YAGEL, ABRAHAM BEN CHANANIAH. Catechismus Judaeorum [Jewish catechism for children]

Entitled by the author, Lekach Tov, this miniscule work was first published in Venice in 1595. Yagel's biographer, David B. Ruderman speculates that the book was used to instruct the children of banker Joseph Fano of Reggio nell'Emilia, when Yagel visited Fano at his summer home outside Ferrara in 1587. The first edition of the book was dedicated to Fano. Essentially, Yagel's text followed the Thirteen Principles of Faith of Moses Maimonides. See D.B. Ruderman, Kabbalah, Magic, and Science: The Cultural Universe of a Sixteenth-Century Physician (1988), pp.15, 18; EJ, Vol. IX, cols. 1268-69.