Pentateuch). Arbah Ve’esrim - Minchath Shai.

(BIBLE, Hebrew,

Raphael (Isaac) Chaim d’Italia the Physician

Mantua

1742-44

FIRST EDITION. With commentary by Jedidiah Solomon Norzi. Edited by Raphael Hayim Basila. Four parts bound in one volume. Each part preceded by magnificent engraved frontispiece displaying eight Biblical vignettes with printer’s device (Yaari no.121) at top. Main and divisional titles in red and black. Two tile with Hebrew printed over-slip.

Vinograd, Mantua 397; Darlow & Moule 5150.

First edition of this most important and comprehensive commentary to the Masorah, with significance for almost every word throughout the Bible in which the possibility for error or variant reading exists. Extraordinary frontispiece depicts the Deity as represented in the Prophet Ezekiel’s Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones (Chap. 37). The appearance of such an illustration is most anomalous in a Jewish book. See C. Roth, Jewish Art (1961) cols. 25-6 (illustrated).