First Printing in Lisbon
The rich and varied legacy of Iberian Jews before the expulsions
Today in 1489, the Perush Seder Tefillot (Sefer Abudarham), a commentary on Jewish prayers written in 1340 by David ben Yosef Abudarha, was printed in Lisbon, Portugal.
Library of Congress:
The first dated Hebrew book -- Rashi's commentary on the Pentateuch -- appeared in Reggio di Calabria, Italy, in 1475. But scholars point to Rome as the city where Hebrew printing began. Between 1469 and 1472, nine works were printed there -- none bearing a date or place of publication -- but all bearing the unmistakable typographic influence of Sweynheym and Pannartz, two German printers who set up shop in Subiaco, near Rome, and printed Latin books. It is believed that Rome's Jewish printers learned their craft from Sweynheym and Pannartz…
In 1489, Eliezer Toledano published the first book printed in any language in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Moses ben Nahman's Perush ha-Torah is a commentary on the Pentateuch. That same year, Toledano published Lisbon's second printed work, the Sefer Abudarham, a commentary on the prayers written in 1340 by David ben Yosef Abudarham. The Library's copies of these and similar works help document the rich and varied legacy of Iberian Jews before the expulsions in 1492 from Spain and in 1497 from Portugal.