JUDAICA CARDOSO (ISAAC FERNANDO) Las excelencias de los Hebreos, FIRST EDITION, large woodcut device on title and divisional title (between pp.332-333), trace (or single hole) of worming in upper margin of approximately 145 pages (touching headline letters of 10, thin trace touching text letters on about 10 leaves), light dampstain to approximately 40 pages, early vellum over boards (small losses at head of spine and upper edges) [Den Boer, Spanish and Portuguese Printing, 315; Palau 44099; Wolf I, 1265], 4to, Amsterdam, David de Castro Tartas, 1679 Footnotes: First edition of an important work of Jewish apologetics, in which the author describes the virtues of the Jewish people, and refutes common anti-Jewish stereotypes, also including much information on the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition. Born in Portugal, Fernando Cardoso (1604-1683) travelled to Spain to take up a position as physician to the Court of Philip IV, living there as a Christian. Subsequently he moved in 1648 to Verona in Italy, where he joined the Sephardi community as a professing Jew. Here he wrote Las excelencias de los Hebreos, 'a defense of Jewry as a whole, it is also, on a personal level, a justification of his [Cardoso's] own choice to live as a Jew' (Y.H. Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto: Isaac Cardoso: a Study in Seventeenth-Century Marranism and Jewish Apologetics, 1981). This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: • • Zero rated for VAT, no VAT will be added to the Hammer Price or the Buyer's Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com