[...] De rudimentis hebraicis. Colophon: Phorce in aedib. Tho. Anshelmi sexto. kal. Apriles M.D.VI.

THE FIRST WORK PRINTED IN GERMAN-SPEAKING TERRITORY USING MOVABLE HEBREW TYPE
Folio (287x207 mm). [1], 620 [i.e 622], [5] pp. Several errors in pagination: page following p. 261 not numbered, numbers 543-544 omitted in pagination, number 616 repeated, one additional leaf numbered 589 inserted between pp. 588-589. With headlines, initial indicators and pagination; without catchwords and signature marks. First leaf recto: Principium libri. First leaf verso: Ioannis Reuchlin Phorcensis LL. doc. ad Dionysium fratrem suum germanum De rudimentis hebraicis. Roman, Greek and Hebrew types. Printer's device and Reuchlin's woodcut emblem at the end. Paged from right to left. Capital spaces with guide letters for initials. Later blind-ruled calf, lettering piece on spine (worn and rubbed, spine renewed, large portion of the panels roughly repaired). Worm tracks to the outer and inner margin of the first three leaves not affecting the text, a few marginal tears, some leaves or quires a bit loose, small hole to the last leaf not touching the text, two inked-out stamps on the penultimate leaf, some occasional light foxing. Manuscript note on the first leaf verso inked out. A good, wide-margined copy bearing several manuscript annotations in Latin and Hebrew by a contemporary hand.
First edition of the first substancial Hebrew dictionary and grammar written for Christian scholars, which had a great impact on the development of the study of Hebrew texts by Christians in the Renaissance period.
Reuchlin developed an interest in Hebrew in the early 1490s and published his first study of Kabbalah already in 1494.. The first result of his studies in Hebrew linguistics, philology and literature was the epoch-making De rudimentis hebraicis, a Latin-language lexicon and students' guide to Hebrew grammar and pronunciation, imposed from right to left, that mainly followed the teachings of Rabbi David Kimhi (ca. 1160-ca. 1235) on the subject. Each letter of the lexicon which, like Kimhi's Sefer ha-shorashim, is arranged according to Hebrew root, begins with a different Hebrew epigraph in Rashi script usually invoking God's name, although tsade starts yehi shem ha-mashiah mevorakh, testifying to the text's Christian provenance. Although a brief Hebrew grammar, compiled by Reuchlin's younger colleague Konrad Pellikan (1478-1556), had appeared two years prior, the present text was the real pioneering work of its kind by a Christian intellectual and would have a profound influence on subsequent Christian Hebraist scholarship (cf. H. Greive, Die hebräische Grammatik Johannes Reuchlins: De rudimentis hebraicis, in: “Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft”, 90, 1978, pp. 395-409).
Johann Reuchlin (Capnio) was born on 28 December, 1454 or 22 February 1455 in Pforzheim, Baden. On 19 May 1470 he matriculated at the University of Freiburg but soon afterwards became a chorister in Pforzheim. As a tutor of a son of Margrave Charles I of Baden he had an opportunity to study in Paris in 1473; from 1474 he attended the University of Basel, receiving his BA in September 1474 and his MA in 1477. That same year he returned to Paris to study Greek under Georgius Hermonymus. Thereafter he studied law in the universities of Orléans and Poitiers. In the winter of 1484-5 he was promoted doctor of laws at the University of Tübingen, where he matriculated on 9 December 1481 and was teaching Greek. Meanwhile, in the spring of 1482 he accompanied Count Eberhard the Bearded of Württemberg on a journey to Florence and Rome. Thereafter he remained in Eberhard's service until the count's death (24 February 1496), residing in Stuttgart from 1483 but frequently travelling on diplomatic errands, notably to Italy in 1490 and to the imperial court in Linz in 1492. On this latter occasion he obtained the honorific title of count palatine and was raised to the rank of hereditary nobility. From 1496 to 1498 Reuchlin lived in political exile in Heidelberg, there joining the circle