Bidspirit auction | BALMES, ABRAHAM DE.

BALMES, ABRAHAM DE. - Mikneh Avram-Peculium Abrae.. FIRST EDITION. Hebrew and Latin on facing pages. The Salman Schocken copy (with his stamps). ff. (316). Title creased and with upper corner of replaced, stained in places. Later calf, rubbed. Thick 4to. Vinograd, Venice 81; Mehlman 1868. Venice: Daniel Bomberg, 1523. Distinguished in many fields, de Balmes served as physician to Cardinal Grimani of Venice and lectured at the University of Padua where he attained renown as an Aristotelian. Greatly valued by contemporary Christian Hebraists, de Balmes prepared this grammar at the urging of the printer Daniel Bomberg, with whom a deep friendship was shared.      The work appeared in two issues, with and without a Latin translation. Heinrich Graetz in his Geschichte (vol. IX, 215) has attempted to suggest that the translation was prepared by Bomberg himself. See D. Amram, the Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (1909) pp. 169-7.