1484 -1498
Four Italian Judaica incunabula: Petrus Brutus, Victoria contra Judæos

SIMON DE GABIS (nicknamed Bevilaqua) of Pavia printed six editions at Vicenza between December I487 and November I491. He then moved to Venice where he worked successfully until 1503. After that he was frequently on the move: printing at Saluzzo, Cuneo, Novi Ligure and Savona until 1514, finally leaving Italy for Lyons, where his printing career came to an end in 1518.
Petrus Brutus, a Venetian, was Bishop of Cattaro (Kotor, almost at the southern tip of the Dalmatian coast, near the border with Albania) from 1471 to 1493. In 1477 he published a Letter against the jews at Vicenza, a rare little book of which only two copies are recorded today at Venice and one at Vicenza. Then on 3 October 1489 a much larger book, a folio of 130 leaves, entitled Victoria contra Judæos ('Victory against the Jews') appeared from the press of Simon de Gabis. This is addressed to the noblemen of Vicenza, who no doubt included Bartolomeo Pagello and the celebrated humanist Ognibene da Lonigo, who had been won over to the anti-Semitic cause.
Bishop Brutus' two books against the Jews are among the strongest pieces of anti-Semitic writing of the period. Following the alleged murder of the Christian boy Simon Oberdorfer by Jews of Trent in 1475 (for which the boy was later beatified), there was a tremendous outpouring of emotion, bitter feuding and polemical writing, resulting in the publication of a number of incunabula on the subject in such towns as Trent, Vicenza and Padua, all inflamed by the sermons of Bernardino da Feltre (1439 - 1494), who preached anti-Semitism at Padua and Treviso, and later at Vicenza. It was no doubt this last fact which led to the publication of Bishop Brutus' books at Vicenza. He was not resident there, but he knew the leading citizens of the town, who must have introduced his work to the local printers (Leonardus Achates of Basle being the printer of the letter of 1477, long before the arrival of Simon de Gabis in Vicenza).

Reading

Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now in the British Museum. Parts 4 - 7,12 (London 1916-1935 [reprinted with additions, 1962], 1985) (On Italy).