Bidspirit auction | ABRABANEL, DON ISAAC. Peirush Nevi’im

ABRABANEL, DON ISAAC. Peirush Nevi’im Rishonim [commentary to Former Prophets, with text]. FIRST EDITION. Printed without a title page (as per Mehlman). Four-piece white-on-black woodcut border of Renaissance ornament on additional title (cf. Haberman, Sha’arei Sepharim Ivri’im, pl. 17). Letters of opening words within white-on-black decorative vignettes. Text of Bible in square Hebrew characters provided with nikud. Commentary of Abrabanel in Rabbinic cursive script. ff. (305 of 306), lacking f.1, the rare half-title. Lightly stained, marginal repairs, first and last few leaves slightly affecting woodcut border on f.2. Censored in places, signed by censor at end. Modern vellum-backed marbled boards. Folio. Vinograd, Pesaro 29; Stefansky, Sifrei Yesod 13. Pesaro, Gershom Soncino, 1511. Abrabanel endeavors here to explain the general content of the Bible, its principles, views and moral teachings more than the actual meaning of the words and passages. Primarily a philosophical, theological, ethical and to some extent historical commentary, his method as an exegete is entirely novel, prefacing each section of each Book with a number of questions and then interpreting that section in such a manner as to gradually resolve them. Gershom Soncino was perhaps the most prolific printer of his time producing more than 100 Hebrew titles. Regarding Soncino’s years Pesaro, along the Adriatic coast, see D. Amram, The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (1963) pp. 104-115 and M. Marx, Gershom Soncino’s Wanderyears in Italy, in HUCA Vol. XI (1936) pp. 459-465.