50 Lot 123 Lot 124 123 (SONCINO PRESS) Arrian of Nicomedia (Flavius Arrianus). De rebus gestis Alexandri regis. Translation from Greek into Latin by Bartolomeo Facio. FIRST LATIN EDITION. Marginal notations in an early hand. ff. 100. Few stains, some foxing, neat marginal repairs, signature excised in ink on title. 19th-century gilt- and blind-tooled straight-grain morocco, rubbed, spine sunned. Sm. folio. Housed in Valmadonna-custom fitted slip-case. [Adams A-2011; Manzoni, Annali Tipografici dei Soncino 33.] Pesaro, Hieronymi Soncinatis (i.e. Gershom Soncino), 1508. $1500 - $2000 ❧ Arrian’s second-century Anabasis of Alexander the Great, narrating in seven books Alexander’s military campaigns. Added here is an eighth book consisting of Arrian’s Indike, describing India and relating the voyage of Alexander’s friend, Nearchus, in the Persian Gulf. In his preface, the editor, Sigismundus Golphus praises the Jewish printer Hieronymi Soncino for his skill: He is “second to none in printing Hebrew and Chaldaic, and quite experienced in printing Latin”. 124 TAITATSAK, JUDAH (Editor). She’eirith Yehudah [“Remnant of Judah”: Halachic comments and corrections pertaining to the Beith Joseph, mostly based upon the writings of the editor’s brothers]. FIRST EDITION. Printer’s device on final leaf depicting a crowned lion and eagle with cherubs and mythological figures (Yaari, Hebrew Printers’ Marks, no. 48). Marginalia. Extreme upper portion of title-page with signature of Moshe Medina. Stained in places, trace wormed, neat paper repair on verso of title-page. Modern half-calf over marbled boards. Sm. 4to. [Vinograd, Salonika 159.] Salonika, Mattathias Bath-Sheva (Bassevi), 1599-1600. $2000 - $3000 ❧ She’eirith Yehudah contains responsa by the editor’s brothers Samuel and Joseph, the foremost Halachic scholars of Salonika. These appendices are entitled “Piskei Mar Shmuel” and “Piskei HaGaon Maharit,” respectively. In the afterword, the editor writes about his brother Samuel who died at a tender age: “Samuel studied and toiled in his thirty-nine years more than a seasoned scholar studies in a hundred years.” The older brother, R. Joseph Taitatsak (author Shailoth U’Teshuvoth Maharita’tz) was said to have not slept in a bed for forty years. This asceticism led to such spiritual ascendancy that he was visited by a Maggid, a heavenly teacher or astral guide, similar to that of his younger contemporary R. Yoseph Karo. Mehlman (Genuzoth, p. 74) states that the works published by the family of printers “MiGeza Bath Sheva” are most rare. The family originally hailed from the Ashkenazic community of Verona, Italy.