Anonymous. Masoreth ha-Gemara [index to the Talmud and Mishnah]

AUCTION 36 | Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 1:00

Fine Judaica: Printed Books & Manuscripts

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Lot 193

(TALMUD)

Anonymous. Masoreth ha-Gemara [index to the Talmud and Mishnah]

FIRST EDITION. On final page, signature of Censor, “Camillo Jaghel, 1611” (see Wm. Popper, The Censorship of Hebrew Books, pl. IV, no. 2) ff. 54. Inner margin of f.4 taped. Scattered staining (including title). Contemporary mottled calf, blind-tooled, rubbed, lacking clasps. Sm. folio Vinograd, Salonika 32

Salonika: Don Judah Gedaliah 1523

Est: $20,000 - $25,000

PRICE REALIZED $22,000

One of the essential components of the Talmud is the Masoreth HaShas - parallel readings, printed alongside the margins of every page of the Talmud. This standard feature was not available in the earlier editions of Soncino, Pesaro or even the famous Bomberg edition, but was first added to the Talmud by R. Joshua Boaz for the Justinian edition of the Talmud (Venice, 1546 ). The Masoreth ha-Shas (or as titled here, the Masoreth ha-Gemara) was arranged by an unknown scholar in Salonika who compiled an early, rather unsophisticated set of parallel passages for thirty (not twenty-nine!) of the major Talmudic tractates - probably as an addendum to the Talmud published in Salonika by the printer Don Judah Gedaliah. Here, the text cites just the pertinent chapter of the parallel reading; present versions also cite the exact page number