Annales Hebraeo-typographici sec. XV. descripsit fusoque commentario illustravit Joh. Bernardus De-Rossi ling. orient. Profess [offered together with:] Annales Hebraeo-typographici ab an. MDI ad MDXL digessit notisque hist.-criticis instruxit Joh. Bernardus De-Rossi ling. orient. Profess.

I. Large 4to (306x228 mm). XXIV, 184 pp. Text printed in two columns. Latin interspersed with Hebrew. Contemporary wrappers, lettering piece on spine (slightly worn and soiled). A very good, full-margined copy, uncut with deckle edges and mostly unopened.
Brooks, 617; Italian Union Catalogue, IT\ICCU\FERE\002347; Shunami, 2696.
II. Large 4to (304x228 mm). [4], 64, 4 pp. Text printed in two columns. Latin interspersed with Hebrew. Contemporary wrappers, lettering piece on spine (slightly worn and soiled). A very good, full-margined copy, some occasional foxing. Uncut with deckle edges and mostly unopened.
Italian Union Catalogue, IT\ICCU\UBOE\003358; Shunami, 2770.
 
First editions. In order to determine the bibliographical position of his vast collection of Hebrew books, De Rossi undertook a critical study of the annals of Hebrew typography, beginning with a special preliminary disquisition in 1776, and dealing with the presses of Ferrara (Parma, 1780), Sabbionetta (Erlangen, 1783), and, later, Cremona (Parma, 1808), as preparatory studies to his two major works on the subject, the Annales Hebraeo-Typographici sec. XV. (Parma, 1795) and the Annales hebraeo-typographici ab anno MDI ad MDXL digesti (Parma, 1799). The first work describes 51 dated, 35 undated, and 67 false editions. The second includes 292 dated, 49 undated, and 185 corrected editions, with descriptions of several editions printed in Constantinople and the Levant. The two works were republished together at Amsterdam in 1969.
The great Italian Christian Hebraist Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi was born in Castelnuovo in 1742. He studied in Ivrea and Turin. In 1769, he was appointed professor of Oriental languages at the University of Parma, where he spent the rest of his life. His inaugural lecture on the causes of the neglect of Hebrew study was published in 1769 at Turin. De Rossi devoted himself to three chief lines of investigation -typographical, bibliographical, and text-critical. Influenced by the example of Kennicott, he determined on the collection of the variant readings of the Old Testament, and for that purpose collected a large number of manuscripts and old prints. In connection with his typographical Annales, he drew up a Dizionario storico degli Autori Ebrei e delle loro opere (Parma, 1802; German translation by Hamberger, Leipzig, 1839), in which he summed up in alphabetical order the bibliographical notices contained in Wolf, and, among other things, fixed the year of Rashi's birth; and he also published a catalogue of his own manuscripts (1803) and books (1812). All these studies were in a measure preparatory and subsidiary to his Variae Lectiones Veteris Testamenti (Parma, 1784-88), still the most complete collection of variants of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. In order to compile it he visited all the chief libraries of Italy, and through its compilation he obtained the knighthood of St. George at the court of Parma and seductive offers from Pavia, Madrid, and Rome. He was also interested in the polemics of Judaism and Christianity, and wrote on this subject his Della vana aspettazione degli Ebrei del loro Re Messia (Parma, 1773), which he defended in a pamphlet two years later; and he further published a list of antichristian writers, Bibliotheca Judaica Antichristiana (Parma, 1800). A select Hebrew lexicon, in which he utilized Parhon's work (Parma, 1805), and an introduction to Hebrew (ib. 1815) conclude the list of those of his works which are of special Jewish interest. He died in Parma in 1831 (cf. Jewish Encyclopedia online; see also FF. Parente, De Rossi, Giovanni Bernardo, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 39, 1991, s.v.).