Shevet [misspelled] Yehudah - Tribus Judae Salomonis fil. Virgae. Complectens Varias Calamitates, Martyria, Dispersiones, Accusationes, Ejectiones, aliasque Res Judaeorum Ab everso Hierosolymorum Templo ad haec ferè tempora usque.

Auction 98 | Thursday, June 16th, 2022 at 1:00pm
Fine Judaica: Rare Printed Books, Manuscripts, & Autograph Letters

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Lot 260
SOLOMON IBN VERGA.

Shevet [misspelled] Yehudah - Tribus Judae Salomonis fil. Virgae. Complectens Varias Calamitates, Martyria, Dispersiones, Accusationes, Ejectiones, aliasque Res Judaeorum Ab everso Hierosolymorum Templo ad haec ferè tempora usque.

Translated from Hebrew into Latin by Georg Gentius. This copy <<Uncut and unopened.>> 44. (8), 464. Fore-edges worn. Recent plain boards. Thick 4to.

Amsterdam: Wetstenius 1680

Est: $400 - $600
PRICE REALIZED $200
Christian Hebraist George Gentze (1618-87), a pupil of Menasseh ben Israel, was entrusted with the task of completing the translation of ibn Verga's historiography “Shevet Yehudah” that Menasseh himself had begun. Besides enjoying the confidence of the great Dutch rabbi, Gentius was also held in high esteem by Rabbis Isaac Aboab and Moses Aguilar. See Aaron L. Katchen, Christian Hebraists and Dutch Rabbis (1984) pp. 247-268. The Shevet Yehudah is a chronicle of Jewish persecution from the destruction of the Second Temple until the Author’s own day, “(it is) one of the outstanding achievements of the Hebrew literature of the Renaissance.” (EJ, Vol. VIII col. 1204).