Me’or Einaim [Philosophy of History].

AUCTION 31 | Tuesday, December 13th, 2005 at 1:00

Fine Judaica: Hebrew and Other Printed Books

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Lot 103

DE ROSSI, AZARIAH

Me’or Einaim [Philosophy of History].

FIRST EDITION. Title within woodcut architectural border. Woodcut diagrams on f.156. This copy with the corrected “mahaduroth” which are in most standard copies, though without the rare “Mahahaduroth Shniyoth” affixed to very few copies. Some scholarly marginal notes in a contemporary hand in Latin and one later notation in Hebrew ff.188. Lightly browned, stained in places, paper repair on ff. 8 with words of missing text supplied in manuscript. Modern red morocco boards. 4to Vinograd, Mantua 138; Mehlman 1327; not in Adams

Mantua: n.p 1574

Est: $3,000 - $5,000

PRICE REALIZED $3,000

“The Me’or Einaim became so important that it rendered its author as one of the greatest, or perhaps the very greatest, of Jewish historians who flourished in the seventeen centuries between Josephus and Jost.” S. Baron, Azariah de Rossi’s Attitude to Life in: Studies in Memory of I. Abrahams, (1927) p.12 Azariah de Rossi was a member of an Italian Jewish family that traced its ancestry back to the time of Titus and the destruction of Jerusalem. His controversial Me’or Einaim questioned conventional medieval wisdom and introduced fundamental changes in chronology. Such hypotheses led the Me’or Einaim to be viewed as heresy and it was banned by the Rabbinic authorities upon publication. De Rossi reissued the work the same year, making changes to the offending passages and adding an apologetic post-script. See Carmilly-Weinberger, pp.210-13; I. Mehlman, Gnuzoth Sepharim, (1976) pp.21-39; see also M. Silber, America in Hebrew Literature in: Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, Vol. XXII.