Compendium...Historie o Walce Zidowske [“Compendium. Short Collation of the History of the Wars of the Jews.”] Translated from Latin to Czech by von Stipac

JOSEPHUS FLAVIUS

Dacicky

Prague

1591

Second Czech edition of Josephus. On verso of title, Royal insignia of City of Prague. Floriated initial. Chart of months in Latin, Hebrew and Czech

Schrekenberg, Bibliographie zu Flavius Josephus, pp. 19-20; not in Adams

The appearance in Prague in 1591 of a Czech translation of Josephus' work of history, and the appearance in Prague the following year of David Gans' Hebrew chronicle Tzemach David (which treats both Jewish and universal history), might not be entirely coincidental. Prague was then a center of significant intellectual cross-pollination between Christian and Jewish savants, a time known as the "Rudolphine Era," the reign of the enlightened Emperor Rudolph II of Habsburg. This confluence may be borne out in the printing history of the era. See A. Neher, Jewish Thought and the Scientific Revolution of the Sixteenth Century (1986), pp. 5-6. Of interest, the editor of this edition has not relied solely on Josephus for the history of the Second Temple period, the Jewish Revolt and the events leading up to the destruction of the Temple by Titus. In the final chapter, mention is made of the fact that the prophecy Titus would be appointed Emperor of Rome - for which Josephus Flavius took credit - is reserved for Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai in the Talmudic account (see Bab. Talmud, Gittin f. 56)