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while * Italy , nay , a private Italian , ( himself , ) possessed a much larger number , and , in point of editions , possessed as many as five copies of an ancient and rare edition , of which Kennicott maintained the only copy extant to be in England" Shortly
after the appearance of the program announcing the plan of this work , Professor de Rossi published his Apparato Ebreo-biblico , containing a description of his codices ; and so advantageous were the opinions which were excited by it of the expected work ,
that an adequate number of subscribers was immediately obtained , and the first volume , containing the prolegomena , key to the codices , and three first books of the Pentateuch , appeared in 1784 . Every one is acquainted with the merits of this work . The three
other volumes followed in 1786 , 1787 , and 1788 \ and Professor de Rossi had , as he observes , the satisfaction to finish of himself in a little less than four years , an undertaking which had occupied the English editor , with so many subsidies , twenty years .
We find but a few years' repose after the incredible labours of this work . In 1795 , Professor de Rossi published the Annali Ebreo-typografici del sec . xv . mentioned above . This work , in three parts , treats first , of editions with a date , second , of
editions without a date , third , of false editions ; the whole arranged in chronological order , and illustrated in an ample commentary . " W C hoever , " adds Professor de Rossi , cherishes the opinion formerly universal , that
the edition of Soncino was the first , will not read without surprise , in my dissertation , that there are twentyseven editions quoted there anterior to the Soncino , and nearly all in my pos"session
After having published , in 1799 , an appendix to the great work on the Various Readings , containing subsequent collections , Professor de Rossi pursued the subject of Hebrew bibliography , ia a work entitled Annales Hebrreo-typographici ab Anno 1501 ad 1540 . The editions described in this work are also
very rare , printed for the most part in Constantinople and the Levant , and taken from manuscripts . Before commencing the work , he collected one hundred and fifty of these editions . In the following year appeared Bibliotheca
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Giudaica Anticnstiana * containing an exact description of all the works of the Jews against Christianity : a performance rendered considerably interesting by the rarity of these books , and the jealousy of the Jews with respect to their circulation . This performance was but the forerunner of
another , of still more general interest , viz . the jy . izionario Storico degli Au ~ tori Ebrei , in which all that is valuable in the large works of Wolf and Bartolocci is reduced into a convenient compass , innumerable omissions supplied , and errors corrected . Professor de Rossi had been all his
life collecting a library of manuscripts and rare editions , of which his works are at once the evidence and the fruit . Proposals from several princes—the King of Spain and the Pope—were made to him to dispose of it , but he
had determined not to deprive himself of it till he should have published a catalogue raisonne' of its contents . This he finally accomplished in 1803 , and the result of it is , that the library contained in the whole 1571
manuscripts , of which 1377 were Hebrew , and 194 in other oriental and European languages . More than 1070 are on parchment ; a few hitherto unknown , unique and original ; and several hundreds inedited . Of one of these , a Pentateuch , with the inedited
commentary of R . Immanuel , a manuscript in five thick folios , we were told in the ducal library of Parma , that the Jews of Holland offered to buy it for its weight in gold . Among the other Hebrew manuscripts , was a large
collection of manuscripts of the Karaite Jews , which furnished the materials to a work not yet published , by Professor de Rossi , called Biblioteca Caraitica 9 — from which much light might be expected to be thrown on this curious and little-studied branch of Judaic
literature . There were several very valuable Latin classical manuscriptsone or two Greek evangelistaries of antiquity—a Dante written in the poet ' s life-time , and several Petrarchs , one of which was the basis of the second Cominian edition . Since the
publication of this catalogue , Professor de Rossi has acquired many manuscripts , among which are fifty-two Hebrew ones , Among the inedited Rabbinical works , one of the most valuable was the Lexicon of Parchon
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Memoirs of Professor de Rossi . 385
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1821, page 385, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2502/page/5/
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