(Maestro Calo). Even Bochan [“The Touchstone”]. Edited by Yom Tov Tzarphathi ben Peretz.
AUCTION 80 |
Thursday, March 28th,
2019 at 1:00 PM
The Valmadonna Trust Library: Further Selections from the Historic Collection. * Hebrew Printing in America. * Graphic & Ceremonial Art
Lot 57
KALONYMOS BEN KALONYMOS OF ARLES
(Maestro Calo). Even Bochan [“The Touchstone”]. Edited by Yom Tov Tzarphathi ben Peretz.
Naples: Joseph ben Jacob Aschkenazi Gunzenhauser 1489
Est: $35,000 - $45,000
PRICE REALIZED $45,000
The Provencal satirist Kalonymos ben Kalonymos of Arles (1287-1337) completed this work in the month of Teveth, 5083 [1323]. (see f. 48v.) The author pokes fun at the human condition, at aspiring patricians who claim bogus pedigrees, self-proclaimed savants and pious frauds (ff. 16-17). Also noted are such important historical references as the first expulsion from France in 1306 and the massacres of 1320-21.
Besides Even Bochan, Kalonymos authored a Purim parody: Masecheth Purim. He was also most prolific as a translator. Invited to Italy by Robert of Anjou to produce Latin translations, he rendered Averroes’ Destruction of the Destruction into that language. Independently, Kalonymos also translated from Arabic to Hebrew Averroes’ Commentaries on the Organon and Al-Farabi’s work on the Classification of Sciences. Perhaps Kalonymos’ best known work is the animal fable, Igereth Ba’alei Chaim, which he translated from a Sufi encyclopedia produced in the city of Basra (Iraq).
See M. Waxman, A History of Jewish Literature, Vol. II (1933), pp. 207, 600, 606-610; I. Davidson, Parody in Jewish Literature, pp. 28-9; EJ, Vol. VI, col. 1130.