Rare: Pocket-Sized Chumash With Targum, Haftorahs and Chomesh Megillos, Venice 1597.

Rare: Pocket-Sized Chumash With Targum, Haftorahs and Chomesh Megillos, Venice 1597.

An exceptionally rare pocket-sized Chumash, Venice 1597. This Chumash boasts a beautiful layout, featuring the Torah at the center, flanked by Targum Onkelos on each page. Seemingly, it was meant to be used exclusively for “Shanayim Mikrah” as well as a “Shul Chumash”, as it includes the Haftorahs which are read each in week in the Synagogue and their respective blessings to be recited before and after the reading of the Haftorah. The Five Megillos are also included. 

Each section of the Chumash and Chomesh Megillos features a beautiful historiated woodcut surrounding the first word of that Parsha.

Measures only 13.5cm! 

This Chumash is exceptionally rare and has never been offered for sale at auction. JTS library (New York) — one of the most prestigious libraries of Hebraica — does not posses this edition at all. The National Library of Israel did not posses a copy either until recent years, when several copies were purchased from the Lunzer Collection — ALL INCOMPLETE. 

The present copy is lacking the title page and the final colophon leaf, however the text of the Chumash and Haftorahs is entirely complete, unlike the copies found at NLI which are all lacking in various stages. As such, we can assume that this copy is the most complete copy in existence today.

In excellent condition. Printed on high-quality white paper. A minuscule wormhole is seen at the inner margin of some pages, not affecting text. A small open tear to final leaf, with loss of two letters only. Last few pages of Haftorahs bound out of order. Bound in a new binding. 

459 pp.