First edition of this scarce Hebrew grammar by Jean Cinquarbres (1514-87), also known as Quinquarboreo, a French Hebraist at the Collège Royale de France in Paris, where he worked alongside Jean Mercier (c.1510-70). They were part of a second generation of Hebrew studies following François Vatable (d.1547) and his circle. The grammar goes through the alphabet and its accents, nouns, verbs and their tenses, and pronouns, with sections on changes of punctuation and the function of the seven servile or changeable letters, finally dealing with numbers. Cinquarbres examples have a distinctly royalist tone, perhaps chosen to indicate his loyalty and that of the Collège, e.g. purple robes , King of France , royal lands , royal sceptre , etc., as well as his fixation on wine: wine, or sicera , adulterated wine , vinitor vinearum , i.e. viticulturist, etc., and, perhaps related, sleep of the teacher.
