SAMUEL, Rabbi

Epistola contra Judaeorum errores]. Rationes breues seu redargutio contra Judaeorum errores. [Trans. Alphonsus Boni Hominis]. Cologne, [Heinrich Quentel], "1499" [n.a.

      - Initials suppled in red, paragraph marks, underlinings and initial strokes also in red. 4to. (207 x 140mm.). 24 leaves. 36 lines, gothic letter. 20th century brown morocco. 1497]. A late fifteenth centuy edition of this popular anti-Jewish tract which first appeared in 1474. The work purports to be a letter written in the year 1000 A.D. by Rabbi Samuel of Morocco, a converted Jew, to Rabbi Isaac, and to have been translated from the Arabic by Alphonsus Boni Hominis, a Dominican monk, although the Encyclopaedia Judaica claims that he was actually the author drawing largely from another tract in Arabic. According to the Jewish Encyclopaedia, nothing is known about the translator who may actually have been Paul of Burgos. The aim of the work was the refutation of Judaism from scripture, especially the Old Testament. Although the date 1499 appears in the colophon this must be a misprint as another copy is recorded by BMC as being bound at Gröningen in 1497. Provenance. Inscription on title-page of W. Attfield. Some leaves soiled, marginal dampstaining in places. HC 14271*. GW M39860. BMC I, 291. Goff S114. BSB-Ink-A443.