Lovely example of this important work, with plates in bright colours and heightened with gold. In an unusual binding featuring the star of David.

The four folding plates depict scenes of Jewish life: reading from the Torah service, a Seder, the Sukkot festival and a wedding. This copy was a special commission in colour, extremely rare for this title.

Professor of Hebrew in Basel for 39 years, Johannes Buxtorf (1564–1629) was considered the leading Protestant expert on Hebrew of his time and came to be known as 'Master of the Rabbis'. His main work, Juden Schul, was first published in German in 1603, followed by the Latin version Synagoga Judaica. The work is a thorough description of Judaism as practised in Germany at the time and became valuable for its descriptive details. It also gives a history of Jewish thought, from biblical times to the 17th century.

It is in this work that Buxtorf gives an interpretation of the relations between religions through a dialogue between a Jew and a Christian, where the latter answers to the Jew's attacks on Christianity. This work voices Buxtorf's own attitude towards the Jews which was, overall, a negative one; and although quoting various other literary works about Judaism, his speech was clearly biased.

This fine copy is the third Dutch edition, with some Latin and Hebrew text. The four engravings were realised for the first Dutch edition in 1694 by Jan Luyken (1649–1712), a Dutch poet, illustrator and engraver. We could trace no other copies of this edition in colour.

Third Dutch edition; 8vo (15.8 x 9.3 cm); 4 hand-coloured engravings heightened with gold, all folding with tissue guards, additional hand-coloured engraved title; contemporary calf gilt, with double ruled borders, corner pieces and central arabesque with the star of David at its centre, spine gilt with raised bands in compartments, red morocco label lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt; head of spine chipped, spine and hinges rubbed, hinges weak (upper hinge starting), ink(?) stain to fore edge not affecting pages. [14], 548, 44 pp.