(Rada”k). Sepher ha-Shorashim [“Book of Roots”: Biblical Lexicon]

AUCTION 26 | Monday, November 22nd, 2004 at 1:00

Exceptional Printed Books, Sixty-Five Hebrew Incunabula: The Elkan Nathan Adler-Wineman Family Collection

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Lot 43

KIMCHI, DAVID BEN JOSEPH

(Rada”k). Sepher ha-Shorashim [“Book of Roots”: Biblical Lexicon]

Third edition. Double columns. Square Hebrew type ff. 166 (of 168). Opening and closing leaf provided in facsimile, f.3 with loss, few leaves with marginal repairs affecting some text, stained. Modern calf, gilt, a.e.g. Slip-case. Folio Vinograd, Naples 19; Goff 40; Goldstein 45; Offenberg 106; Steinschneider, p. 873, no. 4821-44; Thesaurus A69; Wineman 43. Not in Cambridge University

Naples: Joshua Solomon ben Israel Nathan Soncino 1491

Est: $20,000 - $25,000

<p>No other Hebrew lexicographical work influenced Christian Hebraists in their studies of the sacred tongue as did Kimchi's Sepher ha-Shorashim. To name but a few, Johannes Reuchlin, Sebastian Münster, and Sanctus Paganini acknowledged their debt to Kimchi. The popularity of the Sepher ha-Shorashim is attested to the fact that this third edition was printed not six months following the second edition (see Lot 39). The Wineman Collection contains the first three editions of the Sepher ha-Shorashim (see also Lots 1 and 39). By this time, Joshua Soncino had been expelled from the town of Soncino and settled in Naples were he competed directly with the printing establishment of the Gunzenhausers</p>