Edited by Agostino Giustiniani (1470-1536), bishop of Nebbio. According to a note to Psalms 78, he was assisted by Jacobus Furnius in the correction of the Greek text, and by Baptista Cigala in the Arabic.
Imprint supplied from Latin colophon, leaf [con]5v: "Impressit... Petrus Paulus Porrus, Genuae in Aedibus Nicolai Iustiniani Pauli ... anno ... millesimo quingentesimo sextodecimo mense. VIIIIbri." Printer's mark, leaf [con]6r.
Title in five languages, printed in red and black within woodcut arabasque border. Text in 8 columns across double page: Hebrew, literal Latin version of Hebrew, Latin Vulgate, Greek Septuagint, Arabic, Chaldee (in Hebrew characters), literal Latin version of the Chaldee, and Scholia (commentary). Colophon on sig. [con]5v-6r printed in all five languages.
Signatures: A¹⁰ B-Z⁸ &⁸ [con]⁶.
This is the first polyglot version of any part of the Bible. In Psalm 19, sigs. C7-D1, the editor inserted a long note, in the marginal commentary, describing the life and discoveries of Christopher Colombus. According to Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, v. 2, this is the first printed biographical sketch of Christopher Columbus, with hitherto unpublished accounts of his second voyage.
Printer's device on final leaf. According to Davies, this mark was used only in the Polyglot Psalter.
Le Long states that 2,000 copies were printed on paper and 50 on vellum. The Genoa senate ordered all copies destroyed.
According to dealer's catalog, it contains the first printing of Arabic.
Psalterium Hebraeum, Graecum, Arabicum & Chaldaeum