Tzeror Hama’or [Kabbalistic commentray to the Pentateuch]

SABA, ABRAHAM

Daniel Bomberg

Venice

1523

FIRST EDITION. The Isaac Benaim copy

Vinograd, Venice 86; Habermann, Bomberg 83; not in Adams

Exiled from his native Castile, no sooner did Saba take refuge in Oporto, Portugal, that King Emanuel ordered (24th December, 1496) all Jews converted and all Hebrew books burned. Saba’s sons were forcibly baptized and his extensive library plundered. He managed to save his own works in manuscript, and buried them outside Lisbon. However in time he was forced out of Portugal altogether and escape to Fez, Morocco where he attempted to recommit from memory works he was forced to abandon in Portugal. See N.S. Leibowitz, R. Avraham Saba Usefarav (1936) The majority of the 2,000 printed books from the Benaim Collection were completely destroyed as a result of the tragic fire that swept the Library of the JTSA in 1966