Ma’adanei Melech [“Delicacies of the King”: novellae to Ro”sh, Rabbenu Asher ben Yechiel, Seder Nezikin only]

AUCTION 30 | Tuesday, September 20th, 2005 at 1:00

Fine Judaica: Books and Manuscripts

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Lot 159

HELLER, YOM TOV LIPMANN.

Ma’adanei Melech [“Delicacies of the King”: novellae to Ro”sh, Rabbenu Asher ben Yechiel, Seder Nezikin only]

First Edition. Double columns. On title, printer’s mark of hands extended in priestly benediction while the crown of priesthood hovers above - symbol of Katz Family of printers (see Yaari, Hebrew Printers’ Marks no. 53). On title and final page, inscriptions by former owner, “I”sh Ge”r anochi ba-aretz,” the acronym of Italian kabbalist Abraham Joseph Solomon Graziano. Who writes: “This book was given to me...as an outright gift from R. Gur Aryeh Halevi (Finzi), sent to me here in Modena by Matzliach Hakohen, from the city of Mantua, while I was here in Modena in order to adjudicate a legal case.” Gur-Aryeh Halevi Finzi was a 17th-century Justice on the Rabbinic Court of Mantua (see Simonsohn, History...Mantua p. 708) ff. 58 (i.e. 60), 2. Ex library. Browned throughout. Modern boards. Folio Vinograd, Prague 279

Prague: Moses ben Bezalel Katz 1619

Est: $2,000 - $3,000

PRICE REALIZED $3,000

In his introduction, Yom Tov Lipmann Heller (1579-1654) offers a detailed analysis of his method of research. The author entitled his commentary “Ma’adanei Melech” based on Jacob’s blessing to the tribe of Asher, “As for Asher, his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties” (Genesis 49:20). The title was deemed appropriate because Rabbenu Asher provides both the “bread of Torah” and the “delicacies of the king.” However, the author’s detractors deviously misconstrued the meaning of the title as an insult to the reigning monarch and a portent of revolution. Indeed Heller was imprisoned shortly thereafter, whereupon he judiciously altered the title to the more innocuous “Maadanei Yom Tov.” See EJ, Vol. VIII, cols. 311-14