FRANCHI, GUGLIELMO
Shemesh Lashon HaKodesh - Sole della Lingua Santa.

Shemesh Lashon HaKodesh - Sole della Lingua Santa.

FIRST EDITION. Printer’s device on title. Folding grammatical chart. ff. (12), 415. Lightly browned. Limp vellum. 4to.

Bergamo: Comino Ventura, 1591.

The first Hebrew grammar in Italian. Guglielmo Franchi (1563-1598) was born a Jew in Rome and later converted to Christianity. He joined the Order of Vallombrosani and taught Hebrew in Florence. This work represents the first appearance of Hebrew printing in Bergamo, an ancient walled city located in Lombardy, Northern Italy. This edition unknown to M. Rosenfeld in his Gazetteer of Hebrew Printing (1992) who records only a later, 1603 edition (see no. 30).