[Kabbalistic homilies through the year]. Anonymous (Attributed to Nathan of Gaza)

AUCTION 40 | Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 1:00

Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Graphic & Ceremonial Art

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Lot 89

CHEMDATH YAMIM

[Kabbalistic homilies through the year]. Anonymous (Attributed to Nathan of Gaza)

Four volumes. Titles in red and black within typographic and textual borders. Opening blank of Vol. I, signature of former owner Eliyahu bar Abraham Ben Amozeg (see below). Bookplate of Sydney Humphries ff.109; 128,(1); 96 (i.e. 97); 103. Ex-library. Wide margins. Waterstained. Marbled endpapers. Contemporary uniform tree calf, gilt, corners bumped, rebacked. 4to Vinograd, Venice 1963

Venice: n.p. 1763

Est: $600 - $900

PRICE REALIZED $650

R. Elijah Benamozegh Copy. Though suspected of Sabbatian leanings, Chemdath HaYamim soon became a favorite within the Sephardic literary world and no warnings of R. Jacob Emden could wean Sephardic Jewry away from this literary masterpiece. Chemdath Yamim first appeared in Izmir in 1732 and then Constantinople in 1735. The present third edition is the most sumptuous. See I. Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, Vol.V (1974), pp. 151-160. R. Elijah Benamozegh (1822-1900), Rabbi of Livorno, achieved in his writings a unique synthesis of the old and the new, combining at once the latest findings of modern scholarship with a deep devotion to the perennial wisdom of the Kabbalah, however this blend put him at loggerheads with his contemporary Samuel David Luzzatto (ShaDa"L), whose rationalism impugned the validity of Kabbalah. See EJ, Vol. IV, cols. 462-63