Bidspirit auction | Mikraot Gedolot. Venice, 1547. The

Mikraot Gedolot. Venice, 1547. The Five Books of Moses - The Five Books of Moses – Mikraot Gedolot. Venice, 1547–1548 [Shin-Zayin–Shin-Chet]. Incomplete copy. Sha’ar Beit Adonai HaKadmoni. Mikraot Gedolot edition of the Five Books of Moses, with the commentaries of Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Ba’al HaTurim, Targum Onkelos, and the Masorah. Printed in Venice at the renowned press of Daniel Bomberg, one of the most significant and influential Hebrew printers of the 16th century. The Targum Onkelos is printed here with cantillation marks – a rare and distinctive feature of this edition. Every fifth verse is marked with a letter for reference, following the ancient custom. At the beginning of the volume appears a list of the Torah’s chapters, reflecting a time before the standardized division of chapters had been universally adopted among Jewish communities, along with a list of the traditional Torah sections according to the Masorah. At the opening is the introduction of Jacob ben Chaim ibn Adoniyahu, the eminent Masorah scholar who prepared the text of the Mikraot Gedolot for Bomberg. This edition was printed after Bomberg’s first Mikraot Gedolot (Venice, 1525), following it leaf by leaf and almost line by line, making it one of the most accurate and finely produced editions of Bomberg’s oeuvre. See: Habermann, The Printer Daniel Bomberg, p. 192. [6], 228 leaves. 39 cm. Lacking leaves 226–227 and most of leaf 21. Overall fair condition: age stains, minor worming, and traces of censorship erasures. Tears and text loss on leaves 9, 15–16, 32–33, 40–41, 49–50, 63. Plain contemporary binding. An early and important edition of the Mikraot Gedolot – a landmark in the history of Hebrew printing, and among the earliest witnesses to the received text of the Bible and its classical commentaries as preserved throughout Jewish tradition.