Clementine Vulgate Project

The full text of the Clementine Vulgate, freely available online

The Clementine Text Project

About the project

The Clementine Text Project was an effort between 2002 and 2005 to create a free online text version of the Clementine Vulgate. This is an historically important edition of the Latin Bible that previously did not exist in electronic form. Many people generously gave their time to help create and proof-read the new text. Work to maintain the text and correct errors that are found is ongoing: the latest update was on Oct 22 2022.

Access the text

The full text is available to browse, search or download online. The ebook version was produced using scripts by Fr Jacques Peron: sincere thanks to him. For notifications when new corrections are made to the text, subscribe to the RSS feed RSS feed.

The version of the text

There is a single, definitive Clementine text, namely the Editio Typica published by the Typographus Vaticanus in 1598 under the title "Biblia Sacra Vulgatæ editionis, Sixti V Pontificis Maximi jussu recognita et edita". However, the text here has necessarily been derived from later sources, principally that edited by A. Colunga and L. Turrado (La Editorial Católica, Madrid, 1946). For dubious readings, the editions of C. Vercellone (Typis S. Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, Rome, 1861) and M. Hetzenauer (Pustet & Co, 1914) were also consulted. Only the canonical books are included (many printed versions include an appendix with the apocryphal books Oratio Manassæ and Esdræ III and IV).

Editorial decisions

The words of the text have been transcribed as accurately as possible, human error notwithstanding. The usual division into books, chapters, and verses is observed. Punctuation, which varies widely between different editions, has been chosen with readability in mind; the text is divided into paragraphs for the same purpose. In the poetry sections, the text is presented split into lines, following Colunga and Turrado, who themselves in their Præfatio say they follow other 'recentiores editiones' in this.

Where there are minor variations in spelling amongst the previous editions, the new version generally adopts those spellings most familiar from the liturgical books printed in the first half of the twentieth century. It also distinguishes the semivowel j, and represents the diphthongs ae and oe by ligatures.

Copyright and licensing

The text has been released into the public domain. Those who use it are requested to acknowledge their source, report typographical errors to the project maintainer, and make clear any modifications they make, but these are only requests that are not enforced by any licence.

Download VulSearch for Windows

About VulSearch

VulSearch 4.2 is a desktop program for Windows. There are no current plans for Mac, Linux or mobile versions: sorry!

  • View the Clementine Vulgate Bible with the Douay–Rheims translation side-by-side
  • Fast full-text searching of both bibles
  • Create bookmarks, cross-references and annotations
  • Integrated with the Latin dictionary program Words
See a screenshot.

Download

Download VulSearch 4.2.1.1 (40 Mb)

VulSearch is free software

VulSearch is copyright © 2000-17, but is released under the GNU General Public License v2 or later. This means that it can be freely used, copied, modified and distributed, and the source code is available too.

Words is used by kind permission of William Whitaker.

Contact

You can email the project maintainer at (clementinevulgateproject@mail.com). Please report any errors you find in the text. Warning: replies may not be quick - sorry! - but I get to everything in the end. Feel free to nudge me if you think your email has been lost or forgotten. (Note that the previous email address for the project no longer works, because of a change by the provider.)

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