Pentateuch (Torah). With Targum Onkelos and Rash”i

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 54

(BIBLE).

Pentateuch (Torah). With Targum Onkelos and Rash”i

Woodcut engravings of a lion and a horse within intricate foliage ornamentation in Oriental style plus historiated initials at end and/ or beginning of each Book (e.g. see penciled no. ff. 106b, 146 a-b). Extensive marginal notes in elegant Sephardic and Ashkenazic semi-cursive hands scattered throughout. Text and Targum in square type (Targum in a very small size) without nikud and accents. Rashi in exquisite Spanish cursive characters. Without chapter and verse numbers as in all incunable editions ff. 227 (of 264) leaves, lacking ff. 1-8, most of 9, 10, 16-21, 32-3, 65-6, 126-8, 144, 203, portions of 217, 237 250-2, 254-6. Two missing leaves provided in manuscript, first leaf of Bereishith in facsimile. Many leaves with various paper repairs. Names of Sidroth provided at top of many leaves in a Sephardic hand. Modern morocco. Folio GOFF 19; OFFENBERG 16; GOLDSTEIN 89 (plate no. 4); Steinschneider p.2 no.8; Thes. B11; Wineman Cat. 54. Not in Cambridge University, JNUL incomplete with 229 leaves; Marx 9 (HUC copy also incomplete -” most [leaves] are mutilated; some badly”)

Hijar: (Eliezer Alantansi, for) Shlomo ben Maimon Zalmati 1490

Est: $50,000 - $60,000

PRICE REALIZED $45,000

FIRST HEBREW BIBLE WITH TARGUM ONKELOS AND RASHI’S COMMENTARY PRINTED IN SPAIN. Extremely Rare. Goldstein provided only four illustrated plates in his Catalogue of Incunabula in the British Isles, due to its importance, this Hijar Bible was selected as one of the four. The master engraver and type cutter of this edition was Alfonso Fernandez de Cordoba. Cordoba was also associated with the printing of Christian books such as the Manuale Caesaraugustanum which appeared in Hijar (ca. 1486). According to Bloch, it was Cordoba’s distinctive, beautiful border, first designed for this work, which was later transferred to the title pages of the earliest Hebrew books printed in Lisbon by R. Eliezer Toledano (e.g. the Abudraham - see Lot 57). According to A. Marx, this border was originally designed for use in connection with Hebrew type in Hijar. “It is the result of mere chance that it first appeared in a Christian... work” (A. Marx, Notes on the Use of Hebrew Type in Non-Hebrew Books, 1475-1520 in: Studies in Jewish History and Booklore (1944) p. 299 n.11, citing Haebler) For an extensive, detailed six page description of this Bible, see C. D. Ginsburg, Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible (London, 1897) pp. 831-36, there he describes the Hijar Bible as an “extremely rare and remarkable edition” (p. 834)