Catalog of Library of Rabbi David Oppenheim of Prague – The Most Important Private Hebrew Library of That Time!
Hamburg, 1826
Including the rare supplementary pamphlet!
Koheles David – a bibliographic list of over 4,000 sefarim and manuscripts from the private library of Rabbi David Oppenheim, Av Beis Din of Nikolsburg and Prague.
Rabbi David Oppenheim’s legendary library was known worldwide as one of the most important libraries. In this magnificent library, one could find incunabula and rare printed sefarim, some the only ones in the world, ancient manuscripts of important works, beautiful copies of various sefarim printed on parchment, blue paper, wide margins and royal bindings.
It is told that some of the sefarim in Rabbi Oppenheim’s library came from the library of the Tosafos Yom Tov.
This is a volume containing the catalog of Rabbi David Oppenheim’s library, prepared for the presentation of the sefarim at a public auction in Sivan 1827. After various travails, this library arrived at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.
Koheles David, compiled by Isaac Metz. Hamburg, 1826.
Thick volume: [16], 742, [2] pages. At the end is a partial index that was not completed here (it was completed in Leipzig in 1845, bound here after the catalog).
The catalog is divided according to the four different sizes of seforim, as was customary at that time: Folio – large format (such as Gemaras and the like), Quarto – medium format, Octavo – small format, and Duodecimo – which is a miniature format.
Bound at the end: List of Recorded Sefarim Besides the Attachments, by Yaakov Goldenthal. [Leipzig, 1845]. This pamphlet is extremely rare, and is actually the completion of the index for sefarim recorded in the Koheles David catalog but did not appear in the index at its end.
The pamphlet was printed without a title page, and on the first page is a ‘quasi’ title page. The page count continues from where the Koheles David catalog ends: [1], 744-796 pages.
Size: 18.5 cm.
Condition: Good. Crease in two pages. Pencil numbering on some pages.
