Sepher MaHaRI”L [customs for the entire year according to Aschkenazi rite]

AUCTION 25 | Monday, October 25th, 2004 at 1:00

Important Hebrew Printed Books: The Property of a Gentleman

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Lot 39

MOELLIN, JACOB BEN MOSES HALEVI.

Sepher MaHaRI”L [customs for the entire year according to Aschkenazi rite]

FIRST EDITION. Title letters within floriated vignettes. On title, signatures and stamp of former owners. An inscription in a fine Italian hand records that the book was bought from R. Raphael Baruch on the 21st day of Ellul 577 (1817) for the sum of 30 soldi.” On verso of final leaf, woodcut printer's mark containing two rampant lions flanking a palm tree in whose center there is a Star of David, all within a cartouche; surrounding are the words, “A just man will flourish as a palm tree” (Psalms 92:13) and the name “Tobias Foa.” (See Ya'ari, p. 13, pl. 21; p. 133). Censors' signature on recto of final leaf, “1612,” and on verso, “Gio[vanni] Dominico Carretto1598” (see Wm. Popper, pl. III, no. 7) ff. 116. Marginal paper repairs, stained in places. Modern vellum-backed boards. Sm. 4to Vinograd, Sabbioneta 34; Adams J-26; St. Cat. Bodl. col. 1228; no. 5567-1; Deinard, Atikoth Yehudah, p. 25

Sabbioneta: Tobias Foa 1556

Est: $2,500 - $3,000

PRICE REALIZED $5,000

Steinschneider emphasizes the rarity of this work. The Sepher MaHaRI”L is the most important source for ritual customs (minhagim), both within and without the synagogue. It paints a most faithful picture of the religious and social life of German Jewry in the 14th and15th centuries. In his monumental chronicle “Divrei HaYamim LeMalchei Tzarfath U’Malchei Beith Othman HaTugar” (History of the Kings of France and the Kings of the House of Othman the Turk), R. Joseph Cohen discusses but two printers: Daniel Bomberg of Venice and Tobias Foa of Sabbionetta. Ya'ari believes the reason Foa merited this distinction is that Cohen was much affected by the burning of the Talmud in Italy in Marcheshvan1553. (This is in fact the final episode discussed in the Divrei HaYamim, which was printed at the end of that month.) Subsequently, Cohen placed great hope in the fact that Foa succeeded in printing Tractate Kiddushin in Ellul 1553, with plans to print the entire Talmud. See Ya'ari, Mechkarei Sepher (1958), p. 345