when it changed hands. In the course of the 1560’s his son, Daniel Bomberg, had a printing-office in Antwerp and Cologne and, later, in Brussels. He provided the Officina Plantiniana in Antwerp with Bible manuscripts for the great Polyglot Bible (1569-72). It is still not clear, however, what precisely Hurault means by “emi a Bombergo”, all the more since the purchase of Seal. 5 is dated 5 May 1563 when Hurault was almost certainly in Venice and Bomberg, with the same degree of certainty, was not. What we do know is that the manuscript of the Palestinian Talmud was the basis for Bomberg’s edition 17 . The heirs of a certain Rabbi Zalman also supplied MSS (Seal. 9: “Habui adheredibus R. Zalman DD Hebrcei dum essem Venetiis legatus regius A. 1562" and Seal. 14: “Hie liber prius concisus et lacere restitutus et huic forma redditus est a me Johanne Huraultio Boistallerio regio apud Venatos legato Venetiis A. 1561"; note the exactitude of the new owner). Both books belonging to Rabbi Zalman had, at one time, been in the possession of one Mordechai ben Asher ha-Levi. MS Seal. 14 will be discussed below. In Seal. 12 the inscription reads “Liber D. Grimani Car lit S. Marei". The late Renais sance period in Italy produced many bibliophiles and book collectors one of whom was Cardinal Domenico Grimani (f 1523). His first acquisition was a spectacular one, for he bought the entire library of Pico della Mirandola, which included some 107 Hebrew manuscripts l8 . But the renowned Grimani collection has a somewhat tragic history. After the Cardinal’s death his library was transformed into an indepen dent foundation but the collection was destroyed by fire in 1687. Many of the manus cripts had however previously been removed, surreptitiously by persons unknown, or ceremoniously by royal ambassadors 18 , and in this way, for instance, the banker Fugger illegally acquired a large number of Grimani’s Hebrew manuscripts which ultimately reached Munich Library. The Boistaillers, Jean and his brother André, must also have been involved in these practices. They had copies made of some of the manuscripts but they also managed to acquire some originals e.g. the famous correspondence of Pope Leo the Great and evidently Seal. 12 and 11 and, presumably, Seal. 14 ,0 . A Grimani codex can have two distinguishing features. The first of these is the owner’s mark, which is to be found not only in Seal. 12, but also, elaborately crossed out, at the back of Seal. 11. Hurault states in Seal. 12 that the bought the manuscript from

17. See note 6. 18. P. Kibre, The Library of Pico della Mirandola (New York 1936), see in particular pp. 37-48. 19. Th. Freudenberger, “Die Bibliothek des Kardinals Domenico Grimani”, Historisches Jahrbuch 56 (1936) 15-45. 20. Freudenberger, l.c. p. 30. His assumption that Seal. 7 containing the Yalqut Makhiri also reached the Scaliger collection by this route is unacceptable since the manuscript bears neither the name of Hurault de Boistailler nor that of Grimani. Under number 179 in the Index to Grimani’s Hebrew books (see below) we find : “Yalcut ./.(«• id est) Collectiones super Isaiam Rabi Machir". The last two words seem (on the microfilm) to have been added by a later hand. Moreover, Seal. 7 does not appear on either of the lists of Scaliger’s manuscripts; see below and Appendix I.