Plantin Polyglot

He developed a plan to prove his loyalty to the Catholic king Philip II of Spain by producing a polyglot version of the Bible, in five languages.

The king promised to finance the project — completing it nearly bankrupted Plantin — and sent the Spanish theologian Benito Arias Montano to Antwerp to watch over the production of this eight-volume of printing, which was printed in 1,200 copies on paper and 12 copies on parchment.

Underneath these columns there is an Aramaic version on the left-hand page and a Latin translation of this on the right-hand side.

Volume 6 has the complete Bible in the original Hebrew and Greek, as well as an interlinear version that has the Latin translation printed between the lines.

A complete copy of this Bible is on display at the Plantin-Moretus Museum (the site of the original printing press), including the typefaces used on the project.