MARGARITHA, ANTON. Der Gantz Jüdische Glaub [The Entire Jewish Faith]

(ANTISEMITICA)

Heinrich Steyner

Augsburg

1530

FIRST EDITION. Woodcut vignette on title with five further woodcut illustrations by Jan de Breu. Initial letters within historiated woodcut vignettes by Hans Holbein. Sporadic use of Hebrew. Wide-margined copy. From the Cassuto Collection

Freimann, p.148; Rosenberger Catalogue, Judaica (HUC, 1971), p. 385, fig.107

NOTORIOUS FIRST EDITION OF THIS CLASSIC WORK OF ANTISEMITISM. This particular issue with a further ten leaves. Two additional anti-Jewish woodcuts appear only in this edition and were suppresed in later editions. The author was born c.1490 and converted to Catholicism in 1522, later becoming a Protestant, (his name a corruption of the family surname Margoliouth). This libellous and pernicious tract had a deep influence upon Martin Luther who made much use of it in his own calumnious writings. Here, Margaritha ridicules Jewish religious faith and practice and accuses the Jews of harboring treasonous sentiments hostile to the Christian societies in which they live. What gave Margaritha especial “credibility” was that he was no ordinary Jew, but the son of Samuel Margolis, Chief Rabbi of the City of Regensburg, the Empire's most distinguished Jewish community. Prof. Elisheva Carlebach has dealt extensively with this work which she describes as a “sixteenth-century bestseller.” See Divided Souls (2001) pp. 55-6, 63-64, 179-182; EJ, Vol. XI, cols. 958-9. Augsburg printers had a history of producing anti-Jewish works at their presses commencing with the publication of Pfefferkorn's work in 1509