Verbum Dei, canones generales linguae sanctae Hebraicae

Romae: Excudebat Stephanus Paulinus. 1616.

First edition. 213x160mm. pp. [16], 272, [4]. Contemporary vellum, "Canones Hebraice" handwritten on spine, and "Grammatica del Bottore P. Mario di Calascio 1616" on the lower cover. One of the ties is broken and the other is missing. Some marks and stains to the covers. Internally there is water damage with the pages waterstained and cockled but the text is beautifully clear and overall this is a nice copy of a rare book, Worldcat recording fifteen copies and only two appearing in the auction records.
Marius de Calasio (1550-1620) was an Italian Minorite friar who, from an early age, had studied Oriental languages, most especially Hebrew of which he was one of the finest Italian scholars of his age. Pope Paul V appointed him to the Chair of Biblical Languages at the Papal Studium where he remained until his death. His magnum opus was a posthumously published four volume Concordance of the Hebrew Bible but he also compiled a Hebrew dictionary (1617) and this Hebrew grammar which, starting with the alphabet and continuing from there, is clearly aimed at beginners in Biblical Hebrew.