From the Franciscans of Munich
PAULUS DE SANCTA MARIA.
Scrutinium scripturarum. [Strasbourg, Johann Mentelin, c. 1474.]
Chancery folio, ff. [218]; [a–b10 c12 d–k10 l8 m–r10 s12 t–x10 y6], with medial blank [g]10 and final blanks [y]5–6; gothic letter, initials, paraphs and underlining supplied in red, some larger initials with marginal extensions, some rubrication heightened in silver, manuscript quire signatures (some trimmed); first leaf slightly soiled, a few wormholes in first few leaves and from quire [s] to the end (affecting a few characters without loss of sense), else a very good, well-margined copy; bound in nineteenth-century tanned pigskin, boards ruled in blind with blind cornerpieces, spine blind-ruled in compartments and lettered directly in gilt, earlier index tabs to fore-edge; front board rejointed, spine a little rubbed; seventeenth-century ink ownership inscription of the Franciscans of Munich to [a]1r with their ink stamp to top-edge (see below), armorial bookplate of John Vertue to front pastedown, early twentieth-century shelflabel to front board.
Third edition of this treatise of Christian Hebraism by a converso bishop, from the library of the Franciscans of Munich, with their distinctive brand to the top edge of the volume. The text had originally been printed by Mentelin in c. 1470, then by Ulrich Han in Rome.
Originally a scholar named Solomon ha-Levi, Paulus de Sancta Maria converted to Christianity before becoming Bishop of Burgos in 1415. He subsequently composed this dialogue called Search of the Scriptures (a title taken from John 5:39, which begins ‘Scrutamini scripturas’), meaning not just the Hebrew Bible but also the Talmud and other Jewish texts, in which he pits the Christian Paul against the Jewish Saul. He expounds the idea that Jewish conversos should be proud of their Jewish heritage because of the obvious trajectory from Judaism towards Christianity, while also utilising quotations from the Talmud to support Christianity against Jewish beliefs. It was a text used by Johann Reuchlin in the early sixteenth century to justify the preservation of sacred Hebrew texts, against those who would have had them all destroyed. The author’s dates are, somewhat unusually, given at the start of the book; it was written in 1435 when he was 81 years old. He died in August 1435.
Provenance:
1. The Franciscan monastery in Munich was originally dedicated to St James, then from 1392 to St Anthony of Padua; at the secularisation of the monasteries, its books joined the Bavarian Hofbibliothek, with the many duplicates deaccessioned over the course of the nineteenth century. The monastery was later refounded in 1827, and dedicated to St Anna. This book was part of the conventual library, though other books were marked for use by individual monks.
2. John Vertue (1826–1900), appointed the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Portsmouth in 1882.
H 10761*; BMC I 58; GW M29974; Goff P203; BSB-Ink P-47; ISTC ip00203000.