Bidspirit auction | IMMANUEL BEN SOLOMON OF ROME.

IMMANUEL BEN SOLOMON OF ROME. (Manoello Giudeo). Sepher HaMachbaroth LeMar Immanuel. FIRST EDITION. Zodiacal illustrations. Decorative woodcut initial word panel on f. 2r partially reproduced in manuscript. A rare printer’s error in imposition in the inner bifolium of quire 4 has yielded the following curious mispagination: f. 27r is paired with f. 29v; 30r with 28v; 29r with 27v; and 28r with 30v. The signs of the Zodiac herein are the first illustrations to appear in a Hebrew book  (see ff. 48r-49r). Formerly in The Library of the Valmadonna Trust. ff. 152 (of 160). Lacking opening blank, f. 8 reproduced in facsimile on old paper, ff. 149, 156-160 reproduced in a fine rabbinic hand. ff. 2, 148, 155 mounted, with some text reproduced in manuscript. Few leaves strengthened at gutter, lightly browned and stained, trace wormed. Modern vellum. Sm. 4to. Vinograd, Brescia 3; Goff Heb-43; Steinschneider, col. 1057, no. 5269,1; Offenberg 58; Thes. A-77; BMC XIII, p. 68; Iakerson 66. Brescia, Gershom ben Moses Soncino, 1491. The first printed book of Hebrew poetry and one of only two literary Hebrew incunabula. Sepher HaMachbaroth is the most important work of Immanuel ben Solomon of Rome (ca. 1261-1328), poet, scholar and author of both Hebrew and Italian texts.  With linguistic artistry and skillful wordplay, the work combines poetry and prose with satires, epistles, elegies and religious poems. Sepher HaMachbaroth represents a unique example of the blending of traditional Jewish and Italian literature that characterized much of the Jewish literary output during the Italian Renaissance.