(Zamora, Alfonso de). Introductiones Artis Grammatice Hebraice

(GRAMMAR)

Michael de Eguia

Complutensian Academy, Alcala de Henares, Spain

1526

FIRST COMPLETE EDITION. Latin and Hebrew texts. Title in red and black, printer’s device. Historiated initials. Exquisite Complutensian Hebrew types provided witrh nikud (vowel points). Extensive Latin marginalia

Steinschneider 44408-1; Adams A-800

Alfonso de Zamora (1480-ca.1558), an educated and erudite Jew, was forced to convert to Christianity in 1492. Appended to this Hebrew grammar and dictionary is Zamora’s Epistola ad Hebraeos [Letter to the Hebrews], composed in Hebrew and provided with a Latin interlinear translation, a conversionary tract addressed to the Jews of Rome. Joshua Bloch has sung the praise of the Hebrew typefaces found in this grammar. “Virtually nothing like their beauty is to be met in the types of fifteenth-century printing.” (See J. Bloch, Early Hebrew Printing in Spain and Portugal, reprinted in: C. Berlin ed., Hebrew Printing and Bibliography (1976) pp. 46-7). These Hebrew types were earlier employed in the famous six-volume Complutensian Bible, the first polyglot Bible (Alcala de Henares, 1514-1517 (Darlow and Moule 5082). That Bible, or at least its Hebrew text, which was established on the basis of ancient manuscripts, was the brainchild of Alfonso de Zamora and three fellow Conversos. Zamora prepared the grammar and dictionary of the Hebrew language found in the sixth volume of the Bible. Our 1526 edition, though technically the second edition, is the first complete edition of the grammar See A. Neubauer, Alfonso de Zamora, JQR VII, p. 398-417; J. Bloch, The People and the Book (1954) p. 81-82