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folio 1r of El Nuevo Testamento (Euing Dx-a.18) |
El Nuevo Testamento
Enueres (Antwerp): Estevan Mierdmann, 1543
Euing Dx-a.18 &19
The earliest edition of the New Testament in Spanish,
translated from the Greek by Françisco de Enzinas (otherwise known as
Dryander, or sometimes as Du Chesne, or Eichman, c. 1520-1552), a young
Spanish student at Wittemberg, in the house of his tutor and friend
Melanchthon, 1541-3. The Emperor Charles V prohibited the printing and
distribution of the book and Enzinas was cast into prison at Brussels by
the Emperor's confessor. In February 1545 he escaped and fled to
Antwerp, whence he travelled to Wittemberg. Three years later he came to
England, where Archbishop Cranmer obtained for him a professorship of
Greek at Cambridge. Eventually he returned to Germany and died at
Strassburg in 1552.
Owing to the suppression of this earliest Spanish New
Testament very few copies have survived.
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title-page of Ferrara Bible (Euing Dr-d.5) |
Biblia en lengua Española traduzida palabra por palabra dela
verdad Hebrayca por muy excelentes letrados vista y examinada por
el officio dela Inquisicion
Ferrara: 1553
Euing Dr-d.5The first
edition of the Hebrew Bible in Spanish, known as the Ferrara
Bible, was intended mainly for Jews who had been driven from
Spain in 1492. It appears to be a revision of an old Jewish
version, and on account of its aim, which, according to the
preface, was to reproduce as closely as possible the meaning of
the Hebrew original, it may be considered an early testament to a
peculiarly Jewish Spanish, or Ladino as distinct from Castilian.
The work was edited by Abraham Usque (otherwise
Duarte Pinel), a Jew from Portugal, and published at the expense
of Yom Tob Atias (otherwise Jeronimo de Vargas), from Spain. It
was produced under the protection of Ercole d'Este II, fourth Duke
of Ferrara.
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psalm 80 from
Qodesh hilulim
(Euing Df-a.29) |
Qodesh hilulim: Las alabanças de santidad, traducion de los Psalmos
de David, por la misma phrasis y palabras del Hebrayco
Amsterdam: 5431 [1671]
Euing Df-a.29
A literal translation of the Psalter together with a paraphrase and
annotations by Jacob Judah Aryeh Leon Templo the religious leader of the
Spanish-Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam in the mid-seventeenth century. He
caused something of a stir by drawing a plan of Solomon's temple which
he published in 1642 under the title: Retrato del templo de Selomoh.
One of the laudatory poems in praise of this his last work is a
sonnet by the highly colouful Marrano poet Daniel Levi (Miguel) de
Barios. A remarkable figure who, during his long life was both a captain
in the army of the Spanish Netherlands and, from 1674, a member of the
Amsterdam Jewish community.
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Shir ha-shirim she-nohagim li-qroth bi-yeme ha-Pesah
'im pitrono be-lashon Sefardi
Vinitsi'a (Venice): Nella Stamperia Bragadina, 51538 [1778]
Blau 87
A copy of the Song of Songs, which is
traditionally recited during Passover, in Hebrew with a Ladino
translation. The Sephardim, or Spanish-Portuguese Jews also recite it on
Friday afternoons to welcome the Sabbath. It was printed by the the firm
of Bragadini, which dominated the Venetian Hebrew press from the middle
of the sixteenth until well into the eighteenth century.
It is one of 193 books purchased from the library of
Dr Ludwig Blau (1861-1936), Director of the Jewish Theological Seminary
of Budapest.
Seder Haggadah shel Pesah 'im pitron be-lashon
Sefardi
Livorno: Eliyahu ben Amozeg, 51627 [1867]
Bourgeois Bb8-e3 1
'Kuanto fue dimudada la noche la esta mas ke todas
las noches?' (What distinguishes this night from all others?). So begins
the Ladino translation of the four questions posed during the Passover
meal in this mid-nineteenth century Haggadah, adorned with woodcuts. It
was printed in the major Sephardic centre of Livorno (Leghorn). In the
sixteenth century the Duke of Tuscany invited converted Jews (Marranos)
to settle in the Italian port, where they were at liberty to revert to
Judaism without the ignominy and restrictions of the Ghetto system
enforced elsewhere. Up until World War II Livorno supplied North Africa
and the Levant with liturgical books.
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