In 1819, at the o ce of R. & A. Taylor in London, a print-run of 5000 copies were published of the Bible translated into Portuguese by João Ferreira Annes d'Almeida (1628?-1691), the rst time this text was published in a single volume. It was a simple edition, with basic graphic presentation and without images or illustrations. In large octavo format and hard-cover binding, it comprised almost 1200 pages. The frontispiece, also presented with great simplicity, stated that the volume comprised 'The Holy Bible' in its entirety, which had been rendered into Portuguese by the aforementioned notable translator, here presented as a 'Pastor' and 'Minister and Preacher of the Holy Gospel in Batavia'. Inside were all the biblical texts from Genesis to Revelation, with the exception of the so-called Deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, which are not considered sacred for Jews or Protestants. To increase the portability of the volume, the text had been printed in two columns, without notes or references.
'The Almeida Bible' of 1819, produced at the expense of the British and Foreign Bible Society, founded in England in 1804 and active in Portugal since 1809, represents a fascinating landmark in the history of biblical translation and publication in Portuguese. Indeed, this was not only the rst time that the biblical text translated by the illustrious 17th-century native of Mangualde came to be published in a single volume; it also represented the true editio princeps of the Bible in Portuguese, with Old and New Testaments nally presented together for all speakers of the language of Camões, Vieira, Pessoa and Saramago, which is also that of Amado, Pepetela and Mia Couto. However, the novelty of Almeida's work can only be fully understood if we cast ourselves back another two centuries to the distant East Indies of the 17th century to imagine that 14-year old adolescent fascinated by the millenary Word of God that had yet to be spoken in our own language.
Timóteo A. J. Cavaco
