Bidspirit auction | DELMEDIGO, JOSEPH SOLOMON OF CRETE.

DELMEDIGO, JOSEPH SOLOMON OF CRETE. Sepher Eilim - Sepher Mayan Ganim - Sepher Mayan Chathum. FIRST EDITION. Three parts in one volume. Numerous astronomical and mathematical illustrations. Frontispiece portrait of the author engraved by W. Delff after a painting by C. Duyster. Titles within typographical border. pp. 90, 192, 82. Stained in places, occasional marginal wear, few small tears.Contemporary blind-tooled calf, worn. 4to. Vinograd, Amsterdam 20. Amsterdam: Menassah ben Israel 1628 One of the great scientific books of Hebrew Literature, with treatises relating to geometry, algebra, chemistry, astronomy, physics, medicine and metaphysics. The Sepher Eilim is “The most sumptuously illustrated of early scientific works in Hebrew, and unique in printed Hebrew literature before the modern period” (National Library of Canada Catalogue, The Jacob M. Lowy Collection (1981) no. 80). See A. Neher, Jewish Thought and the Scientific Revolution of the Sixteenth Century (1986) pp. 251-2; H. Friedenwald, Jewish Luminaries in Medical History-Catalogue (1946) p.111; A.J. Karp. From the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress (1991) pp. 199-200.