Babylonian Talmud, First Edition: Tractate Keritot; bound with Tractates Me'ilah, Kinim, Midot and Tamid; bound with Mishnah, Order Kodashim, with Maimonides' Commentary, Venice: Printed by Daniel Bomberg, 1522

122 [28+47+(2),45] leaves (13 1/2 x 9 1/2 in.; 340 x 240 mm). 3 volumes in one. Some leaves laid to size or strengthened at gutter; some staining; tape repairs; lightly wormed; manuscript owners' notes; marginalia. Modern 3/4 red morocco over green cloth, gilt stamped titles on spine; rubbed.

Vinograd , Venice 58, 79, 70; Marvin Heller, Printing the Talmud, Brooklyn: 1992;  Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg to Schottenstein, ed. Sharon Liberman Mintz and Gabriel M. Goldstein, New York: 2005.

In 1520, Daniel Bomberg, a Christian printer of Judaica and Hebraica, received permission from Pope Leo X to publish the first complete edition of the Talmud, the great compendium of Jewish law.  Bomberg was also granted a monopoly that prohibited the publication of competing editions.  

In light of the massive scope of Bomberg's undertaking, the project was completed in the relatively short time frame of three years. In this period, the entire text of the Talmud was prepared for press, together with the commentaries of Rashi, Tosafot, and the Rosh as well as Maimonides' commentary on Mishnah. This accomplishment is even more pronounced when one realizes that more than half of the tractates as well as the commentaries of Maimonides and the Rosh had never before been printed.

By any measure, the first edition of the Bomberg Talmud is an outstanding accomplishment and among the seminal events in the history of Hebrew printed books.  Among the numerous innovations of the first edition was the arrangement of the pages in what would become the standard format for all subsequent editions. Bomberg successfully divided each page of text so that the commentaries were printed in a harmonious fashion with the talmudic text. As a result, both the formatting and the foliation used by Bomberg in the sixteenth century remain in use today.