(Maestro Calo). Even Bochan [“The Touchstone:” Satire]. Edited by Yom Tov Tzarphathi ben Peretz

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 35

Kalonymos ben Kalonymos

(Maestro Calo). Even Bochan [“The Touchstone:” Satire]. Edited by Yom Tov Tzarphathi ben Peretz

FIRST EDITION. Wide-margined copy. Marginalia in Judeo-Español provide translation of technical terms. ff.32-33 printed in correct order; of three copies examined by Isaac Rivkind, only one had these leaves in order. See I. Rivkind, Dikdukei Sepharim in: Kiryath Sepher II (1925-6) p. 56, no. 3 ff. 46 (of 50) opening four leaves supplied in facsimile. Several leaves laid to size; outer third of f.22 missing. Stained in places, few neat paper repairs. Recent morocco, gilt, with slip-case. Sm. 4to Vinograd, Naples 7; Goff 66; Goldstein 54; Offenberg 102; Steinschneider, p. 1578, no. 6068-1; Thes. A62; Wineman Cat. 35a

Naples: Joseph ben Jacob Aschkenazi Gunzenhauser 1489

Est: $15,000 - $20,000

PRICE REALIZED $37,500

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). 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; EJ, Vol. VI, col. 1130