Kol Bo [Compendium of Jewish Law]

Considerable scholarly and bibliographic research has been devoted to the identification and dating of this work - at least since de Rossi's catalogue entry in his Annales Hebraeo-typographici of 1799. Steinschneider attributed the Kol Bo to Napes, circa 1490. Though his description was followed by many a bibliographer, Moses Marx was a dissenting voice, “There is not the slightest reason for ascribing the book to the city of Naples.” A.K. Offenberg noted the peculiarity of the typeface, “The same type is not used in any other known Hebrew incunable” (Offenberg, p. 92). But if typographical analysis was of no avail, neither did examination of the watermarks by modern methods turn up anything of much significance. Offenberg concludes: “The book was printed somewhere in Italy about 1490…Naturally, it can indeed have been printed in Naples, particularly since the greatest part of Hebrew incunabula were published there about 1490, but it is not possible to be certain of this on the evidence of the paper alone” (Offenberg, p. 96). See M. Steinschneider, Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum (1852-60) Addenda et Corrigenda, col. LXXXIII; M. Marx, Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 1:1 (1953) p. 37, no. 38; A.K. Offenberg, The Dating of the Kol Bo; Watermarks and Hebrew Bibliography in: Studia Rosenthaliana 6:1 (1972) pp. 86-106