Bidspirit auction | (TALMUD, BABYLONIAN). TALMUD BAVLI. With

(TALMUD, BABYLONIAN). TALMUD BAVLI. With commentary of Rashi, Tosfoth, Piskei Tosfoth, compendium by R. Asher b. Yechiel, commentary on the Mishnah by the Ramba’m, plus index of decisions 'Ein Mishpat.' COMPLETE IN TWELVE VOLUMES. Title letters within decorative woodcut vignettes. Printers device on title (Yaari no. 60). Previous owners’ marks including the 18th-century Jewish political activist Zadik Gompertz Hertz. Browned and stained in places, few paper repairs. Uniform contemporary sheep, variously rubbed and worn. Sm. folio. Vinograd, Amsterdam 87-101, 103-5, 108, 113, 117-135 and 137. Amsterdam, Immanuel Benveniste, 1644-47. THE FIRST PRINTING OF THE TALMUD IN AMSTERDAM. BENVENISTE'S’ ESTEEMED, UNCENSORED EDITION, HERE IN A FINE UNIFORM CONTEMPORARY BINDING. Immanuel Benveniste’s Talmud follows the Basle edition in layout and text, and likewise has no general title-page for the entire work. Benveniste did not print his Talmud in chronological order, but produced most tractates as individual volumes with separate title page and foliation so that they could be sold individually - hence a uniform and complete set is uncommon. Due to progressive notions of freedom of speech, there was little censorship of books in the Dutch Republic, thus Benveniste’s Talmud contains Tractate Avodah Zara in its entirety, including all references to Christianity, concerning which, censors in other European centers of Hebrew printing, strongly objected.   See M.J. Heller, The Seventeenth Century Hebrew Book (2011) pp. 592-3.