De Medico Hebraeo Enarratio Apologica … …

A$8,000 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Venice : Apud Ioannem Variscum [Giovanni Varisco], 1588. First (and only) edition. Octavo (190 x 140 mm), modern brown cloth over boards; faint trace of stamp tp front free endpaper, original first blank with early ownership signature to verso (browned, clipped at upper corner), title-page with vignette woodcut printer s device, and with coat of arms to verso; pp. [7] (Dedication to Francesco Maria II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino), [1] (foreword by Paulus Manutius), [2] (foreword by Judah Alchalay), [4] (index), 1-127; decorative woodcut initials; sidenotes; first few leaves with a mild horizontal crease at centre, some occasional and very light foxing, otherwise clean and crisp throughout; a very good copy in a modern binding. David de Pomis (1525-1593) was a physician, philosopher and linguist, born in Spoleto to a Jewish family of bankers. He commenced medical studies in Todi under two of his uncles (both rabbis) and continued them at Perugia, where he received his doctorate in 1551. He was then for a brief period rabbi and physician at Magliano in Tuscany. However, there followed a number of years of insecurity during which successive papal edicts withdrew and restored the right of Jewish physicians to attend Christians; de Pomis found himself forced to keep moving from town to town in Italy, finally settling in Venice in 1569. It was here that he published most of his works. His tract De Medico Hebraeo Enarratio Apologica (Venice, 1588) is a refutation of aspects of a bu

• Binding: Hardcover

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