Tur, Yoreh Deah

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 50

JACOB BEN ASHER OF TOLEDO.

Tur, Yoreh Deah

Third edition. First Spanish edition One complete leaf (concerning Shatnetz), plus a minute fragment. Modern morocco-backed marbled boards. Folio Goff 57; Goldstein 80 (listing only one copy in the British Isles - the present, Wineman copy); Offenberg 71;Tishby (Israel) 26; not in Steinschneider; Wineman Cat. 50. HUC (48 leaves); JTS (17 leaves); Both The National Library of Canada (Ottowa) and JNUL (Mehlman Collection) posess a fragment of a single leaf only

Guadalajara: Solomon ben Moses HaLevi ben Alkabetz (Ca. 1479 -1480)

Est: $3,000 - $5,000

PRICE REALIZED $6,500

An Early Spanish Fragment of Extreme Rarity. No complete copy extant. The largest copy, in Madrid's Escorial Library, lacks the first leaf. Only four other fragments are known (see above). Obtaining even a fragment of this Tur elicited the following frisson of excitement from the esteemed Librarian of HUC: “The rarest books, understandably, were those from Spain and Portugal printed...before the expulsions. The acquisition of any Hebrew incunabulum is ...noteworthy, and the library is proud to report the acquisition of an edition of the Tur Yoreh Deah... albeit a fragment...Textual and further typographical study remains to be done...In any case, we share the thrill of acquiring an important fifteenth century book.” See H.C. Zafren, Studies in Bibliography and Booklore Vol. XII (1979) p. 45