Sha’ar ha-Shamayim [“The Gate of Heaven”: encyclopedic work on natural science, mathematics and astronomy]

AUCTION 34 | Tuesday, September 12th, 2006 at 1:00

Exemplary Hebrew Books: The Library of Joseph Gradenwitz, Esq.

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Lot 56

GERSHON BEN SOLOMON OF ARLES

Sha’ar ha-Shamayim [“The Gate of Heaven”: encyclopedic work on natural science, mathematics and astronomy]

First Edition. Printer’s device on title (Yaari, Printers’ Marks, no. 14) ff. 64. Title incised, no loss of text. Former owners’ signatures. Light stains throughout, margins of final few leaves frayed. Contemporary vellum, rebacked, rubbed, later silk ties. Sm.4to Vinograd, Venice 329; Adams G-500; Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Boook, Vol. I, pp. 338-39

Venice: Meir Parenzo 1547

Est: $1,000 - $1,500

PRICE REALIZED $800

Little is known of the 13th-century author, Gershon ben Solomon of Arles, Provence. His Sha’ar ha-Shamayim, reflects the unique synthesis of Jewish and secular learning for which Provence was famous. Through the Hebrew translations of Samuel ibn Tibbon and other gifted Provencal scholars, the Jews of Provence had at their disposal the extensive corpus of Aristotelian and Arabic learning. See M. Waxman, History of Jewish Literature, Vol. II, pp. 317-8