CONAT, ABRAHAM BEN SOLOMON
- CONAT, ABRAHAM BEN SOLOMON
- CONAT, ABRAHAM BEN SOLOMON (15th century), Italian
physician and one of the earliest printers of Hebrew books. Conat was
probably of Ashkenazi origin. He lived in Mantua, where he may have been
active as early as 1475. In 1476 he printed Jacob b. Asher's Tur
Oraḥ Ḥayyim and began to print Yoreh De'ah as
well; however, this was completed in Ferrara by Abraham b.
Ḥayyim\>\> of Pesaro, which suggests that Conat died about 1477. Other
works printed by him (all apparently in Mantua, 1475–77) are Sefer
Eldad ha-Dani; Jedaiah Bedersi's Beḥinat Olam; Mordecai
Finzi's Luḥot, astronomical tables; Judah Messer Leon's
Nofet Ẓufim; Levi b. Gershom's Pentateuch commentary; and
Sefer Josippon, the pseudo-Josephus. Conat's work is
particularly beautiful, and his type has been imitated in modern luxury
editions. Abraham's wife, ESTELLINA CONAT, was equally
active in the printing of these books and is the first woman who is
named as an editor in a printing house. Beḥinat Olam was both
arranged and printed by Estellina Conat. She is called the
kotevet and in a colophon at the back of the book, she wrote:
"I, Estellina Conat, the wife of my lord, my husband, the honored Master
Abraham Conat … wrote this pamphlet, Beḥinat Olam, with the
help of the youth Jacob Levi of Provence, of Tarascon, may he live,
Amen." In the early days of printing, no Hebrew word yet existed for the
process and Abraham Conat explained that his books were "written with
many pens, without the aid of a miracle."
-BIBLIOGRAPHY:
D. de Guenzburg, in: Recueil des travaux rédigés en mémoire du
jubilé scientifique de D. Chwolson (1899), 57–66; D.W. Amram,
Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (1909), 30–34; A. Freimann
(ed.), Thesaurus Typographiae Hebraicae (1924), A 4–10; A.M.
Habermann, Ha-Sefer ha-Ivri be-Hitpatteḥuto (1968), 81–84,
86, 172; B. Friedberg, Toledot ha-Defus ha-Ivri be-Italyah
(1934), 10–11, 17, 31. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: A.M.
Habermann, Nashim Ivri'ot be-Tor Madpisot, Mesadrot, Motzi'ot le-Or
ve-Tomekhot be-Meḥabrim (1932–33), 7.
(Umberto (Moses David) Cassuto /
Emily Taitz (2nd ed.)
Encyclopedia Judaica.
1971.
Look at other dictionaries:
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