Essays On The Making Of The Early Hebrew Book

Further Essays addresses aspects of early Hebrew book publication, among them book arts, little known authors, places of publication, and miscellaneous subjects. Book arts addresses pressmarks representing publishers motifs, several unusual, and the varied usage of biblical verses to entitle books. The second section focusses on the works of rabbis and scholars, once prominent but not well remembered today, noting their achievements and their varied books, encompassing such topics as biblical commentaries, Talmudic novellae, philosophy, and poetry. Several locations once important, also not well remembered today are addressed; Further Essays concludes with articles on other unrelated book topics.

"A varied collection of articles on early Hebrew printing, encompassing motifs on title pages such as lions, eagles, and fish as well as the entitling of Hebrew books. The next section is on authors and places of publication addressing such diverse topics as a much republished book opposed to gambling, authors of books on philology and on the massacres of tah-ve-tat (1648-49); of articles on diverse and disparate places of printing, Chierie, Hamburg, Offenbach, Verona, and Slavuta, generally small barely remembered publishers of interesting works, and in the last location properly identifying the printer of the highly regarded Slavuta press. Included is a section on Christian-Hebraism with articles on Altdorf where polemical books were published and another on William Wotten, a Christian vicar who published the first English translation of Mishnayot. The result is a wide-ranging series of articles highlighting the activities of early Hebrew presses and printers"--

Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book is a collection of twenty-four essays on various aspects of Hebrew book production in the 16th-18th centuries. The subject matter encompasses little known printing-presses, makers of Hebrew books, book arts, and related subjects.

Further Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book addresses a variety of aspects of the early Hebrew book often treated in a cursory manner. The essays encompass book arts, printing-places and printers, and unusual book varia.

Articles on early Hebrew printing encompassing title-page motifs and entitling books; authors and places of publication including books opposed to gambling, on philology, and the massacres of tah-ve-tat (1648-48); small diverse places of printing; and on Christian-Hebraism.

The rise of printing had major effects on culture and society in the early modern period, and the presence of this new technology—and the relatively rapid embrace of it among early modern Jews—certainly had an effect on many aspects of Jewish culture. One major change that print seems to have brought to the Jewish communities of Christian Europe, particularly in Italy, was greater interaction between Jews and Christians in the production and dissemination of books. Starting in the early sixteenth century, the locus of production for Jewish books in many places in Italy was in Christian-owned print shops, with Jews and Christians collaborating on the editorial and technical processes of book production. As this Jewish-Christian collaboration often took place under conditions of control by Christians (for example, the involvement of Christian typesetters and printers, expurgation and censorship of Hebrew texts, and state control of Hebrew printing), its study opens up an important set of questions about the role that Christians played in shaping Jewish culture. Presenting new research by an international group of scholars, this book represents a step toward a fuller understanding of Jewish book history. Individual essays focus on a range of issues related to the production and dissemination of Hebrew books as well as their audiences. Topics include the activities of scribes and printers, the creation of new types of literature and the transformation of canonical works in the era of print, the external and internal censorship of Hebrew books, and the reading interests of Jews. An introduction summarizes the state of scholarship in the field and offers an overview of the transition from manuscript to print in this period.

Further Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book addresses a variety of aspects of the early Hebrew book often treated in a cursory manner. The essays encompass book arts, printing-places and printers, and unusual book varia.

This book discusses the printers’ devices used in Poland-Lithuania in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The compositions that served to identify the products of individual printers are explored here as previously unacknowledged research material for cultural studies: they allow for the reconstruction of the mentality of contemporary printers as well as their co-workers and reading public. The book investigates relationships within early modern intellectual communities and shows that the textual and visual discourses of the printers’ devices were pan-European, reflecting the networked communities of European centres of learning and commerce. It documents the broad range of the output of Polish-Lithuanian presses as well and is therefore also a study of book culture in a multinational and multilingual state, whose inheritance is poorly recognised internationally.