(SHECHITAH).

AUCTION 63 |
Thursday, November 13th,
2014 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Graphic and Ceremonial Art
Lot 311
(SHECHITAH).
(Turkey?): 15th Kislev 1707
Est: $800 - $1,200
The section of Maimonides’s Laws of Shechitah in the present manuscript contains a variant that does not appear in the published edition - a section entitled “Chatzi Hasepher” (see f. 18a).
David Vital, the author of the unusual poem, was a Spanish exile, who settled in Greece, first in Patras, and following the Turko-Venetian war of 1532, in Arta, where he was welcomed as a pre-eminent halachic authority. His most celebrated work, also written in poetic form, is Kether Torah, (Constantinople, 1536) a rhymed summary of the 613 precepts in accordance with Maimonides’s enumeration.