De Sepulchris Hebraeorum (Of Hebrew Sepulchers: burial practices and locations)
AUCTION 21 |
Thursday, December 04th,
2003 at 1:00
Kestenbaum & Company Holds Inaugural Auction of Hebrew Printed Books & Manuscripts at Their New Galleries
Lot 191
Nicolai, Johannes
De Sepulchris Hebraeorum (Of Hebrew Sepulchers: burial practices and locations)
Lugduni Batavorum [=Leiden, Holland]: Henrik Teering 1706
Est: $1,000 - $1,500
PRICE REALIZED $2,800
This is an an encyclopedic work on the topic of Hebrew burial practices, culled from Jewish and non-Jewish sources. It is interspersed with citations in Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and Greek script, typical of such books of that period. The non-Jewish author invokes the name of J. on the very first page. It is difficult to determine whether the grotesquerie on p. 243—nismatah tehei arurah be-gan eden (may her soul be cursed in the Garden of Eden)—is sheer ignorance of the Hebrew language or just a printer’s error. (Arurah, cursed, should of course read tserurah, bound.)
According to Freimann, the book went through one more edition, Venice, 1767.