Shiltei Hagiborim (“Shields of the Mighty”) [on the Second Temple]

AUCTION 21 | Thursday, December 04th, 2003 at 1:00

Kestenbaum & Company Holds Inaugural Auction of Hebrew Printed Books & Manuscripts at Their New Galleries

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Lot 207

PORTALEONE, ABRAHAM

Shiltei Hagiborim (“Shields of the Mighty”) [on the Second Temple]

FIRST EDITION. Four parts in one. Three divisional titles all within a decorative typographical border. On title, signature of owner: “Jacob Kopel b. Samuel Ashkenazi.” ff. 12, 186. Title stained with minor tear. Top marginal repairs to final 8 leaves. Modern boards. Folio Vinograd, Mantua 196

Mantua: Vicenzo Gonzaga 1612

Est: $1,000 - $1,500

PRICE REALIZED $2,000

An encyclopedic work on war, music, numismatics, weaponry, architecture - all discussed in order to elucidate the details of the Temple in Jerusalem. “Portaleone’s treatment is so discursive as to make the work a compendium of all branches of science known in his day, in which all of the ten languages he knew were amply used.” EJ, XIII, cols. 908-909. See C. Roth, Jews in the Renaissance (1959), pp. 315-319. In 1964, Jerusalem scholar Shaul Shefer reprinted several chapters from the rare Shiltei ha-Giborim in Bigdei Kehunah (“Priestly Vestments”), one of several volumes of his own encyclopedia of the Temple, complete with color photographs.