82 - KIRSTEN (Peter, or Petrus Kirstenius). NOTES ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW. Based on a collation of Arabic, Egyptian, Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, and Latin texts […]. Breslau [Wrocław], published at the author’s expense and printed with his own Arabic type, [1611, date by chronogram]. Small folio (302 × 197 mm) in marbled fawn calfskin, ribbed spine divided into compartments and decorated with gilded fleurons, title label in garnet morocco, edges adorned with a gilded roulette, gold-threaded headbands, red edges (18th-century binding); (5) ff., 140 pp. One corner is chipped, leather missing from one edge, scuffing on the headbands, water stains on the 2nd leaf and in the side margin without affecting the text on the last 7 ff. VERY RARE FIRST EDITION of this philological commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, based primarily on the ARABIC VERSION. The work, printed in two columns, combines Latin with numerous passages in ARABIC CHARACTERS, as well as GREEK and HEBREW. This work is among the EARLIEST GERMAN PUBLICATIONS TO USE MOVABLE ARABIC TYPE. Peter KIRSTEN (1577–1640), a physician, physicist, and Orientalist, had the type necessary for his publications cast at his own expense. There are two variants of this edition: one with a printed title and the other with an ILLUSTRATED ENGRAVED TITLE in intaglio, which is the case with our copy. This title page features a historiated architectural frame, with figures of Saint Peter and Saint Paul and, at the bottom, a portrait of the author. The work is also complete with the preliminary leaf, which is sometimes missing and which contains a 26-line eulogistic poem in Hebrew by Jakob Ebert of Frankfurt, with the Latin translation on the front. A CHARMING COPY, in an 18th-century binding, well preserved. ¶ Brunet, III, 670 - Zenker, II, 1781 - Smitskamp, “Philologia orientalis,” 113.