De Arcanis Catholicae Veritatis, Petrus Columna Galatinus, Ortona: Gershom Soncino, 1518

311+ 1 leaves (12 1/4 x 8 in.; 310 x 205 mm). Lacking only the opening blank leaf; printed in Latin with Hebrew, Greek, and Ethiopic. A wide-margined copy including all thirteen framed pages and numerous historiated initial letters; scattered Latin marginalia including owners' inscription on title; hole in f.227 affecting frame on recto and historiated initial on verso; bottom margin of ff. 231-243 slightly wormed.Title page soiled. Later half-calf.

The Signet Library

Adams C-2418; Heller, Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book, vol.I, pp. 116-117.

Pietro Columna Galatinus, an Italian Christian theologian, Hebraist and Kabbalist, was one of those who supported Johannes Reuchlin in his attempts to silence Johannes Pfefferkorn, an apostate Jew who agitated for the confiscation of the Talmud and other Jewish books in the beginning of the sixteenth century. De Arcanis, Galatinus's most important work, was an attempt to use Jewish sources, including the Zohar, to prove the veracity of Catholicism. While it demonstrated the utility of Jewish sources for Christian needs, and thus vindicated Reuchlin's position, it also attacked Judaism. The potential ramifications of the Reuchlin-Pfefferkorn controversy, and Galatinus's stated desire in De Arcanis to see the Talmud published (Bomberg had not yet begun to publish his pioneering edition), may have been what caused its Jewish printer, Gershom Socinco, to overlook the book's anti-Jewish content when agreeing to print it.

De Arcanis is one of just four books that Gershom Soncino printed during his short sojourn in Ortona. The Latin text of De Arcanis contains many Hebrew quotes. Indeed it was the first book printed in Ortona with Hebrew type.