Hebrew incunabula
A list of ascertained incunabula is given in tabular form below, and to these may be added the last-mentioned eight, which include the Talmud tractates Ketubot, Giṭṭin, and Baba Meẓi'a, each printed separately by Joshua Soncino in 1488–89, and of which no copy is known to exist.
With the expulsion from Spain in 1492 the Hebrew printing-presses in that country were stopped, and those in Italy and Portugal produced only about a dozen works during the remainder of the century.
Hebrew books were produced in the fifteenth century in the Italian and Iberian peninsulas, the Ottoman Empire, Leiden and Paris though several of the printers were of German origin, as Abraham Jedidiah, the Soncinos, Ḥayyim ha-Levi, Joseph and Azriel Gunzenhauser.
Abraham dei Tintori, the Soncinos, and the Gunzenhausers, on the other hand, seem to have regarded their craft as a means of livelihood.
There does not appear to have been much competition, though it is remarkable how invariably the choice of publishers fell within a limited class of works.
Generally speaking, a more rounded form was used in Spain and Portugal (perhaps under the influence of Arabic script) than in the Italian presses, whose types were somewhat Gothic in style.
The remaining locations are mentioned in the table only in sporadic instances, and do not profess to exhaust the incunabula contained in such collections as those of Amsterdam, Berlin, Breslau, Carlsruhe, Munich, etc.
A note at the end of De Rossi's copy of the Guadalajara Ḳimḥi of 1482 states that three carline were paid for it in 1496 by the owner of that date.
First came the Bible text, either a part: or the whole: A large number of Bible commentaries was printed, including those of Abraham ibn Ezra (Pentateuch, Naples 1488), Baḥya ben Asher (Pentateuch, Naples 1492), David Ḳimḥi (6, 22, 37, 40, 46, 83), David ibn Yaḥya (82), Immanuel of Rome (39), Levi b. Gershon (4, 11, 16), Naḥmanides (14, 59, 72), and Rashi (1, 12, 25, 28, 44, 48): some of the works contained a combination of commentaries (43, 65, 79, 88).
After law came prayers, of which a considerable number were printed (36, 41, 42, 47, 63, 95, 96, 97, 100); and to these may be added the tables of day durations (23)and Naḥmanides' "Sha'ar ha-Gemul" (70).
Very few belletristic works appeared (75, 80); history is represented by Eldad ha-Dani (7) and the "Yosippon" (8); and science by Avicenna (81), in the most bulky Hebrew book printed in the fifteenth century.
It is characteristic that the only book known to be printed during its author's lifetime was the "Nofet Ẓufim" of Judah b. Jehiel (9), one of the few Hebrew works showing the influence of the Renaissance.
It is doubtful whether Landau's "Agur" was issued during the author's life-time, though it may have been printed with the aid of his son Abraham, who was a compositor in Naples at the time.
They deal with topics of controversial interest, as the "Contra Perfidos Judeos" of Peter Schwarz (Eslingen, 1475), his "Stella Meschiah" (ib.
7,733, 15,658), while there exists in Munich an illustrated broadside relating to the blood accusation at Passau, printed as early as 1470.
One of the most interesting of Latin incunabula is the version of Abraham Zacuto's tables (Almanach perpetuum Celestium Motuum – a set of astronomical tables providing information to perform various types of astronomical calculations) published in Leiria by Abraham d'Ortas (1496).
