MINHAGIM, (Customs) [Religious rites and customs for the whole year as used in Germany, Italy, Poland, Bohemia and Moravia, originally compiled in Hebrew by Isaac Tyrnau, translated into Yiddish by Simon Levi Ginzburg]. Amsterdam: Elijah Aboab for Menasseh ben Israel, 1645. 1-19 (4). 76 leaves. Woodcut architectural title-border; numerous woodcut illustrations depicting various observances and customs of the Jewish religious life throughout the year, calendar for seventy years, colophon of the compositor at the end of f.76 recto (f.76 verso is blank). 4to, 189 x 140 mm. (7½ x 5½ in.), contemporary vellum, lower joint split, darkened; broken with a few gatherings loose, title-border shaved along fore- and lower edge, leaves 1 (2) and 1 (3) with lower margins trimmed, leaf 4 (1) square cut from lower fore-center (crossing text and corner of woodcut) reattached in margin, some dampstaining throughout, marginal soiling. Very rare. Vinograd, Amsterdam 86 (no copy in JNUL); Fuks, Hebrew Typography 177 registered two copies; one at the Bodleian, the other at the Royal Library Copenhagen; not in Roest (no copy available at the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana); Steinschneider 3822; Cowley 638; not in Zedner, van Straalen and its supplements (no copy in the British Library); Menasseh ben Israel, Catalogus van de Tentoonstelling 1957, no. 47 (according to the private copy of the M.H. Gans, Amsterdam). In 1643 Menasseh gave his printing house to Elijah Aboab who was its director and published 8 books until 1645. In 1646 the printing house was no longer directed by Elijah Aboab, but was officially in the hands of Joseph ben Israel, Menasseh's younger son of eighteen. The Minhagim book of 1645, with its beautiful wooducts, is the first illustrated Hebrew book to appear in the Netherlands and is one of the finest productions of the Menasseh press. It is also most probably the second book printed in the Netherlands with the so-called Waybertaytsh type, a cursive type especially used for the printing of Yiddish books and texts. Though the text is practically identical with that of the first edition of the Yiddish text printed in Mantua at 1590, the illustrations are most probably made for this edition, as they differ completely from the previous Italian ones. These illustrations have become very popular and were used as a prototype for many other Hebrew and Yiddish editions printed in Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th centuries. (See: Fuks, Hebrew Typography in the Northern Netherlands, 1984, pp. 108-109 and 127-128). [Bound with:] BUXTORF, JOHANNES, Fil. Dissertatio fe Sponsalibus et divortiis. Basel: Erben Ludwig Königs, 1652. 98 of 100 leaves. Defective copy, lacking two leaves (U2 and U3); dampstained. Prijs, Basel 256; Steinschneider 4638,3.
MINHAGIM, (Customs) [Religious rites and customs for the whole year as used in Germany, Italy, Poland, Bohemia and Moravia, originally compiled in Hebrew by Isaac Tyrnau, translated into Yiddish by Simon Levi Ginzburg]. Amsterdam: Elijah Aboab for Menasseh ben Israel, 1645. 1-19 (4). 76 leaves. Woodcut architectural title-border; numerous woodcut illustrations depicting various observances and customs of the Jewish religious life throughout the year, calendar for seventy years, colophon of the compositor at the end of f.76 recto (f.76 verso is blank). 4to, 189 x 140 mm. (7½ x 5½ in.), contemporary vellum, lower joint split, darkened; broken with a few gatherings loose, title-border shaved along fore- and lower edge, leaves 1 (2) and 1 (3) with lower margins trimmed, leaf 4 (1) square cut from lower fore-center (crossing text and corner of woodcut) reattached in margin, some dampstaining throughout, marginal soiling. Very rare. Vinograd, Amsterdam 86 (no copy in JNUL); Fuks, Hebrew Typography 177 registered two copies; one at the Bodleian, the other at the Royal Library Copenhagen; not in Roest (no copy available at the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana); Steinschneider 3822; Cowley 638; not in Zedner, van Straalen and its supplements (no copy in the British Library); Menasseh ben Israel, Catalogus van de Tentoonstelling 1957, no. 47 (according to the private copy of the M.H. Gans, Amsterdam). In 1643 Menasseh gave his printing house to Elijah Aboab who was its director and published 8 books until 1645. In 1646 the printing house was no longer directed by Elijah Aboab, but was officially in the hands of Joseph ben Israel, Menasseh's younger son of eighteen. The Minhagim book of 1645, with its beautiful wooducts, is the first illustrated Hebrew book to appear in the Netherlands and is one of the finest productions of the Menasseh press. It is also most probably the second book printed in the Netherlands with the so-called Waybertaytsh type, a cursive type especially used for the printing of Yiddish books and texts. Though the text is practically identical with that of the first edition of the Yiddish text printed in Mantua at 1590, the illustrations are most probably made for this edition, as they differ completely from the previous Italian ones. These illustrations have become very popular and were used as a prototype for many other Hebrew and Yiddish editions printed in Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th centuries. (See: Fuks, Hebrew Typography in the Northern Netherlands, 1984, pp. 108-109 and 127-128). [Bound with:] BUXTORF, JOHANNES, Fil. Dissertatio fe Sponsalibus et divortiis. Basel: Erben Ludwig Königs, 1652. 98 of 100 leaves. Defective copy, lacking two leaves (U2 and U3); dampstained. Prijs, Basel 256; Steinschneider 4638,3.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
