Beschreibung:

REUCHLIN, Johannes (1455-1522). De Arte Cabalistica . Hagenau: Thomas Anshelm March 1517.
REUCHLIN, Johannes (1455-1522). De Arte Cabalistica . Hagenau: Thomas Anshelm March 1517. 2° (279 x 190mm). Latin, interspersed with Hebrew and Greek. Woodcut of Reuchlin's arms on the title, one engraved initial. (A few mostly marginal worm tracks in the last few gatherings, small marginal repairs in the last few leaves, occasional light soiling.) Recased in paste-boards showing traces of Hebrew printing and later vellum spine, red edges (endpapers renewed). Provenance : a 16th-century reader (malevolent inscription on privilege leaf, and occasional marginalia, some in another hand). FIRST EDITION OF REUCHLIN'S PIONEERING WORK -- one of the most important Christian Cabbalistic texts of the Renaissance. Reuchlin was inspired to study the Cabbalah by his meeting with Pico della Mirandola in Florence in 1490, and began to learn Hebrew in 1493. De Arte Cabalistica is dedicated to Pope Leo X, who had halted the legal proceedings begun by the Cologne Dominicans against Reuchlin for his opposition to the suppression of all Hebrew books. The work made Reuchlin the best-known Christian exponent of the Cabbalah and stimulated interest in the study of oriental languages. Adams R381; Bibliotheca Walleriana 20171; Brunet IV:1253; Caillet 9333 ('Jean Reuchlin établit dans ce magnifique ouvrage l'accord complet qui existe entre l'enseignement des premiers philosophes grecs notamment Pythagore, et les doctrines de la Kabbale'); Benzing, Bibliographie der Schriften Johannes Reuchlins im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert 99.