(Moses ben Gershon Gentili). Malecheth Machsheveth [novellae to the Pentateuch based upon the Natural Sciences]

CHEFETZ, MOSES

Bragadin

Venice

1710

FIRST EDITION. Additional engraved title by Gissepi Valerani depicting Moses bringing forth water from the rock. Engraved frontispiece portrait of the Author (see Rubens 676). Further leaf of astronomical and mathematical diagrams. THE ALFRED RUBENS COPY, with order-card to Rubens from the Amsterdam book-dealer Louis Lamm, dated 1935

Vinograd, Venice 1591; Mehlman 649

The author, a child prodigy, developed into a fine Rabbinic decisor as well as a scholar familiar with the disciplines of mathematics and the sciences. The rare engraved frontispiece portrait depicts the author without a head covering as was the custom among the Italian Rabbis. Interestingly, the author’s portrait in the second edition (Koenigsberg, 1814), was altered to include a head-covering, gray hair and the Hebrew title “The Sage” (Ha’gaon), seemingly more acceptable to the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe