Mikneh Avram (Sepher Dikduk).

BALMES, ABRAHAM DE.

Daniel Bomberg

Venice

1523

FIRST EDITION. Hebrew only issue (with vowel points).

Vinograd, Venice 82.

Abraham de Balmes (d. 1523) was a paradigm of the Italian-Jewish ‘Renaissance man.’ He studied under R. Judah ben Jehiel Messer Leone, served as physician to Cardinal Grimani of Venice and lectured at the University of Padua where he attained renown as an Aristotelian. Greatly valued by contemporary Christian Hebraists, de Balmes prepared this grammar at the urging of the printer Daniel Bomberg, with whom a deep friendship was shared. Mikneh Avram appeared in two issues, with and without a Latin translation, i.e., one for the Jewish market, and the bilingual issue more suited to the needs of Christians. The present “Jewish” version is far more scarce, as the Christian-owned editions were far less likely to have been desecrated. See D. Amram, The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (1963) pp. 169-72.