Della vana aspettazione degli Ebrei del loro Re Messia dal compimento di tutte le epoche trattato del teol. Giambern. De-Rossi [...]

4to (221x163 mm). [8], XV, [1], 244 pp. Title page within a typographic frame. Roman, italic and Hebrew types. Contemporary wrappers (spine renewed). Some occasional foxing, a good copy, uncut with deckle edges and mostly unopened.
First edition (small 4to issue) dedicated to Vittorio Amedeo III, King of Sardinia. Reprinted in Rome in 1840, the ‘Of the vain expectation of the Jews for their Messiah King' includes numerous previously unpublished texts and it is particularly important for its lucid expression in the prologue of the inadequacy of Christian scholarship on Jewish subjects mostly due to a general lack of knowledge of Hebrew language and understanding of Jewish biblical commentary. Because of its polemical nature, the work was violently attacked by two Dominicans, G. Masi and L. Ceruti, in an anonymous work published in Venice the following year: Riflessioni teologico-critiche contro il libro del teologo Giambernardo De Rossi Della vana aspettazione (‘Theological-critical reflections against the book by the theologian Giambernardo De Rossi Of the vain expectation'). De Rossi responded with the Esame delle riflessioni teologico-critiche contro il libro Della vana aspettazione (‘Examination of Theological-Critical Reflections Against the Book Of the vain expectation', Parma, 1775).
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 order to determine their bibliographical position he 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 to his two great works, Annales Hebraeo-Typographici (Parma, 1795) and Annales Hebraeo-Typographici ab 1501 ad 1540 (Parma, 1799). This formed the foundation of his serious study of the early history of Hebrew printing. In connection with this work he drew up a Dizionario storico degli Autori Ebrei e delle loro opere (Parma, 1802; German translation by Hamberger, Leipsic, 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,