Lev, Joseph ben David Ibn

There is some confusion among bibliographers concerning the place and date of publication of Part I of this collection of responsa. Conventional wisdom placed its printing to Constantinople in 1561, where the remaining parts of this multi-volumed responsa were published. However, Yudlov in his catalogue of the Mehlman Collection suggests that the first part was in fact published in Salonika in 1558. As proof for this assertion, he points out in Genuzoth Sepharim, p.106, no. 162 that the author himself makes reference to this in the second part of this collection. On this issue, see also the discussion by Hacker in Areshet vol. V, p. 485, no. 162. The author dedicated this work to the illustrious Dona Gracia Nasi, whose printing-press in her Palace at Belvedere outside Constantinople, kept Hebrew literary endeavors alive in the Ottoman Empire at the time. Indeed the printer of the present work states here his intention to undertake the printing of a new edition of the Talmud following the recent calamitous public-burning of the Talmud in Italy The author was one of the greatest scholars of his generation. The Chida in his Shem Ha-Gedolim states that three scholars of that generation (all coincidentally named Yoseph) were capable of penning a work of the magnitude of the Beith Yoseph: R. Yoseph Karo, R. Yoseph ibn Lev and R.Yoseph Taitatzak