Printing in Indonesia
Title page of O novo testamento, isto he todos os livros do novo concerto do nosso fiel senhor e redemptor Jesu christo.
‘[Impresso] Em Batavia’ - when working with books from the seventeenth century, one does not expect to find such a statement in an impressum. The first explanation that springs to mind is that Batavia is short for Lugdunum Batavorum (i.e. Leiden), but this is not the case. No, Batavia here refers to the Dutch colony on Java, meaning that this book, O novo testamento, isto he todos os livros do novo concerto do nosso fiel senhor e redemptor Jesu christo, was in fact one of the first books to be printed in Indonesia. But why would someone in the seventeenth century undertake the difficult process of making a book so far from the European homeland?
Batavia about 1700
Since the beginning of the printing revolution, the printing press spread like wildfire over Europe. Starting from one studio in Mainz in the mid-fifteenth century, in just fifty years the printing press could be found all over Europe. It was, however, not for another hundred and fifty years before the first printing press was carried by ship to the island Java in the middle of the seventeenth century. This led to the establishment of the first printing shop in Batavia. Printing in Batavia came with some significant challenges. Shipping the printing press over the oceans was the first challenge, as the machine was very heavy and impractical to move. Moving a printing press to Indonesia was in fact such a challenge, that it was not until 1718 when a second press arrived. Furthermore, there were no paper mills in Indonesia, which meant that all paper had to be imported and the same problem existed for the moveable letters.
The castle of Batavia.
The single press in Batavia was in service to the East India Company. Most of what was printed was for the practical use of the Company, such as placards on which regulations were announced, and practical handbooks with information on which goods cannot be exported to Japan for example. Some books that had no apparent relation to the Company were also published, but only a few as censorship was very strict.
One of these books was the O novo testamento, a Portuguese translation of the New Testament translated by João Ferreira de Almeida (1628-1691). Almeida moved to Holland with his parents, when he was still a child. There he received his education. At the age of fourteen he converted to protestantism. Three years later in 1645 he completed the first draft of his translation of the New Testament. This translation was the first translation of the complete New Testament into Portuguese. He was, however, unable to get it published and spent most of his life revising his translation. In 1651 he went to Batavia as a missionary and from there preached all over South-East Asia.
From 1676 Almeida started to put serious efforts into getting his translation published. Since he was still living in Batavia at the time, he hoped to get it published at the one press that existed there. The road to publication was difficult and tumultuous. Almeida managed to convince the kerkeraad te Batavia, who in turn got permission from the government of the Indies to print the book in 1680. This permission was, however, revoked at a later time for unknown reasons. Because of the lack of success in Batavia, Almeida decided to send his manuscript to Amsterdam in the hope that it could be printed there. This move proved to be more fruitful as in 1681 a revised version of his translation was published in Amsterdam by Joannes van Someren. Unfortunately, this edition was full of errors. Later the unsold copies (2576 in total) were even ordered to be destroyed. In the end, Almeida also got permission to publish his work in Batavia. Under his supervision a new revised and corrected edition was made, but it was only published two years after his death in 1693.
The printing of the edition must have been a big challenge for the single press in Batavia. A total of 1500 copies of the book were ordered. Since each book contained 76 sheets and a press could print about 100 sheets an hour, we can estimate (assuming that the printers worked for 10 hours a day) that it took al least 150 days to print all copies: a project that would have cost little less than a year. We can also make a rough estimate of the price of the book, since we know the calculated financial loss of the destruction of the remaining copies of the first edition. The 2576 copies of the first edition were estimated to be worth f. 6697,12 meaning a single copy would be worth about f. 2,60. Since both editions were very similar in layout, the second edition would probably have been of a similar price, although likely a bit more expensive, a reasonable price for a quarto-edition.
[Vincent de Kruif]
Chijs, J.A. van der, ‘Proeve eener Nederlandsch Indische Bibliographie (1659-1870)’, Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunst en Wetenschappen, Vol. 39, Part 1, 1880.
Irmãos.net, ‘5.1. Biografia de João Ferreira de Almeida’. Visited on 22 december 2021: https://irmaos.net/historia/biografia_joaoferreiraalmeida.html
Nota over de Landsdrukkerij te Batavia 1667-1899. Samengesteld uit de Nederlandsch-Indische bibliografie van Mr J.A. van der Chijs en uit de Verslagen der Landsdrukkerij, Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1899.
O novo testamento, isto he todos os livros do novo concerto do nosso fiel senhor e redemptor Jesu christo translated by João Ferreira de Almeida. Batavia: J. de Vries, 1693.
Pettegree, A. & A. van der Weduwen. De boekhandel van de wereld: drukkers, boekverkopers en lezers in de Gouden Eeuw. Amsterdam/Antwerpen: Atlas Contact, 2019.