Bidspirit auction | Complete Tanach – Printed Nearly

Complete Tanach – Printed Nearly 450 Years Ago! Plantin Tanach. Antwerp, 1573. * Chamisha Chumshei Torah, Nevi’im Rishonim, Nevi’im Achronim, and Kesuvim, all bound in a single volume. A medium-small format volume, measuring 15.8 cm. A fine architectural title page appears at the beginning of the volume. A colophon on the final page reads: “And its completion was on the twentieth day of the month of Elul, in the year 1574, at the printing press of Christophe Plantin, here in Antwerp, the renowned city, under the rule of Philip, the Great King of Spain, may his glory be exalted, who also granted permission to print this sefer.” Christophe Plantin was one of the leading and most important printers of the sixteenth century. In his printing press in Antwerp (the birthplace of the famous printer Daniel Bomberg), he operated no less than twenty printing presses! His Hebrew typefaces were of the highest quality, “among the most beautiful ever produced” (from the introduction to the catalog of a Plantin exhibition). The entire sefer is printed in exceptionally tiny letters; the text fits nearly five lines into every centimeter of height! Such a phenomenon is quite rare for so early a period. Antwerp, 1573–1574.  Page Count: [1], 307 pages. Size: 15.8 cm. Condition: Good; isolated holes in the first and last leaves, some restored. Stains. New half-leather binding. Before the title page, there is a bound leaf with handwriting from approximately the seventeenth–eighteenth century, containing reading arrangements from the Tanach. - - - - - - - - It is noteworthy that in the first kuntress, numbers of the pesukim appear alongside the columns, while from the second kuntress onward, they were omitted.