Philologus Hebraeo-Mixtus.

LEUSDEN, JOHANNES.

Jordan Luchtmann and William `a Poolsum

Leiden & Utrecht

1699

Third edition. Latin interspersed with occasional Hebrew. Engraved allegorical frontispiece with a further eight engraved plates (featuring 22 scenes) depicting Biblical and 17th-century Jewish custom and lifestyle. Text-illustrations. Title printed in red and black.

Freimann 7; Rubens, Jewish Iconography 291-98.

A Dutch Hebraist of great renown, Johann Leusden (1624-99) was a professor of Hebrew at Utrecht University. It has been speculated that the Aschkenazic rabbis of Amsterdam took in hand the Hebrew instruction of Leusden. See A.L. Katchen, Christian Hebraists and Dutch Rabbis (1984), p. 310, n. 25. Leusden is most famous for having produced in collaboration with the Amsterdam publisher Joseph Athias the magnificent Biblia Hebraica (1661) which served as a model for publications of the Bible up to the 19th century. Leusden also translated the register of 613 commandments that heads Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (Utrecht, 1656). Leusden’s works attained levels of broad respect in both Christian and Jewish scholarly circles.