Beschreibung:

POSTEL, GUILLAUME. 1510-1581. Abrahami Patriarchae liber Iezirah, sive Formationis mundi. Paris: for Guillaume Postel, 1552.
16mo (106 x 73 mm). Roman, Greek, and Hebrew types. Woodcut initials (some inkstains and light toning). 18th-century red morocco gilt with crowned unicorn stamped to both covers, gilt gauffered edges.
Provenance: John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe (1740-1804, Scottish bibliophile).
THE FIRST PRINTING IN ANY LANGUAGE OF THE SEFER YEZIRAH ("BOOK OF FORMATIONS"), one of the most important books of the Jewish Kabbalah, which may be said to have "had a greater influence on the development of the Jewish mind than almost any other book after the completion of the Talmud" (Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906). Postel (1510-1581) "was among the most knowledgeable Christian Kabbalists of the Renaissance and his knowledge of Hebrew surpassed that of most of his contemporaries..." (Yvonne Petry, Gender, Kabbalah, and the Reformation: The Mystical Theology of Guillaume Postel, 2004, p 71). His translation and commentary of the Sefer Yezirah appeared ten years before the first publication of the text in Hebrew, issued in Mantua in 1562. Steinschneider 6779; Wellcome 5227.