Hilkhot De'ot sive Canones Ethici

First edition of Gentius's Latin translation of 'Hilkhot De'ot', from the first book of Maimonides's 'Mishneh Torah', with a commentary. 'Hilkhot De'ot' is part of the monumental work 'Mishneh Tora'. Book one, 'Sefer Madah', is comprised of several chapters in which Maimonides outlines the rules of ethical behaviour in relation to the halakhic law, interestingly applying Aristotelian virtues to a Jewish legal context.

This is Gentius's first publication and one of the earliest translations of a complete section of Maimonides's extensive compendium of Jewish law into Latin, beautifully printed in parallel with the original Hebrew. Georgius Gentius (1618-1687) was a German Lutheran orientalist who studied in Leiden, and later with Amsterdam rabbis; two of them, R. Isaac da Fonseca Aboab and R. Moses d'Aguilar, contributed to this edition with two laudatory poems. In the introduction Gentius praises Maimonides. This edition is beautifully illustrated with attractive diagrams and tables showing the relationship between vices and virtues.

First edition; small 4to (21 x 16 cm); modern grey cloth with gilt floral device to upper cover, printer's device to title page, woodcut floriated initials and tailpieces, two woodcut diagrams and two tables, small loss to upper right corner of title and some loss to margins of index leaf, very minor worming to upper right corner throughout, chips to edges of the last leaf, faint waterstains throughout; text in Latin and Hebrew; a very good copy.

Heller (The Seventeenth Century Hebrew Book) Vol. 1, pp. 564-565.