Hebrew Bible, Antwerp: Christopher Plantin, Tevet [5]326 (= 23 November-22 December, 1565)

4 volumes (4¼ x 3 in.; 108 x 76 mm).  Pagination: 1-512 [64]; [448]; [480]; [520] = 2024 leaves. Woodcut head-pieces; minor marginal soiling, occasionally heavier, tiny worm-tracks in upper margin of a few leaves. Modern vellum.

Samuel Collins (1576-1651, printed bookplates pasted to title versos, dated 1628) – Sampson Collings (booklabel on first text page of each volume and inscription at end of each volume) – Moses Gaster (1856-1939) (his signature on each of the title pages and vols. 2, 3, and 4 with inscription on front flyleaves: "given to me by Leon, M. Gaster 7.4.96",  as well as his stamped signature on each of the bookplates)

Steinschneider 192 mistakenly calls for 412 (rather than the correct 512) leaves in the Pentateuch and dates the work to 1566 though the colophon records Tevet [5]326 = 23 November-22 December, 1565, Julian); Vinograd, Antwerp 9 (with same erroneous dating and pagination)

complete in 4 volumes, 2024 (576, 448, 480, 520) leaves.12mo (4¼ x 3 in.; 108 x 76 mm). Woodcut head-pieces; minor marginal soiling, occasionally heavier, tiny worm-tracks in upper margin of a few leaves. Modern vellum.
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Christopher Plantin, (c. 1520–1589), a French humanist printer and publisher was, after Daniel Bomberg, the outstanding 16th-century Christian printer of Hebrew books. Born in France near Tours, he learned the book trade in Normandy and Paris. His Protestant sympathies led him in 1549 to the more congenial atmosphere of Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands, where he devoted himself to fine printing. Forced to flee after an accusation of heresy he returned in 1563 and became associated with two grand-nephews of Daniel Bomberg who furnished him with the fine Hebrew types of that renowned Venetian printer. In fact the title page of volume one of the present edition states that the work was printed at the command of the "prince," Bomberg, while the colophon in vol. 4 states "printed in the house of Christoforo Plantin with the Bomberg presses and types." This small bible was completed in 1566, two years before Plantin began work on the greatest achievement of his printing career, the eight-volume Antwerp Polyglot. By 1576 Plantin operated 22 presses and was the leading printer-publisher of northern Europe.