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Comprehensive Hebrew-Aramaic grammar in Latin with occasional Hebrew prepared by the Christian-Hebraist Bonaventure Corneille Bertram. The title page has a lengthy Latin text with the printer’s device, two hands with ruffed sleeves holding an anchor with a snake coiled about it. The text begins Comparatio Grammaticae Hebraicæ & Aramicæ, atque adeò dialectorum Aramicarum inter se: cõcinnata ex Hebraicis Antonij Ceuallerij præceptionibus, Aramicisque doctorum aliorum virorum obseruationibus: quibus & quamplurimae aliæ in vtraq[ue] lingua adiectæ sunt. . . . There is a dedication and introduction, initial letters are historiated and the grammatical rules are accompanied by numerous examples in Hebrew.
Bonaventure Corneille Bertram was a Protestant clergyman and Hebraist; born at Thouars, France, in 1531; died at Lausanne, Switzerland, 1594. He studied at Poitiers, Paris, Toulouse, and Cahors. Learning, in the last-mentioned city, that the authorities had received an order to massacre all the Protestants, he fled to Geneva, where, in 1567, he became professor of Oriental languages in the university. Among many valuable works he wrote, in addition to Comparatio Grammaticae Hebraicæ & Aramicæ (Gal Ed), "De Politia Judaica tam Civili quam Ecclesiastica," Geneva, 1580, a work on Hebrew institutions and history, which enjoyed great popularity, and passed through many editions; "Grammatica Hebraica et Arabica," Geneva, n. d.; and "Lucubrationes Frankentallenses, seu Specimen Expositionum in Difficiliora Utriusque Testamenti Loca," Frankenthal, 1586. Bertram also published a translation of the Bible very much appreciated at that time, Geneva, 1588. In this translation he followed Sebastian Munster and Tremelius; and very often he made use of rabbinic commentaries.
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