Torah, Nevi’im, Ketuvim (Hebrew Bible), Frankfurt am Oder: Johann and Friedreich Hartman, 1595

508 leaves (9 x 6 ½ in.; 225 x 170 mm). FOLIATION: [148]; [112]; [120]; [128] Four sectional woodcut title pages; additional woodcut framed initial word panels heading each biblical book. First title mounted, stained, minor holes; second title remargined, first word illuminated in shell gold, flaking; Lightly browned and stained; running titles and numbering in manuscript; some scholarly notations in red and or black ink. Modern green morocco; gilt corner devices; title gilt on spine.

Steinschneider, 307; Zedner, 98; Vonograd, Frankfurt a/O 4.

THE FIRST HEBREW BOOK PRINTED IN FRANKFURT AM ODER 

This attractive edition of the Hebrew Bible printed in four parts, with separate title pages, each featuring an ornate architectural frame which first appeared in the Wittenberg Bible (1586-87). The title page states that the work was “printed with great care at the behest of Johann and Friedreich called Hartman in the year, 355 (1595), here, Frankfurt on the Oder.” The Hartman brothers employed the Wittenberg printer, Zechariah Crato, to cast new Hebrew letters with vowels, with which he printed this quarto bible as well as octavo and 16mo editions in the same year. It was only much later, however, towards the end of the seventeenth and in the eighteenth century that Frankfurt am Oder would become an important Hebrew printing center, even issuing complete editions of the Talmud.