Soncino (Soncini, Soncinati) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XI, p. 577

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

SONCINO (SONCINI, SONCINATI). — A forename derived from a locality in the Cremonese area and adopted by a Jewish family of itinerant printers, whose activity, with various interruptions, extended from 1483 to 1547.

The progenitor was Giosuè SALOMONE, son of the physician and rabbi Járà'el Năthân ben Sélómòh, originally from Spira, who settled in S. He began his printing activity in that loca-

31. — ENCICLOPEDIA CATIOLICA. — XI.
lity in 1483–84 with the work Massekheth Böräkhöth («Book of Blessings»), continuing it through 1488. From 1489 to 1492, several of his editions of the Pentateuch, printed in Naples, are known.

GÉRÉOM (Girolamo: ca. 1460–1534), nephew of the preceding, gave great impetus to the printing and dissemination of important Jewish works, printed in numerous localities because of his continual changes of residence. His activity, begun in Brescia between 1491 and 1494, continued at Barco (1496–97) under the protection of the counts Martinengo; from 1501 to 1519, books bearing the dates of Fano, Pesaro, and Ancona appear sporadically, and this was the most fruitful period of his activity. In 1518 he printed at Ortona a Mare an anti-Jewish volume by Pietro Galatino; between 1520 and 1527 he printed at Rimini and Cesena. Subjected to continual restrictions and persecutions, in 1529 he went to Salonica, where his son MOSE had established a printing press in 1521; he then moved to Constantinople, where, after his death (1534), the printing activity was continued by his other son ELEAZAR until 1547. Girolamo was a highly skilled printer and an excellent connoisseur of the Hebrew language; all his editions, including those in Italian and Latin, are distinguished by the accuracy of their texts and their typographical perfection. The Hebrew editions of the S. number approximately 140.

BIBL.: G. Z. Antonucci, Catal. di opere ebraiche, greche, latine ed ital. stampate dai celebri tipogr. S. ne' secc. XV e XVI, edited by C. Giannini - Z. Re, 3rd ed., Fermo 1870; F. Sacchi, I tipogr. ebrei di S., part 1 (the only one published), Cremona 1877; M. Soave, Dei S. celebri tipogr. ital. nei secc. XV e XVI, Venice 1878; G. Manzoni, Ann. tipogr. dei S. Bologna 1883–86 (a fundamental work, left incomplete; part 1 of vol. II, part 2 of vol. III, and part 2 of vol. IV were published); A. Freimann, Die Sominaten Drache in Salonichi und Constantinopel, in Zeitsch. für hebräische Bibl., 9 (1905), pp. 21–25; G. Castellani, Gerolamo S., in La bibliofilia, 9 (1907), pp. 23–31; D. W. Amram, The Makers of hebrew books in Italy, Philadelphia 1909; A. Freimann, Thesaurus typographiae Hebraicae nascuti XV, Berlin 1924–31; S. Magrini, Perché un tipog. ebreo del '500 stampò un'opera antigiudaica, in Rass. mensile di Israël, 10 (1935), pp. 126–32. Giannetto Avanzi