Incunable. Sefer Hashorashim by the Radak! Naples, 1490.
Fundamental 500-year-old printed work on the Hebrew language including roots of all words in lashon hakodesh presented in alphabetical order, along with definitions and sources in Tanach by Rabbi Dovid Kimchi (Radak).
Beautiful, complete copy. Exceedingly valuable!
This book is so excellently preserved that it is hard to believe that it is 531 years old!
The opening letters and names of the shorashim (root words) are printed in large block letters. The index listing sources in Tanach is printed on the margins.
Book printed sans title page. The following inscription appears on the colophon: “Here, Naples, the month of Elul, 1490.”
Naples, 1490.
[143] leaves. Page size 25 cm. First and last pages professionally restored. New ornate leather binding.
Bibliography: Shimon Yakirson. Catalog of Hebrew Incunabula from Beit Medrash LaRabbanim Library in America (New York, 2005) Vol. 1 p. 255-258.
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Incunabula
Incunabula (plural of incunable) are books, pamphlets, or broadsides printed in Europe prior to the 16th century. The word derives from the Latin term ‘swaddling cloth, ’ connoting the infancy of the printed word. While the incunable period actually stretches from 1455-1500, the first Hebrew presses opened only two decades later, and thus the period of Jewis incunabula shrunk to a mere thirty years, from 1469-1500.
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The estimated number of Hebrew works printed during the incunabula period is approximately two hundred. Today, we know of some 140 titles which are housed in various libraries in the world, although most are fragments or incomplete copies .
Complete incunabula are exceedingly rare
making Incunabula the most desirable collectibles, highly sought-after by antique Judaica collectors.
The greatest libraries in the world compete for the number of incunabula in their treasured collections
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