Reuchlin, Johann | The oldest known example of music printed in Hebrew

Reuchlin, Johann

De Accentibus et Orthographia Linguae Hebraicae. Hagenau: Thomas Anselm, 1518

4to (220 x 125 mm). Title-page with large woodcut of Reuchlin's coat of arms, 3 pages in red and black, 9 pages with woodcut musical staves, large woodcut vignette on the final leaf; i1-4 browned, stray spots, dampstaining to inner margins of last few leaves. In modern half green morocco over marbled brown paper-covered boards, spine lettered in stamped in gilt, all edges red, decorative endpapers; hinges cracked but holding, re-cornered in cloth with 3 exposed, rubbed at extremities.

First edition of the oldest known example of music printed in Hebrew. Reuchlin, one of the leading Greek scholars of his time, first attempted to study Hebrew in Paris in 1473, and several years later turned his attention to Hebrew linguistics. He became one of the first Hebraists to take a particular interest in scriptural cantillation, and his transcriptions are still of importance in scholarly research that seeks to trace deviations in systems of Hebrew cantillation over the last 2,000 years.

Reuchlin was also a Kaballistic scholar and one of the primary forces behind the Christian Kabbalah. His interest in the Kabbalah arose, most likely, out of his sense of "the affinity between the neoplatonic elements in kabbalistic teaching and the basic conceptions of the great German platonic philosopher, Nicholas of Cusa (Cusanaus), who he deeply admired" (Encyclopedia Judaica).

REFERENCE:

Adams R-380; Encyclopedia Judaica, 17, p. 248; The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London: 1980, IX, pp. 612-632

PROVENANCE:

Christie's New York, 23 November 1994, lot 71