Bidspirit auction | (BIBLE). Sepher Arba’ah Ve’Esrim. With

(BIBLE). Sepher Arba’ah Ve’Esrim. With commentary Minchath Shai  by Yedidiah Solomon Norzi. FIRST EDITION of commentary. Edited by Raphael Hayim Basila. Four parts bound in one volume. Each part preceded by magnificent engraved frontispiece displaying eight Biblical vignettes with printer’s device at top. Main and divisional titles in red and black. Marginalia. ff. (4), 142 (i.e. 138); * (2), 88; * (2), 98; * (2), 54, 51, (1 of 2), 5. Lacks one leaf of index. Touch foxed in places. Modern calf. Folio. Vinograd, Mantua 397; Darlow & Moule 5150. Mantua, Raphael (Isaac) Chaim d’Italia the Physician, 1742. First edition of this important and comprehensive commentary to the Masorah, with significance for almost every word throughout the Bible in which the possibility for error or variant reading exists.   Extraordinary frontispiece depicts the Deity as represented in the Prophet Ezekiel’s Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones (Chap. 37), among many other impressive Biblical scenes. The appearance of such an illustration is most anomalous in a Jewish book. See C. Roth, Jewish Art (1961) cols. 25-6 (illustrated).