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Item Details
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| Heading: |
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| Author: |
Maimonides [Moses Ben Maimon] |
| Title: |
Moreh Nebukim [The Guide of the Perplexed] |
| Place: |
No place [but Rome] |
| Publisher: |
[Obadiah?] |
| Date: |
No date [circa 1473-75] |
| Item # : |
175761 |
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| Sale Number |
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340 |
| Lot Number |
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90 |
| Sale Name |
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| Rare Books & Manuscripts |
| Sale Date |
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09/14/2006 |
| Sale Time |
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1pm PST |
| Low Estimate |
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$ 70,000 |
| High Estimate |
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$ 90,000 |
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* No Lots sell for less than half the Low Estimate. Some Lots may have Reserves. |
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| Description: |
| 144 leaves (of 156). Each leaf inlayed to size on 9¾x7 leaf of archival stock, many leaves silked. Printed Hebrew text on rectos and versos in single columns of 36 lines. Modern diced maroon calf. First Edition. |
| One of the supreme works of philosophy in a rare Hebrew incunabulum. The "Guide for the Perplexed" of Moses ben Maimon - "Maimonides" (1135-1204 native of Cordoba, doctor and philosopher) was written in Judeo-Arabic about 1190 and translated into Hebrew almost immediately by Samuel ben Judah ibn Tibbon. This is one of the first printed Hebrew books and one of the most important philosophical works of the early middle ages, synthesizing Greek and Biblical thought. Maimonides wrote the "Guide" in the conviction that there can be no contradiction between divinely revealed truth and the findings of the human mind in science and philosophy. The work's principle topics are God, creation, prophecy, providence, evil, the nature of man, and moral virtue. The "Guide" was hugely influential, playing a pivotal role in the transmission of Greek philosophy and science from the Islamic East to the Christian West. It gave rise to the Aristotelian tradition in the Jewish world, and its linking of Aristotle and Scripture commanded the attention of the Christian Scholastics. Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus cite it extensively; Duns Scotus, Meister Eckhart, Spinoza, and Leibnitz all later testify to its importance. All Hebrew incunabula are rare - fewer than 200 separate editions are known to have been printed before 1500 - and commonly defective. Only 2 copies of "Moreh Nebukim" have sold at public auction in 30 years and both were incomplete. Hebrew incunabula much resemble English incunabula in their rarity and typical state of incompleteness. In fact, an appropriate analogue to the present book is a major Caxton imprint. Goff Hebrew 80; Printing and the Mind of Man 14. |
| Condition: |
| Lacking leaves 1, 2, 31, 32, 77, 150-154, and 2 blanks (only 3 absent leaves are from the main text, the others are from the introduction and index); 9 leaves with loss to edges occasionally encroaching into text; some leaves spotted or stained; occasional darkening. Archivally conserved and rebound, stabillizing and preserving the text in fine morocco binding. |
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