[Bible in Hebrew]

4to (8 3/8 x 6 in.; 213 x 152 mm). Four title-pages (Pentateuch, Former Prophets, Latter Prophets, Writings), initial word panels 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, marginalia in Latin; short tears to fore-edges of 30/3–30/4, closed marginal tear (44/2), old marginal repair to 54/7, occasional light paper discoloration, some faint dampstaining in lower gutters and top margins, traces of tabs on a few leaves.  Eighteenth-century stiff vellum paneled gilt, spine in six compartments gilt with raised bands, tan morocco lettering piece, edges sprinkled red; age-darkened, joints splitting, pastedowns abraded.

"Incepi A 1679 14. Iunij in Praedio Eekebÿ" (note on front flyleaf) — Moses Samuel M: C:, 4 Jan: Duisburg, [Germany] (note on general title-page) — "Modo MÿCaius j8 Februari. a[nn]o 1739 (note on general title-page) — John Rogers (early nineteenth-century engraved armorial bookplate on front pastedown) — "E.B." (copious notes on front free endpaper and rear flyleaves dated 1838)

Formatting the Word of God 2.5; Amram, D.W.  Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (1909, reprinted 1963), pp. 146–167; Bloch, J. "Venetian Printers of Hebrew Books (1933, reprinted 1976 in Hebrew Printing and Bibliography), pp. 68–78; Vinograd, Venice 53; Habermann 67 

The second edition. While Daniel Bomberg, the celebrated printer of Hebrew books, was not the first to print a Hebrew Bible—the Soncino press held that distinction—he established the earliest Hebrew press in Venice. Over the course of three decades (1515–1549), he published more than 200 books, many of them "critical editions of the Hebrew Bible for Jews and Christians with the same philogocial standards that were being applied to the Greek Bible in the Renaissance"  (Formatting the Word of God). His legion accomplishments include his monumental Mikra'ot Gedolot, a four-volume Rabbinic Bible with commentaries in folio format (1517–1518).

Sensitive to the market demand for a less expensive edition, he produced a single-volume quarto edition, without the rabbinic commentaries (first in 1517), 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 in necessary to reissue his one-volume edition four years after its initial publication.

The colophon of this second edition contains interesting information concerning the history of Hebrew book production. The editor, Cornelius Adelkind, states that to date they have "completed [the printing of] twenty-five tractates of the Talmud and twelve quires from the book of Rav Alfasi" (a massive code of Jewish law). Adelkind further expresses the hope that God might "grant him the merit to complete the entire Talmud and also the great Alfasi as it our lord Daniel's wish."

Based on the clarity of their type and layout, the quarto Bible editions of Daniel Bomberg have long been celebrated as among the most beautiful Bibles published in the sixteenth century.