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

It looks like a hardcore geek tool of the era, though. Remarkable layout, too.

[jsburbidge.livejournal.com]

It was. Better and more general scholarship than that of Erasmus, even if you had to be someone like Lancelot Andrews to appreciate it all.

I have, I think, referenced the Complutensian Polyglot in conversation, but I do occasionally move in circles where it is reasonable to talk about Renaissance editions of the bible and Reformation controversies.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

I think that "complutensian polyglot" would make an AWESOME band name.* Tracking the mispronounciations would only be icing on the cake.

* If only I had a band....

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

Complutensian Polyglot sounds like it should be an alien from Phil Foglio's Buck Godot.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

"The sumptuous and erudite Complutensian Polyglot of 1514-17" sounds like a phrase from a Douglas Adams book.

(I've been working my way through the original Doctor Who, and was vastly amused when, in a serial written by Douglas Adams, the Fourth Doctor said to another character, "Don't panic.")

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

Which one? He wrote three, as I recall.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

"The Pirate Planet", one of the "Key to Time" episodes, with the Fourth Doctor and Romana. I think it was the first serial he wrote.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

Fourth Doctor and First Romana. I remember that the cyborg pirate captain had a robot parrot.

are you kidding?

[isherempress.livejournal.com]

It will be very difficult to find a way to work this into conversation.

Oh, Bill, I never underestimate your ability to converse about the oddest things. Even this. No, make that: especially this.

Sorry I won't be in the GT suite to hear the discourse. Have a blast anyway!

[bibliotechie.livejournal.com]

Sumptuous erudite and exquisite
I've actually had the opportunity to see and handle it. If I remember correctly, it is in multiple large leather (Morocco with gilt-edge) bound volumes and printed on vellum (which wasn't done much after 1500 because it doesn't hold ink the way paper does—not a problem for hand written manuscripts but a problem for printing). It is not practical for modern textual analysis/exegesis, but it is beautiful.

New York Public Library currently has an exhibition (as a Judaica specialist librarian and cataloger there I have worked with some of the materials and curators involved). I'm not sure if the Complutensian (Biblia polyglotta Ximenii) is on display, but it might work as a conversation starter. (In a group of exuberant bibliophiles, one can even get away with 'obviously, the solution is the word used in the Aramaic periphrastic translations'.)

http://exhibitions.nypl.org/threefaiths/

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

I'm quite sure you will find a way.

[mbcrui.livejournal.com]

I think you could make it a game to see how many times you could work it into conversations at a convention or other gathering :) I love the poetry of it...