NIETO, DAVID. Mateh Dan-Kuzari Chelek Sheni

Estimate: $1,000–$1,500
Hammer price: $1,400

Historical auction record. Hammer prices exclude buyer’s premium and taxes.

author

(ANGLO-JUDAICA)

printer

Thomas Ilive

Place

London

Publication

1714

Description

FIRST EDITION. Bilingual edition, Hebrew and Spanish text in facing columns. Two title pages each with architectural arch incorporating portrait-roundel of Judah the Prince flanked by armour-suited angels. Historiated initials in both Hebrew and Spanish texts. Wide-margined copy. Includes Spanish dedicatory text (often lacking). Provenance: A. Rosenthal, Oxford

references

Vinograd, London 24; Roth, London 5

summary

Haham of the Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue in London, David Nieto (1654-1728) composed the Mateh Dan as a defence of rabbinic Judaism from the scorn of free-thinking former Marranos. Nieto considered his work a continuation of the tradition of Judah Halevi’s Kuzari (Fano,1506) a philosophical exposition of Judaism, defending the validity of the Oral Law and opposing the attacks of Karaites, heretics and others

ff. (10), 90, 90-254. Hebrew title laid to size. Lightly browned and damp-wrinkled. Contemporary blind-tooled calf over thick wooden boards, lacking clasps, rebacked. Large 4to

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