(Attributed to). Halachoth Gedoloth [Gaonic Rabbinic Code]

AUCTION 39 | Thursday, April 03rd, 2008 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters & Graphic Art

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Lot 204
KAYARA, SHIMON

(Attributed to). Halachoth Gedoloth [Gaonic Rabbinic Code]

FIRST EDITION. Title within ornamental arch. Printed in double columns. The Jacob Z. Lauterbach Copy ff. (4), 144. Bottom of title slightly cropped. Trace stained. Contemporary calf, rubbed. 4to Vinograd, Venice 333; Habermann, Adelkind 51; Adams S-1157

Venice: Cornelio Adelkind for Marco Antonio Giustiniani 1548

Est: $1,200 - $1,500
PRICE REALIZED $1,200
The authorship and date of the Halachoth Gedoloth have been the subject of much study and has given rise to conflicting views. Generally speaking, medieval Aschkenazic authorities tended to the view that the author was R. Yehudai Gaon, while their Sephardic counterparts adopted the view that the author was R. Shimon Kayyara. Modern scholarship inveighs with the latter view. In the introduction to the work, there is an enumeration of the negative and positive commandments. Whereas Maimonides veered away from this reckoning of the Halachoth Gedoloth in his Book of Commandments, Nachmanides in his glosses to the work of Maimonides, upholds the opinion of the Halachoth Gedoloth on many an occasion. See EJ, VII cols.1167-70 (illustrated)