The Vulgate Bible is perhaps the most widely read work of Latin literature. Even today, its phrases can be found in popular culture, in pets named ‘Magnificat’ and businesses named ‘Quo vadis’. Yet understanding of the origins and nature of this book tends to be low. It is not uncommon to see the Vulgate treated as if it were a homogeneous text, with the assumption that everyone in the past read it as it is now found in the standard critical edition. Scholars have refined this common understanding of the text’s origins, but their findings have only barely emerged from a circle of specialists. At the same time, the new online availability of biblical manuscripts every month is prompting questions among non-specialists about how to interpret these artefacts. The appearance of this book could hardly be more timely.

A history of the Vulgate and its thousands of surviving manuscripts would be an impossible task, and the study under review has been achieved by focusing on the New Testament, and specifically on the manuscripts used in editions of this text. The book does precisely what its title promises. It is divided into three parts: ‘History’ discusses the genesis and development of the Latin translation of the New Testament, both the Old Latin versions and the Vulgate; ‘Texts’ gives an orientation in the complexities of the various editions of the Latin New Testament and the relevance of this text to textual criticism of the Greek New Testament, with a guide to some of the more unusual variants; ‘Manuscripts’ supplies a guide to the codicological features in manuscripts of the Latin New Testament and a summary catalogue of those used in critical editions. The entry point for most scholars into this subject is the editions of the text, and will in many cases be their only point of reference. It is logical that this handbook contextualizes what one finds in the editions, their sources, and the scholarship surrounding them.