CHEVALLIER, Antoine Rodolphe
Alphabetum Hebraicum.
[Geneva], Oliva Henrici Stephani, 1566.£2,750.00
FIRST EDITION. 8vo. 24 unnumbered ll. Roman and Hebrew letter. Woodcut printer’s device. T-p slightly dusty, very light stain to blank upper corner and to next, paper flaw to final leaf just touching one letter, the odd small spot, a very good copy in C19 red cloth, green silk placemarker. Later ms. additions to final verso. C20 Hebraic bookplate of Victor Klagsbald, C19 bookplate of Adolphe Destappe.
Rare first edition of this Hebrew alphabet compiled by the French Huguenot humanist Antoine Chevallier (1523-72), the first book printed by Henri Estienne using Hebrew type.
Following the alphabet, which gives the forms of the individual letters, the pronunciation and force of the syllables, their likely conjunctions and their different accents, as well as punctuation and the Hebrew numbers, Chevallier gives the Hebrew versions of the decalogue or ten commandments, Lord’s Prayer, creed, and various Jewish and Christian prayers, all glossed in Latin. The ‘colophon’ is Christ’s INRI title given in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
Chevallier was made Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge University in 1569, lectured in Hebrew at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and had been tutor in French and Hebrew to Queen Elizabeth I before her accession. He escaped the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in Paris in 1572 but died in Guernsey in the same year.
The work’s rarity is attested by the lack of information in the bibliographies: Steinschneider had not seen a copy, since he lists it within brackets in his Catalogus Bibliotheca Bodleiana.
Renouard, Estiennes, 125: 3. Steinschneider, CBB, [196]. Not in Brunet, Adams, BM STC Ger. or Fr.