Cunaeus, Petrus. La Republique des Hebreux. [“The Republic of the Hebrews, On the Commonwealth of the Jews.”] Edited and translated by Willem Goeree.
AUCTION 64 |
Thursday, March 19th,
2015 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Ceremonial Objects, Maps and Graphic Art
Lot 137
(ISRAEL, LAND OF).
Cunaeus, Petrus. La Republique des Hebreux. [“The Republic of the Hebrews, On the Commonwealth of the Jews.”] Edited and translated by Willem Goeree.
Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier 1705
Est: $3,000 - $5,000
PRICE REALIZED $7,500
Peter van der Cunaeus (1586-1638) was a professor of Latin at Leiden. His De Republica Hebraeorum was first published in Leiden in 1617. “De Republica Hebraeorum is essentially a conventional presentation of the traditional Calvinist views on biblical antiquity and on Judaism and the Jews …The true novelty of his work however, consists in its quarrying of [Maimonides’] Mishneh Torah for the study of the ancient Jewish commonwealth.” Aaron L. Katchen, Christian Hebraists and Dutch Rabbis (1984) p. 39.
A set of the 1574 Venice edition of the Mishneh Torah had been given to Cunaeus by his friend Johannes Boreel (Borelius), who acquired the books on one of his tours of Italy. Cunaeus records in his memoirs, “I ran through the splendid treatises of Rabbi Maimonides with great enthusiasm in the most pleasant and leisurely fashion …I was so affected that I nearly turned my pen around and erased all my previous animadversions on things Jewish” (ibid).