Hebrew). Koheleth [Ecclesiasties]. With commentary of Rashi.

AUCTION 34 | Tuesday, September 12th, 2006 at 1:00

Exemplary Hebrew Books: The Library of Joseph Gradenwitz, Esq.

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Lot 18

(BIBLE

Hebrew). Koheleth [Ecclesiasties]. With commentary of Rashi.

Text in square script with nikud (vowel points). Unique to the Gunzhauser typeface, the soft consonants veith, chaf and thav are marked by a horizontal line above the letter. (Yiddish orthography would retain this custom for the letter fe.) Commentary in Rashi script. No enumeration of chapter and verse; verses separated by colons. The printer omitted a portion of chap. V, verses 17-18, which has been supplied in an old Italian hand: “ki hu chelko: gam kol ha-adam asher nathan lo ha-Elokim” (f.4v.). Wide margins ff.10. Fine condition, with the exception of a single marginal wormhole starting midway through the book. Handsome modern red morocco with florets on covers tooled in gilt, spine in compartments gilt extra. Folio Vinograd, Naples 2; Goff 26; Goldstein 51; Mehlman 24; Offenberg 46; Thes. A-59; Wineman Cat. 33

(Naples) : (Joseph ben Jacob Aschkenazi Gunzenhauser) (1487)

Est: $4,000 - $6,000

PRICE REALIZED $6,500

One of the peculiarities of this incunabule edition of the Five Megiloth (contained in Kethuvim / Writings) is the fact that the commentaries are not identified. While the commentary of Rashi was chosen to grace the Scrolls of Ecclesiastes, Esther, Ruth and Song of Songs, that of R. Joseph Kara was chosen for Lamentations. Gerson Cohen speculates that this was the first edition of the Five Megiloth to contain these commentaries. See G.Cohen, Hebrew Incunabula…Yeshiva University (1984), p.109, no.40. According to Joshua Bloch, “Very few copies of the Naples Hagiographa were known in the 18th-century. In fact, when in 1735 Dr. Theo. Pellet presented a copy of the book to the Library of Eton College, he described it as unique." J. Bloch, “Hebrew Printing and Bibliography,” in: Studies by Joshua Bloch (1976), p.124, n. 32