SEPHER YETZIRAH [on cosmogony and thaumaturgy]

AUCTION 1 | Thursday, November 14th, 1996 at 1:00

Fine Judaica: Books, Manuscripts and Works of Art

Back to Catalogue

<Previous Lot

/397

Next Lot>

Lot 29

Anonymous (Attributed to Abraham the Patriach).

SEPHER YETZIRAH [on cosmogony and thaumaturgy]

FIRST EDITION. Prepared by GUILLAUME POSTEL with his mystical comments. ff.(60), remnants of paper label on title page, stamp on verso, title lightly discolored, minute worm-hole through outer margin of several ff., new endpapers, contemporary vellum, backstrip removed, 16mo Adams S-946; G. Scholem, Bibliographia Kabbalistica (1933) no.918; Steinschneider, Cat. Bod. no.3573

Paris: G. Postel in Scholis Italorum 1552

Est: $6,000 - $8,000

“The earliest extant Hebrew text of systematic speculative thought” (Scholem). This Latin edition of the Sepher Yetzirah - translated from the Hebrew by the French Orientalist Guillaume Postel - preceded the first Hebrew edition by a full ten years.