R. Gergely (ed.): Microcard catalogue of the rare hebrew codices, manuscripts and anciens prints in the Kaufmann Collection reproduced on microcards

Prof. Ignácz Goldziher's lecture

circumstance implies that this group of the library of our Academy will be useful as a very important source of literary history. Even at the first scrutiny I came across fragments from works which were hitherto entirely unknown or held to be lost

; by and by, I intend reviewing them myself or having them worked up by my pupils. The late owner of the collection was prevented by his sudden and untimely death from a close examination and arrangement of these veritable treasures of his library. I myself proceeded to study these untouched things and, having come across many important particulars, partly copied and partly extracted a good many of them. However, it was hitherto only in a general manner that I was able to continue the work of classification, inasmuch as I, having established the contents of the several pieces, I grouped the connected documents together. A detailed classification and cataloguing of them is still to come, and it will take a long time to finish it

8. III. PRINTED BOOKS. I can turn from the manuscripts to the prints. In conformity with the above-mentioned considerations, these provide a possibly all-round study apparatus of the most important products of Hebrew literature. But, apart from their richness and practical utility, their value is in particular enhanced by their bibliographical and typographical interests. The collection is comparatively very rich in incunabula and old prints. The most important works of Hebrew literature are represented by their editiones principes. Rarely is a private library to be found in which the several ages of the old typographical tradition would be represented in such a profusion. Nine valuable incunabula are the veritable ornaments of the collection:! of Lisbon from 1489 (the Ritual of Abudirham), 1 of Fano, 6 of Naples (including the Hebrew translation of the Canon of Avicenna in folio from 1492) ; the first edition of Bechai's famous work, "The Duties of the Heart". To these rarities there worthily rank the prints from the 16th century, 136 in number, which are chronologically subsequent to the incunabula and, though not exclusively, yet mostly, represent the most remarkable workshops of Italian 8 [For the bibliography of the Genizahs edited by Ignácz Goldziher and his pupils see S. Löwinger

—A. Scheiber, Ginze Kaufmann I. Budapest 1949. pp. XIII—XV.] 18