Notae in Evangelium S. Matthaei ex collatione textuum Arabicorum Aegyptiac[orum] Hebrae[orum] Syriacor[um] Graecor[um] Latinor[um] quae non modo studiosis linguarum, sed et cuilibet vero Christiano erunt utilissimae.

Kirsten, Peter.

Published by Breslau, typis Arabicis ac sumptibus authoris in Officina Baumanniana, 1611.

About this Item

Small folio (204 x 306 mm). (10), 140 pp. Text in Latin and Arabic, with some Hebrew and Greek, woodcut initials and tail-pieces. Tasteful modern sheep-backed marbled boards with giltstamped spine label. First edition of the "notes on the Gospel of Matthew" by the pioneering Arabist and physician Peter Kirsten (1577-1640), who started a private press in Breslau (Wroclaw) in 1607 (cf. Reske 130). His Arabic type, the first to be cut in Germany (by Peter von Selau), shows the influence of the Medicean types. - This is the issue with the letterpress title; another issue has an engraved title. Some copies lack the fifth preliminary leaf (present here): a singleton printed on different paper and in a different typeface, containing a 26-line laudatory poem in Hebrew by Jakob Ebert of Frankfurt, with the Latin translation on the recto. - Kirsten's notes on Matthew's Gospel "are mainly a comparison of the Arabic with the Greek version, and serve to explain the Arabic text. The Coptic and Syriac versions mentioned in the title are no more than marginal readings indicated as such in the Arabic manuscript which he used. These versions, as well as the Hebrew version, are mostly given in Latin translation, but occasionally a slight 12 pt Hebrew type-face is employed" (Smitskamp). - "One of the earliest non-Dutch scholar-typographers in [the] post-Medici tradition was the German Peter Kirsten (1575-1640), a physician of Breslau (Wroclaw), who had travelled and studied in both Italy and Leiden. He created a superior type-face, with some calligraphic qualities" (Roper). - Some very light browning and spotting, but a good copy. OCLC records two copies in the US (New York Public Library and University of Pennsylvania, both apparently with only four preliminary leaves). - VD 17, 1:071605E. Smitskamp, PO 113. Fück 58, note 143. Waller 19836. Not in Schnurrer. Cf. Geoffrey Roper, "Early Arabic printing in Europe", in: Middle Eastern Languages and the Print Revolution (Mainz 2002), pp. 129-150, at p. 143. Seller Inventory # 52733

Bibliographic Details

Title: Notae in Evangelium S. Matthaei ex ...

Publisher: Breslau, typis Arabicis ac sumptibus authoris in Officina Baumanniana, 1611.

Binding: Hardcover

Edition: 1st Edition