Sepher Rav Mordechai. With commentary by Menachem David of Tiktin (entitled Mahara”m)

AUCTION 50 | Thursday, February 24th, 2011 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Hebrew Printed Books, Manuscripts, Graphic & Ceremonial Art Including: The Alfonso Cassuto Collection of Iberian Art

Back to Catalogue Download Catalogue

Lot 179
MORDECHAI BEN HILLEL HAKOHEN.

Sepher Rav Mordechai. With commentary by Menachem David of Tiktin (entitled Mahara”m)

SECOND sEPARATE eDITION. First Edition of Commentary ff. 191. Mispaginated, two leaves supplied from another copy, lower corner stained, occasional foxing. Dampstained. Contemporary vellum over thick wooden boards, corner-pieces (one lacking), clasps and hinges. Folio Vinograd, Cracow 209

Cracow : Isaac Prostitz 1598

Est: $1,000 - $1,500
PRICE REALIZED $1,000
The Mordechai is a great repository of Aschkenazic Halacha, in which over 300 books and authors are cited, most notably the responsa of Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg. The author, Mordechai ben Hillel Hakohen (1240?-1298) was brother-in-law to R. Meir Hakohen, author of Hagahoth Maimoniyoth, an Aschkenazic gloss to Maimonides’ Code, and an outstanding disciple of R. Meir ben Baruch of Rothenburg. Together with his wife and five children, Mordechai was killed in the Rindfleisch Massacres in Nuremburg. (See EJ, Vol. XII, cols. 311-14). Most of our Mahara”m commentary has been incorporated into the Chidushei Anshei Shem found in the standard Vilna edition of the Talmud, under the rubric “Mahara”m Tiktin.” However, the present first edition of the commentary, contains a number of responsa (viz. verso of title and f. 61b-62a), as well as an introductory essay by the exegete’s son Asher, left out of subsequent editions