![SHELOSH ESREH IKKARIM (MAIMONIDES’ THIRTEEN PRINCIPLES OF THE JEWISH FAITH), DIVREI HA-BAYIT HA-SHENI (HISTORY OF THE SECOND TEMPLE), ESER GALUYYOT YISRA’EL (THE TEN EXILES OF ISRAEL), TRANSLATED BY SEBASTIAN MÜNSTER, WORMS: PETRU[S] SCHOEFER, 1529](https://dam.sothebys.com/dam/image/lot/59e78033-e92f-4a4b-be88-c8d84026b166/primary/extra_small)
Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection
Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection
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SHELOSH ESREH IKKARIM (MAIMONIDES’ THIRTEEN PRINCIPLES OF THE JEWISH FAITH), DIVREI HA-BAYIT HA-SHENI (HISTORY OF THE SECOND TEMPLE), ESER GALUYYOT YISRA’EL (THE TEN EXILES OF ISRAEL), TRANSLATED BY SEBASTIAN MÜNSTER, WORMS: PETRU[S] SCHOEFER, 1529
Auction Closed
November 20, 08:47 PM GMT
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
SHELOSH ESREH IKKARIM (MAIMONIDES’ THIRTEEN PRINCIPLES OF THE JEWISH FAITH), DIVREI HA-BAYIT HA-SHENI (HISTORY OF THE SECOND TEMPLE), ESER GALUYYOT YISRA’EL (THE TEN EXILES OF ISRAEL), TRANSLATED BY SEBASTIAN MÜNSTER, WORMS: PETRU[S] SCHOEFER, 1529
182 folios (6 x 3 7/8 in.; 153 x 99 mm) (collation: i-xxii8, xxiii6) on paper. Periodic Latin marginalia in pen; episodic underlining in pen and pencil; printer’s device on f. [182v]. Ever-so-slight scattered staining, browning, and dogearing; small nick in outer edge of f. [2]; lower-outer corner of f. [160] lacking, not affecting text. Original (?) vellum over board, soiled and somewhat scuffed; contemporary paper flyleaves and pastedowns.
The only premodern Hebrew book printed in the famous city in whose yeshiva Rashi studied.
Petrus Schoefer (ca. 1425-ca. 1503), an apprentice of Johannes Gutenberg‘s, was an early German printer who later bequeathed his business to his sons John and Petrus. The latter printed books in a number of European cities, including Worms (1512-1529). Sebastian Münster (1488-1552), a prominent Christian Hebraist who published a Hebrew grammar as well as a famous bilingual edition of the Hebrew Bible, edited the three texts included in the present volume and provided them with a Latin translation. The first part comprises Rabbi Moses Maimonides’ famous Thirteen Principles of Faith, as presented in his introduction to Perek helek, the tenth chapter of the mishnaic Tractate Sanhedrin (first edition: Venice, 1517). The latter two works – histories of the Jewish monarchy in the Second Temple period and of the ten exiles suffered from the times of Sennacherib to Hadrian, respectively – derive from Rabbi Abraham Ibn Daud’s (ca. 1110-1180) Sefer/seder ha-kabbalah (first edition: Mantua, 1513). (Münster had previously translated parts of Sefer ha-kabbalah in his Kalendarium Hebraicum [Basel, 1527].) The book closes (ff. 181v-182r) with a plea by Münster, in poorly-written Hebrew, that his Jewish readers realize that “the kingdom of David has already arrived” and that they “place upon [their] heart and recognize the salvation granted [them], us, and all the nations, as stated in Isaiah…”
Literature
Vinograd, Worms 1-2
Isaac Yudlov and G.J. Ormann, Sefer ginzei yisra’el: sefarim, hoverot, va-alonim me-osef dr. yisra’el mehlman, asher be-beit ha-sefarim ha-le’ummi ve-ha-universita’i (Jerusalem: JNUL, 1984), 281 (no. 1872).