Gittin [Divorce]. WITH COMMENTARY OF RASHI AND TOSFOTH

AUCTION 26 | Monday, November 22nd, 2004 at 1:00

Exceptional Printed Books, Sixty-Five Hebrew Incunabula: The Elkan Nathan Adler-Wineman Family Collection

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Lot 23

(TALMUD, BABYLONIAN)

Gittin [Divorce]. WITH COMMENTARY OF RASHI AND TOSFOTH

FIRST EDITION. Contains text mostly of the fourth chapter, “Ha-Sholeach and parts of the second and fifth chapters ff. 27 (of 124), i.e. ff.43-67, initial two leaves of this copy not in the JTSA copy which lacks ff.1-17. Some leaves remargined. Eleven leaves repaired affecting text. Marginal note on ff. 12 (=ff. 40 in the standard edition). Modern calf-backed marbled boards. Sm. folio Vinograd Soncino 23; Goff 106; Offenberg 123; Thes A44; Goldstein 38 (listing only one copy in the British Isles - the present, Wineman copy); Wineman Cat. no. 23; E.N. Adler, Talmud Printing Before Bomberg in: David Simonsen Festskrift, (Copenhagen ,1923) pp. 81-84; Habermann, Perakim, Joshua Solmon ben Israel Nathan Soncino/ and or Gershon ben Moshe Soncino no.1, p. 37 (for text of colophon signed by Samuel Latif). Not in Cambridge University, HUC, Bodleian nor British Museum. JNUL with fragment of 24 leaves. Offenberg lists only three recorded copies

Soncino: (Joshua Solmon ben Israel Nathan Soncino and / or Gershon ben Moshe Soncino) 1488

Est: $20,000 - $25,000

PRICE REALIZED $60,000

EXTREMELY RARE. ONLY THREE OTHER COPIES EXTANT (see above). BOTH THE JNUL AND SCHOCKEN COPIES ARE SMALLER FRAGMENTS. Incunable editions of the Talmud are notoriously rare. Raphael Rabinowitz noted in the introduction to his Ma’amar al Hadfasath HaTalmud the reason for this was overwhelmingly due to the fierce censorship and outright destruction instigated by the Church against Talmudic literature. Moreover, the few copies that survived such censorship were intensively studied by Jews until often they were too worn for further use. Tractates of the Talmud were first published in the town of Soncino in 1484 - the numerical equivalent of the word “gemara” (as noted by Joshua Soncino in one of his colophons, cited by Rabinowitz p. 9, no. 2). Progress was very slow and even by the post- incunable year of 1520, thirty six years later, the complete Talmud had not yet appeared. Subsequently, the “benevolent” Pope Leo X lifted restraints and Daniel Bomberg issued the editio princeps - complete. A difference of opinion exists among bibliographers as to which Soncino family member published this 1488 volume of Gittiin. Rabinowitz, M. Marx, and Offenberg all present scientific comparisons of the clarity, type of fonts used and other external technical features. Indeed in his work on the Soncinos, Habermann lists this Tractate Gittin as the first of the Talmud volumes to be printed. For a thorough summary and discussion see M. J. Heller, Printing the Talmud (1992) pp.77-80. This Soncino edition set the precedent of placing Rash”i along the inner margin and Tosafoth along the outer margin of the page. However, the layout of the “Daf” substantially differs from the standard editions post-Bomberg. Rabinowitz states he found many important improved readings in the Soncino version as compared to Bomberg and later editions. "These Soncino Press Tractates contain authentic, pleasing and more clear readings which were consciously or unconsciously changed in the Venice edition. They thought they were offering improvements whereas in actuality they corrupted [the text]” (Rabinowitz, p.13)