Hebrew). Chamishah Chumshei Torah [Pentateuch]. With Five Scrolls and Haphtaroth

FIRST BOOK PUBLISHED BY CASPAR STEEN - A VISUAL DELIGHT. The House of Caspar Steen in Amsterdam was a unique phenomenon in the world of eighteenth century printing. Steen was the only non-Jew in this era to print exclusively Hebrew books. See Fuks, Hebrew Typography in the Northern Nertherlands 1585-1815 (1987), p. 416. The unique format of this Bible edition, tall and narrow - later emulated by bibliophile Ephraim Deinard, for one - makes for an extremely esthetic book. Our copy differs from that of Fuks in a few respects: 1) According to our title, the work was commissioned by Antony Steen (son of Caspar Steen), not by Jacob b. Moses Raphael de Cordova, as in Fuk’s title; 2) In our title for the Haphtaroth, there is no mention of Caspar and Antony Steen; neither do we have the error “giGath egoz” in the chronogram, but rather the correct spelling “giNath egoz”; 3) Though we have the notice of the compositor, Joseph (not Jacob!) ben Moses Segal of Hamburg, we do not have the colophon “Be-Amsterdam bi-defus u-be-veith Caspar Steen”; and finally, 4) In our copy, the final three leaves (ff.325-327) are numbered, as opposed to Fuk’s copy where they are unnumbered.