[BIBLE. O.T. PENTATEUCH]. OLEASTRO, Fr. Jerónimo de Azambuja, O.P. Reverendi patris Fratris Hieronymi ab Oleastro Lusitani, Prædicatorii Ordinis … Commentaria in Mósi Pentateuchum, iuxta M. Sanctis Pagníni Lucensis eiusdem ordinis interpretationem: quibus Hebraica veritas exactissime explicatur. Five parts in one volume. Lisbon: João de Barreira and João Blávio, 1556–1558.
First edition. Folio, 29.5 × 20.3 cm. Genesis printed by João de Barreira, 1556; Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy printed by João Blávio of Cologne, 1557–1558. Main text in two columns. Several large woodcut initials, numerous smaller initials, architectural woodcut title-pages to volumes II–V, and large woodcut printer’s devices in the Blávio volumes.
Contemporary limp vellum, vertical manuscript short author-title on spine, old-style fore-edge title. Five parts complete in text; Deuteronomy lacking only the bibliographical blank ¶1. Retains the errata and final leaves.
A Hebrew-Based Pentateuch by an Inquisitor
This is the first edition of the major scholarly work of Fr. Jerónimo Oleastro, the Portuguese Dominican theologian and inquisitor: a full commentary on the first five books of the Bible. Issued book by book over three years, it joins the Latin version of Sanctes Pagnino to Oleastro’s double commentary, ad litteram and ad mores.
The intellectual tension of the book lies in its method. Oleastro explains the literal sense from the Hebrew rather than simply from the Vulgate, repeatedly invoking the Hebraica veritas. He drew openly on Jewish exegetical tradition, including Rashi, Abraham ibn Ezra, and David Kimhi, and consulted contemporary rabbis where the meaning of Hebrew words was doubtful. That reliance on Jewish learning is striking in a work by an officer of the Holy Office.
The preliminaries show the standing the work held in Renaissance Portugal. Jerónimo Osório, the celebrated Latinist later known as the “Portuguese Cicero,” praised Oleastro’s literal exposition and his refusal of excessive allegory. André de Resende, the father of Portuguese humanist antiquarian scholarship, likewise commended the commentary and explicitly identified Oleastro as the man appointed to inquire into heretics in Lisbon.
Three Inquisitorial Expurgations
The same Hebrew-based method that distinguished the commentary later made it suspect. After Trent affirmed the Vulgate as the Church’s authentic text, Iberian censorship treated such Hebraist apparatus with increasing suspicion. This copy records that history physically.
The Genesis title-page bears an ownership inscription of Cipriano Suárez, a Latin censor’s note concerning Oleastro’s reading of the serpent in Genesis, and three dated expurgation hands. The volume was expurgated under the Quiroga Index in 1585; again under the Sandoval y Rojas Index in 1612, signed “Luis de Torres”; and a third time under the Zapata Index in 1632, signed “Juan Antº.”
The result is not merely a rare printed book, but a material witness to the exchange between Jewish and Christian biblical scholarship in the sixteenth century, and to the censorship that later marked and suppressed it.
Rarity
The first edition is extremely scarce, especially complete in nice condition. The 1556 Lisbon princeps is unrecorded in the Universal Short Title Catalogue, which records only later Antwerp and Lyon editions, and no copy of the 1556 first edition is recorded in the Rare Book Hub auction census. Institutional copies are scarce and often imperfect; the present copy is exceptional for preserving all five parts together in contemporary vellum, with errata and final leaves retained.
Its rarity is joined to unusually powerful copy-specific evidence: manuscript annotations throughout, title-page ownership and censorial notes, institutional marks, and three separate campaigns of Inquisitorial expurgation across nearly half a century.
Provenance
Cipriano Suárez, ownership inscription at the head of the title; expurgated by the Inquisition in three campaigns: Quiroga Index, 2 February 1585; Sandoval y Rojas Index, 1612, signed “Luis de Torres”; Zapata Index, 1632, signed “Juan Antº”; Jesuit College of Alcalá, inscription above the imprint; Biblioteca de los PP. Franciscanos, Balaguer, oval stamp on title and smaller near-round stamp lettered “A.s.”; Richard C. Ramer, New York and Lisbon; Sotheby’s New York, 25 June 2026, lot 324. The Heribert Tenschert Collection.
Literature
Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Livros quinhentistas portugueses 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13; Adams 153 and 154; Anselmo 141, 320, 321, 322, and 323; BM Portuguese Pre-1601 STC, p. 4; Barbosa Machado II, 483–4; Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, Catálogo dos impressos de tipografia portuguesa do século XVI, 389–393; Manuel Augusto Rodrigues, “A obra exegética de Fr. Jerónimo de Azambuja,” Biblos LV; José Sebastião da Silva Dias, Correntes de sentimento religioso em Portugal; Ilda Sobral Coelho, “Frei Jerónimo de Azambuja: exegeta e Hebraísta português”; J. M. de Bujanda, Index des livres interdits; Raul Rêgo, Os índices expurgatórios e a cultura portuguesa; I. S. Révah, La Censure inquisitoriale portugaise au XVIe siècle; William Popper, The Censorship of Hebrew Books.
Condition
Very good antiquarian condition. Contemporary limp vellum with some wear. Occasional light spotting and a few browned leaves. Worming in lower blank margins from Genesis G7 to Exodus E7, and additional minor worming in inner blank margins from Numbers K1 to Deuteronomy B5, never affecting text. Old stamps, ownership inscription, censorial note, manuscript expurgation inscriptions, scored passages, overslip obscuring text on Genesis *4 recto, and significant old ink annotations throughout all five parts.
