ALPHABETUM HEBRAICUM.

      Lutetitae (Paris), Robert Stephanus (Estienne), 1550. Contemp. overlapping vellum wrappers. With woodcut printer's device on title. (12) lvs. Beautifully printed Hebrew alphabet by the most prominent of the Estienne printers and the most outstanding figure in the Renaissance booktrade in France, Robert Estienne I, working at Paris from 1526 to 1550 and at Geneva from 1550 to 1559. Publisher of the first children's books as well as of numerous schoolbooks, Robert Estienne first published a Hebrew A B C together with a Greek A B C book in 1539, to display his new Hebrew type, cut by Jehan Arnoul. Still these alphabets, although intended by the publisher to show their specimen in stock, and in spite of the fact that no real 15th and 16th century type-specimen exist, they are not regarded as type-specimen, as in fact they were elementary student's grammars. The present A B C book contains alphabets, spelling and reading exercises in Hebrew type with their transcription in Roman type, and explanatory text in Latin. At the end the numbers in Hebrew are given. Fine copy of a rare 16th century alphabet. Buisson p. 2; Renouard 3; not in Adams, BMC, or in Schreiber; cf. Updike, I, p. 204, note.