pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

196 x 152 and 208 x 172mm. Engraved title shaved at the foot and
frayed and slightly defective in the outer margin. Sig. 2G in Vol. I
part 1 slightly short and possibly inserted from another copy; some
gatherings of Vol. II parts 2 and 3 browned.
Binding: Contemporary vellum boards, yapp fore­edges. Joints of
Volume I sometime repaired; a little worn and soiled.
Provenance: Pencil annotations in the margins of vol. I; early owner’s
stamp of A. Fürst on free endleaves; embossed gold bookplate
‘Baphomet. Grand Master’ to which the following later inscription
may apply: ‘This book has been the property of [Greek, ‘omni’ ?], the
Rosicrucian Adept of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has
been identiWed with the celebrated pret. (Aleister) Crowley; but this
is denied by some’ (for Crowley, author and occultist 1875–1947 see
ODNB; he was Grand Master of the British section of the Order of
Oriental Templars); inscription ‘W. G. J. Barter collated perfect 25/7
[18]67’; Walter Pagel’s signature and inscription ‘d.d.d. Bernardo E. J.
Pagel’ dated 1960 on pastedown.
First edition. Another issue of vol. I has ‘Prostat Francofurti apud
Zunnerum’ added to the imprint. Caillet 5815; M. Steinschneider,
Catalogus librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, 6085.
This massive compilation is the major collection of cabbalistic treatises of
the period, and for Caillet in 1913 the most complete, exact and serious work
on the Cabbala to date. Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont collaborated
with Knorr and the work includes a contribution from Henry More and van
Helmont’s reply to it. Perhaps through his friendship with van Helmont,
Leibniz stayed with Knorr in 1688 and was very interested in cabbalism (see
Brown, op. cit. no. 90 above, pp. 102 and 112).
Volume I is in four parts, the Wrst two with separate sequences of pagination,
parts 3 and 4 in a single sequence and with a separate dated titlepage: Apparatus
in librum Sohar pars tertia & quarta, quarum prior est liber [Hebrew characters]
seu Porta coelorum... autore R. Abrahm Cohen Irira, Lusitano: è lingua Hispanica
primò in Hebraicam translatus, nunc in Latinam contractus... Solisbaci, typis
Abrahami Lichtenthaleri, 1678.
The titlepage to volume II is Kabbalae denudatae tomus secundus: id est liber
Sohar restitutus (1684) and there are three parts followed by a separate tract.
The three parts have sectional titles as follows: Pars prima ejusque Tractatus
primus: quae est Synopsis Celeberrimi illius Codicis Cabbalistici, qui vulgo dicitur
Liber Sohar, per novendecim titulos generales distrbuta, autore R. Jisaschar F.
Naphthali Sacerdote; Partis Secundae tractatus quartus qui est in Siphra de zeniutha
seu librum mysterii commentarius è manuscripto à R. Chajim Vital juxta tradita R.
Jezchak Lorja Germani edito latinate donatus... Nec non Commentarius alius...
scriptis R. Naphthali Hirtz F. Jacob Elchanam collectus & translatus; Partis tertiae
tractatus secundus pneumaticus, De Revolutionibus Animarum... ex Operibus R.
Jitzchak Lorjensis Germani Cabbalistarum Aquilae, latinate donatus. The Wnal
tract is Adumbratio Kabbalae Christianae, id est Syncatabasis Hebraizans, sive
Brevis applicatio doctrinae Hebraeorum Cabbalisticae ad dogmata novi foederis;
pro formanda hypothesi, ad conversionem Judaeorum proWcua.