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Typography and Practices of Reading: The Lesson of Tzemah David (1592)

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2016

Abstract

The paper analyzes the editio princeps of the Hebrew Chronicle Tzemah David by David Gans (1541-1613). The author deals with the typography of the book and interprets it in the context of the Jewish and non-Jewish early printed book-culture and argues that by its layout it is a unique edition, encouraging the Jewish reader to spot-reading, the new practice of reading.

It also considers Tzemah David together with other Gans' printed work, the Magen David (1612), surviving in an unicum in the Bodleian Library of Oxford.