Illustrated anti-Jewish incunable with a coloured full-page woodcut

Niger, Petrus (Peter Schwartz). Stern des Meschiah (Contra perfidos Judaeos de conditionibus veri Messiae, German).

€ 125.000,00

First German edition: the revised and considerably expanded vernacular version of the author's "Tractatus contra perfidos Judeos" ("Treatise against the treacherous Jews") published in 1475. This and the Latin edition together count as the first German-printed books in which Hebrew typefaces were used. They are also the first to contain a printed Hebrew grammar and are widely considered the first antisemitic works printed in Germany.

In this work, the Dominican friar Petrus Nigri (1435-83) extrapolates from his extensive studies of the Old Testament and the Talmud that the Jewish religion is not only false but anti-Christian. "For Nigri, as for his successors, the agreement with the learned tradition proves that his own interpretation of the Bible is correct (and thus the Jewish interpretation is incorrect) [...] The Jewish faith is assumed to be consistently anti-Christian, and the Jews are assumed to nourish a burning hatred of Christians, which can be expressed in usury and anti-Christian prayers, as well as in the desecration of the host or in menacing bloodlust" (cf. de Boer, pp. 54f.).

This edition is notable for containing the first printed representations of contemporary Jewish people. The two full-page woodcuts appear twice - in one instance, fully hand-coloured. The first image caricatures Jews, giving them ugly features and expressions; they are also shown wearing the compulsory yellow rotulus (ring) that marked Jews as outsiders in German society. The scene echoes Nigri's participation in the Regensburg colloquy by showing a disputation between a Dominican and a group of Jews. The second image depicts Christ entering the gates of Jerusalem.

Ironically, although Nigri clearly resented the Jewish community and he made it his mission to convince Jews to convert to Christianity, his Hebrew grammar became a widely read standard work, and there was no other Hebrew language reference book printed in Germany until Reuchlin's "De rudimentis hebraicis" in 1506. "Despite making some errors, Nigri is recognized as one of the best scholars of Hebrew among his Christian contemporaries" (Library of Congress). As the printer, Konrad Fyner, did not have Hebraic moveable type, all Hebrew letters are woodcut.

In the lower margin of the Hebrew grammar section are two bibliographical annotations in Latin, dating from the mid-18th century. They quote from vol. 13 of J. G. Schelhorn's "Amoenitates literariae" (Frankfurt, 1730), identifying Niger's as the first printed compendium of Hebrew grammar, and from the catalogue of the Bibliotheca Reimanniana (Hildesheim, 1731), where it is stated that "this work is so rare that there are such who doubt whether it was in fact ever published". Indeed, since a copy sold for 760 Reichsmark at Karl & Faber's auction 6 in 1932, a single copy has come to auction (offered at Sotheby's in 2015 and again in 2019). The only other known privately owned copy was offered at Sotheby's in 1919 (the Huth copy). All but the Faber copy were in 19th century bindings, and in none of them were any woodcuts coloured.