Rare Hebrew Books,
Including Six Incunabula
From the Collection of the late
Dr. Michael D. Paul of
St. John’s, Newfoundland.
* With a Fine Isidor Kaufmann Portrait Painting.
Montreal born Dr. Michael David Paul (1954-2024) was a respected professor of medicine specializing in nephrology who devoted himself to the citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador for more than forty years.
Alongside his teaching and medical practice, Dr. Paul served as the long-time President of the small Jewish community of St. John’s. His many interests included travel, philanthropy, but especially book-collecting - alongside related study and research.
Of all the many clients I have been privileged to know in my forty year book career, Dr. Paul was among the most learned and certainly the most interesting.
May his soul receive its eternal reward and may his memory forever be blessed.
DEK
Spring, 2025.
* Most of the books offered here from Dr. Paul’s library, contain his small embossed stamp, generally affixed to the title-page.
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LOT 29:
(BIBLE,
more...
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Sold for: $28,000
Price including buyer’s premium:
$
35,000
Start price:
$
10,000
Estimate :
$12,000 - $18,000
Buyer's Premium: 25%
sales tax: 8.875%
On the lot's price and buyer's premium
Users from foreign countries may be exempted from tax payments, according to the relevant tax regulations
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(BIBLE, Psalms).
Sepher Tehilim. With commentary by David Kimchi (RaDa’K).
Naples, Joseph ben Jacob Aschkenazi Gunzenhauser, 1487.
A Wide-Margined Copy.
Biblical text in square type with Nikud. Kimchi’s commentary in rabbinic type without nikud. Edited by Jacob Baruch ben Judah Landau Aschkenazi.
Formerly in The Library of the Valmadonna Trust.
ff. 113 (of 118). Lacking the final blank (absent in most copies), ff. 1-3 and 7, all expertly reproduced in facsimile, including decorative initial word panel. ff. 4-6 mounted, most lower outer corners strengthened. Censored as expected, though prodigious (contemporary) efforts made to remove the censor’s erasures and render the text readable. Additional fragmentary portions of ff. 17-20 also included and loosely laid in place. Modern blind-tooled and paneled morocco, titles gilt on spine. Housed in custom slip-case. Folio.
References:
Vinograd, Naples 4; Steinschneider, col. 2, no. 6; Goff Heb-29; Thes. A-57; Offenberg 35; BMC XIII, p. 50; Iakerson 44; Stefansky, Sifrei Yesod i-18.
This edition of Psalms, complete with R. David Kimchi’s commentary, was issued by Gunzenhauser the same year as several other volumes of Kethuvim.
Joseph and Azriel Gunzenhauser, pioneers of Hebrew printing, settled in Naples from Gunzenhausen, Germany. In Naples they established a press, assembled a talented team of typesetters and proof-readers and between the years 1487-92 produced in sum, twelve books.
This Naples edition of Psalms, Gunzenhauser`s first imprint, is also the first edition of Psalms to use nikud, (vocalized text accomplished through the addition of vowel points, accents, and diacritic marks) throughout the text.
An earlier Hebrew edition of Psalms, printed in Bologna a decade earlier, only included nikud in a portion of the initial quire before abandoning the practice for the remainder of the volume. Indeed, the corrector of the present edition, Jacob Baruch ben Judah Landau, refers in the colophon to the difficulties of gaining an accurate vocalization.
See: Treasures of the Valmadonna Trust Library - Otzroth Ya’akov, Incunables no. 26.
