Sepher Mayan Ganim - Sepher Mayan Chathum - Sepher Eilim.

DELMEDIGO, JOSEPH SOLOMON

Menasseh ben Israel

Amsterdam

1628-29

FIRST EDITION . Three Parts in one, two titles. Numerous astronomical and mathematical illustrations. Finely engraved portrait of author. A handsome copy. Previous owner from Prague records in Yiddish the purchase of this book in London in 1708.

Vinograd, Amsterdam 20; Fuks, Amsterdam 150-1; Silva Rosa 6.

A Fine Wide-Margined Copy of One of the Great Scientific Books of Hebrew Literature. Includes treatises relating to geometry, algebra, chemistry, astronomy, physics, medicine and metaphysics. The Sepher Eilim has been described as: “The most sumptuously illustrated of early scientific works in Hebrew, and unique in printed Hebrew literature before the modern period.” (See National Library of Canada Catalogue, The Jacob H. Lowy Collection, 1981, no. 80.) The author, Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, or as he is known in Hebrew, YaSha”R (Yosef Shelomo Rophe) of Candia (1591-1655), was of German descent, whose family settled on the isle of Crete (Candia) at the end of the 14th-century. In his youth, he studied medicine at the University of Padua. He was most peripatetic, at various times he lived in Cairo, Vilna and Amsterdam and is buried in the old Jewish cemetery of Prague. See I. Barzilay, Yoseph Shlomo Delmedigo (Yashar of Candia): His Life, Works and Times (Leiden, 1974); A. Neher, Jewish Thought and the Scientific Revolution of the Sixteenth Century (1986), pp. 251-2; H. Friedenwald, Jewish Luminaries in Medical History-Catalogue (1946), p.111; A.J. Karp, From the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress (1991), pp. 199-200; JE, Vol. IV, pp. 506-509; EJ, Vol. V, cols. 1477-1481; Vol. XIV, cols. 889-890.