, a celebrated printer of the sixteenth century, who was the first
, a celebrated printer of the sixteenth century, who was the first after those who printed the works of Ramus, that made a distinction in his printing between the consonants j and v, and the vowels i and u. Ramus was the inventor of this distinction, and employed it in his Latin grammar of 1557, but we do not find it in any of his works printed after that time. Beys adopted it first in Claude Mignaut’s Latin commentary on Horace. He died at Paris April 19, 1593. He married a daughter of the celebrated Plantin of Antwerp, by whom he had a son, who was probably the poet above-mentioned, as the following burlesque epitaph was written on him
, a celebrated printer of the sixteenth century, was a native of
, a celebrated printer of the sixteenth century, was a native of Antwerp, but settled at Venice, where he commenced business by printing a Hebrew Bible, which was published in 2 vols. fol. 1518, and reprinted by him in 4to and 8vo. He learned Hebrew from Felix Pratenois, an Italian, who engaged him to print a Rabbinical Bible, which appeared in 1517, fol. dedicated by Bomberg to Leo X. The Jews, however, not approving of this edition, the rabbi Jacob Haum suggested another, which Bomberg published in 4 vols. fol. in 1525. He also, in 1520, began an edition of the Talmud, which he finished, after some years, in 11 vols. fol. This he reprinted twice, and each edition is said to have cost him an hundred thousand crowns. These two last editions are more complete and beautifully printed than the first, and are in more estimation than the subsequent editions of Bragadin and Burtorf. Bomberg appears to have been a man highly zealous for the honour of his art, spared no cost in embellishments, and is said to have retained about an hundred Jews as correctors, the most learned he could find. In printing only, in the course of his life, he is thought to have expended four millions in gold (Scaliger says, three millions of crowns), and Vossius seems to hint that he injured his fortune by his liberality. He died at Venice in 1549.