The Book of Psalms

The Book of Psalms, From the Authorized King James Version. With a Preface by Mark Van Doren, and Decoration by Valenti Angelo. 
New York: Limited Editions Club, 1960.
Call Number: (SPL) BS 1422 1960
Gift of Loryn Romadka, from the collection of Austin F. Lutter
Special Collections, Golda Meir Library

"The best-known and most revered portion of the entire Bible, which for more than two thousand years, in the church of every Western faith, has been used in the worship of the congregation, whose individual poems have been set to music. . . The Psalms, greatest of poetical collections, and most universally read and loved. The translation we have used is the King James Version of 1611. . . Our edition follows the exact wording of this text, but we have arranged it as verse to help preserve the poetic quality of the original, and for ease in reading we have omitted the verse numbers." (George Macy)

The revered Book of Psalms has a long tradition in the history of printing. In 1457 it was the first portion of the Bible to be issued separately by Johann Fust and Peter Schoefer, and was the first book printed in the British colonies on this continent, The Bay Psalm Book (1640).

The Book of Psalms was the tenth book illustrated and decorated for the Club by Valenti Angelo, who worked in the style of the fifteenth-century Italian Woodcut. He planned the minuscule 268-page volume in the fashion of a small illuminated Oriental book, with seven intricate text-borders repeated throughout in tan and blue, ornamental borders, and "Persian miniature" style illustrations. Angelo also hand-illuminated the title spread of each book with pure gold. The binding of hand-boarded persimmon-colored morocco was stamped with an Angelo-designed arabesque pattern.