Fagius, Paulus

Sententiae vere elegantes, piae, mireque, cum ad linguam discendam, tum animum pietate exolendum utiles, ueterum sapientum Hebraeorum ... in gratiam studiosorum lingue sanctae. Isny: [Paulus Fagius], 1541



Chancery 4to (8 x 5 7/8 in.; 201 x 150 mm). Roman, Italic, and Hebrew types, printer's device, woodcut initials. collation: (aleph)^{4; a–t4: 80 leaves, partially paginated (to 134). Dampstain in lower portion of first five quires, some marginal dampstains and spotting, some stains on last two leaves, extensively annotated. Old vellum, manuscript title on spine, blue sprinkled edges from previous binding.}

Andreas Osiander, 1498–1552 ("Sum Andr. Osiandri D.") — Dr. Mór Ballagi, 1815-1891, Hungarian Protestant philologist and theologian, a convert from Judaism (stamp)

VD16 F544; Adams F122; Steinschneider 1435

Sententiae vere elegantes, piae, mireque, cum ad linguam discendam, tum animum pietate exolendum utiles, ueterum sapientum Hebraeorum ... in gratiam studiosorum lingue sanctae. Isny: [Paulus Fagius], 1541 Chancery 4to (8 x 5 7/8 in.; 201 x 150 mm). Roman, Italic, and Hebrew types, printer's device, woodcut initials. collation: (aleph)4; a–t4: 80 leaves, partially paginated (to 134). Dampstain in lower portion of first five quires, some marginal dampstains and spotting, some stains on last two leaves, extensively annotated. Old vellum, manuscript title on spine, blue sprinkled edges from previous binding.
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The first book printed at isny, in the Allgäu, from the press established by the Protestant reformer and Hebraist Paulus Fagius, to disseminate a knowledge of Hebrew and an understanding of the overlooked wisdom of Jewish writers. The Sententiae elegantes are the Pirke Avot (Sayings of the Fathers) from the Mishnah, presented with Fagius's Latin translation and commentary. Fagius (1504–1549), schoolmaster in Isny, was an early Protestant convert, having witnessed Martin Luther's 1518 Heidelberg disputation at the General Chapter of the Augustinian Hermits. His Hebrew learning began under Wolfgang Capito, and deepened under studies with the Jewish grammarian Elias Levita of Venice, who moved temporarily to Isny in 1540 to aid Fagius in his publishing program there. About a dozen learned works were printed in Isny in 1541 and 1542. In 1549 Fagius and his friend Martin Bucer came to England at the invitation of Thomas Cranmer. He was appointed Reader in Hebrew at Cambridge, but died there in November, victim of the plague. Under Queen Mary, both his and Bucer's remains were exhumed and burned. 

The first owner of this copy was the prominent Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander 1498–1552, originally of Nuremberg and a friend of Dürer and Pirckheimer. He was learned in Kabbalah and defended Jews against the Blood Libel. He is equally significant in the history of science, as he saw through the press Copernicus's De revolutionibus (Nuremberg, 1543), to which he contributed an anonymous preface.