Mashal Hakadmoni [“Proverb of the Ancient”]

ISAAC IBN SAHULA.

Meir Parenzo

Venice

circa 1547

Third edition. Eighty unusual woodcut illustrations (few repeated). Printer’s device on title (Yaari, Printer’s Marks no. 14). The Mayer Sulzberger copy (Halberstamm Collection).

Vinograd, Venice 319; Adams I-180 (incomplete); A.M. Habermann, Kiryat Sepher vol. XXIX pp. 199-203; Amram, pp. 367-71; Roth, Jewish Art cols. 476-77; Pierpont Morgan Library, Hebraica from the Valmadonna Trust (1989) no. 32; National Library of Canada, The Jacob M. Lowy Collection (1981) no. 111; New York Public Library, A Sign and a Witness (1988) no. 181

“The illustrated Hebrew book par excellence.” A.J. Karp. From the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress (1991) p. 125. Rare Venetian edition of a collection of allegories, fables and puns with moral inferences all written in rhymed prose. The remarkable illustrations are of specifically Jewish origin, most all of the early manuscripts extant are similarly illustrated, seemingly following the Author’s original 13th-century copy (now lost). The first printed edition of the Mashal Hakadmoni (Brescia, 1491), represents the first illustrated Hebrew book. See Christie’s New York, Hebrew Printed Books: Duplicates from the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 22nd May 1986 Lot 11.