Bab Musi. Porta Mosis sive, dissertationes aliquot à R. Mose Maimonide

Oxford: H.Hall. 1655.

First edition. Small quarto. 180x138mm. pp. [24], 288, 281-288, 281-296, 313-355, [5], 104, 109-436, [28]. Despite the erratic pagination, it collates complete. Title page of appendix dated 1654. Contemporary reverse calf with dog-tooth and dotted line border to both covers. Spine with four raised bands. Boards and spine heavily worn and spine has loss to first compartment and to head and foot. Cracking to joints. Internally very good. A nice copy of Pococke's important collection of extracts from Maimonides's Arabic commentary on the Mishnah. In preparing this work, Pococke used manuscripts which he had collected in during his time as the Chaplain of the Levant Company in Aleppo. Among them was a manuscript annotated by Maimonides himself although it seems that Pococke did not realise this at the time. Maimonides (1138-1204) wrote in Arabic but used Hebrew script. This translation by Pococke into Latin has Maimonides's original text in parallel making this the first book to be printed in moveable Hebrew type in Oxford.