Hebrew Bible, Venice: Daniel Bomberg, 1521

529 folios (8 3/8 x 6 in.; 213 x 152 mm) on paper; headers throughout; single-column text of twenty-nine lines to a page, except for the biblical songs and Psalms, the latter printed in two columns; full Tiberian vocalization and accentuation of the biblical text throughout, with the exception of ff. 91r-92v (the repeating parts of Parashat naso); frequent marginal manuscript gilding at the start of each new biblical book; marginal chapter and kerei numeration; three pes at the end of each parashah; episodic printed marginal notation of haftarot in the Prophets; catchwords on versos only; list of haftarot on ff. 528v-529v; frequent marginalia in Latin in pen, including underlines, translations, notes on Hebrew roots, chronologies, summaries of contents, verse and chapter numeration, at times shaved; manuscript drawing of sun and moon standing still in margin of Josh. 10:12 on f. 166v. Four title pages (Pentateuch, Former Prophets, Latter Prophets, Writings); initial word panels for almost all biblical books comprised of letters printed in hollow over woodcut strapwork or intertwined foliage blocks, others within elaborate woodcut cartouches, all hand-colored in red and green, with letters over painted in black, gold, red, or green inks; enlarged incipits at the start of new parashiyyot in the Pentateuch and at the start of four of the Five Scrolls and eleven of the Twelve Minor Prophets; biblical songs laid out as brickwork on ff. 45r-v, 180v-181r, 232r-v and in two columns on ff. 137v-138v. Occasional light paper discoloration; some faint dampstaining in lower gutters and upper margins; minor paper imperfections in edges of ff. 74, 98, 105, 152, 233, 239, 256, 266; light worming on ff. 111-114, 474-493; small tears to edges of ff. 233-234, 378, 391; repaired tear in margins of ff. 160, 177, 342, 461; old repaired tear in lower margin of f. 429. Eighteenth-century stiff vellum paneled gilt, age-darkened and joints splitting; spine in six compartments gilt with raised bands; tan morocco lettering piece; paper edges sprinkled red; pastedowns abraded.

Sensitive to the market demand for a less expensive edition of his Hebrew Bible, Daniel Bomberg produced a single-volume quarto edition in 1517, without the commentaries included in the Biblia Rabbinica issued that year, thus making it more affordable and more likely to appeal to a broader audience. The present volume attests to the success of Bomberg’s strategy as he found it necessary to reissue this quarto edition only four years after its initial appearance. Based on the clarity of their type and layout, as well as the decorative initial woodcut word panels at the start of most of the biblical books, the quarto Bible editions of Daniel Bomberg have long been celebrated as among the most beautiful Bibles published in the sixteenth century.

Provenance

John Rogers (early-nineteenth-century engraved armorial bookplate on front pastedown)

E.B. (copious bibliographical signed notes in English on front free endpaper and rear flyleaves dated 1838)

“Incepi A 1679 14. Iunij in Praedio Eekebÿ” (front flyleaf)

“Moses Samuel M: C:, Anno 1739, 4 Jan: Duisburg” (f. [1])

“Modo Mÿlaus 18 Februari. a[nn]o 1739” (f. [1])

Literature

Stephen G. Burnett, “The Strange Career of the Biblia Rabbinica among Christian Hebraists, 1517-1620,” in Bruce Gordon and Matthew McLean (eds.), Shaping the Bible in the Reformation: Books, Scholars and Their Readers in the Sixteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 63-83.

A.M. Habermann, Ha-madpis daniyyel bombirgi u-reshimat beit defuso (Safed: Museum of Printing Art, 1978), 37 (no. 67).

Marvin J. Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus, vol. 1 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), 143.

David Stern, “The Rabbinic Bible in Its Sixteenth-Century Context,” in Joseph R. Hacker and Adam Shear (eds.), The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 76-108, 252-268.

Vinograd, Venice 53