Tehillim (Psalms) with Commentary of David Kimhi, Italy [Bologna]: Joseph and Nerijah Hayyim, Mordecai and Hezekiah Montero, 29 August 1477

153 leaves (10 ¼ x 7 ½ in.;262 x 191 mm), folios 1-11, 13, 17, 27, 98, 153 replaced  in facsimile, some on early paper. Printed in single column, 40 lines in square and semi cursive Hebrew founts; nikud on biblical text, ff. 2-5, 7 only. Double-leaf signatures from quire 9 only. COLLATION: [1⁹,2-5⁸, 6¹⁰, 7-8⁸], 9-15⁸, 16⁶, 17-19⁸=153 leaves; (folios 146 and 147 bound in reverse order); modern foliation in pencil. Most psalms numbered in manuscript in the margins using Hebrew letters in ink. Occasional marginalia. Bookplates on front pastedown endpaper; owners’ notes on front free endpapers and f.1r. Moderate staining. Some passages censored. Early twentieth century half morocco; title gilt on spine; rubbed; housed in a modern cloth slipcase.

Mayer Sulzberger- His bookplate on front pastedown endpaper (stamped “Exchange with E.N. Adler Copy”); Elkan Nathan Adler, acquired in exchange from Sulzberger; Acquired by Joseph Waimann (Wineman) following Adler’s death in 1946, then by descent within the Wineman family; Purchased at auction (Kestenbaum), 22 November, 2004, lot 14 by David Jeselsohn—his bookplate.

Vinograd, Bologna 1; Steinschneider C.B. 1, "extremae raritatis"; Goff Heb no. 28; Hain no. 13451; Offenberg 34; Iakerson, 73; Frank Talmage, David Kimhi: The Man and the Commentaries (1975).

THE EARLIEST PRINTING OF THE HEBREW BIBLE;
FIRST EDITION OF KIMHI'S COMMENTARY ON PSALMS

Rabbi David Kimhi (1160?-1135?), also known by the acronym RaDaK, was the most prominent grammarian of the Hebrew language in the medieval period, surpassing all others in simplicity, comprehensiveness, and methodical presentation of the subject matter. Like all of RaDaK’s commentaries on the Prophets and Writings portions of the Hebrew Bible, his commentary on Psalms offers a master grammarian’s running gloss, interweaving text and commentary, and is liberally interspersed with philosophical interpretations, where pertinent.

Kimhi was born in Provence after his father fled the Almohade persecutions in Spain. Both his father and brother were accomplished grammarians in their own right and RaDaK’s philological writings would owe a great deal to their early influence. David Kimhi also shared his father’s penchant for anti-Christian polemic, which especially imbues RaDaK’s commentary to Psalms. Eventually, this polemic material would be collected in a separate work entitled Teshuvot la-Notzrim (Responses to the Christians), and be included in Lipmann Muelhausen’s Sefer Nizzahon. As a result, nearly all surviving copies of Psalms with Radak's commentary have undergone the indignities of church censorship. Though the present volume bears no overt censor's signatures but does in fact have the typical expurgations found in other copies of Kimhi's commentary. As a result it is unknown whether the crossed out passages in this copy were excised by operatives of the church or whether they were prophylactically expunged by the Jew who owned the book. The passage of time however, has served to ameliorate the effects of the censor's quill; the fading of the ink over the course of nearly five centuries has rendered the overwritten lines readable once more.

The printers of this volume attempted to revolutionize the nascent craft of Hebrew printing by creating the first Hebrew printed text to include nikud, (vocalized text accomplished through the addition of vowel points, accents, and diacritic marks). Their experiment seems to have presented them with technical difficulties which proved insurmountable to them, and they only included nikkud in a portion of the initial quire before abandoning the practice for the remainder of the volume. The colophon is very unusual in that it enumerates the exact number of copies printed: 300. The printers' names do not appear in any other colophon. The localization of their shop to Bologna remains conjectural, though subscribed to by most modern bibliographers, being based on the reappearance of the fonts used here (albeit with modifications) in the Pentateuch printed in Bologna by Abraham ben Hayyim Tintori, in 1482 (Goff Heb-18, Offenberg 13).