This spledid publication had an immense impact upon protestantism, early bible-scholarship, and theology in general and is famed because of its beauty, elegance, and typographical excellence along with its immense importance historically speaking. "Lefèvre's epoch-making work was awaited impatiently by the learned world, and is the topic of many a letter among the extant humanist correspondence of the period: thus, Cardinal Ximeèz, the future editor of the first polyglot Bible, in a letter to Charles de Bovelles, praises Lefèvre's scholarship and the usefulness of his "Psalterium".

This famous volume is also Henri Estienne's typographical masterpiece and is commonly singled out as one of the outstanding monuments of early 16th-century French typography." (Schreiber).

"Lefèvre agreed with Erasmus that theology must be based on accurate texts and translations of the Scriptures; as the title of the volume indicates, Lefèvre presents five different versions of the psalms" (Schreiber). As described, the present copy contains the final two. The three parts that were printed before those two, were all printed in three columns and consisted in the three versions of St Jerome, namely the "Psalterium Romanum" (Jerome's first version of the Old Latin Psalter according to the Septuagint), the "Psalterium Gallicum" (Jerome's second revision, first adopted by the churches of Gaul), and the "Psalterium Hebraicum" (Jerome's translation directly from the Hebrew). 

Schreiber nr. 8 (1509 ed.); Renouard 1509, nr. 1.; Mortimer 1, nr. 62 (present edition).