Menasseh ben Israel (printer)
Humas de Parasioth y Aftharoth
£11,970
Auction: 05 February 2025 from 10:00 GMT
Description
traduzido palabra por palabra de la verdad Hebraica en Español. [Amsterdam:] Menasseh Ben Israel, 1 Sebat 5387 [i.e. 18th January 1627]. 8vo (15.4 x 9cm), A-2I8 2K6, 252 ff., contemporary sprinkled calf (apparently British), loss to head of spine, wear to corners, title-page spotted and with minor loss to lower fore corner not affecting text, short closed tears to A7, small chip to lower margin of B3 [Fuks & Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew Typography in the Northern Netherlands 1585-1615, I p. 135; University College Dublin, Iberian Books (online), B45859]
Provenance
From the library of the Murrays of Dollerie, Crieff, Perthshire. Ownership inscription and initials of Anthony Murray to title-page.
Footnote
First edition of the first non-Hebrew book printed by Menasseh ben Israel at his newly established press in Amsterdam, published only a few days after the first book of the press, a collection of Hebrew prayers, which appeared on 1st January the same year. A landmark in Sephardic Jewish culture, the work is a Spanish translation of the Pentateuch ('Parasioth'); a translation of the ‘Aftharoth’ (Haphtharoth: readings from the Prophets), not present here, was issued as the second part, with separate foliation and register and a title page dated 1 Cheshvan 5388 (equating to 11th October 1627). ‘The twenty-six non-Hebrew books which Menasseh printed were either written by himself or were translations from the Hebrew of Jewish prayers and other religious literature, for the use of the increasing amount [sic] of refugees from the Iberian peninsula who wanted to embrace Judaism but did not know Hebrew and had no knowledge whatsoever of Jewish religion and its rites’ (Fuks & Fuks-Mansfelder, p. 112). One other copy traced in auction records, incomplete, in the Warner Prins Collection of Hebrew and Judaic Books (Christie's East, 6th December 1995).