Masechta Me’ilah, Kinyan, Midoth, Tamid, etc. With commentaries by Rashi, Tosafoth, etc.

(TALMUD, BABYLONIAN).

Daniel Bomberg

Venice

1528

SECOND BOMBERG EDITION. Opening letters within white on black decorative woodcut vignettes.

Vinograd, Venice 127; Habermann, Bomberg 118/119; not in Adams; Rabinowitz pp.****

The first edition of Bomberg’s Talmud sold out quickly, necessitating reissues of various tractates in 1527-30, 1538-9 and 1548. Indeed, Ya’ari in Mechkarei Sepher: Sreiphath HaTalmud Be’Italia (1958) notes these subsequent issues are often more scarce than the early editions, as they were destroyed by the Papal authorities of the time. Heller, in Printing the Talmud (1992) emphasizes the importance of the emendations in Bomberg’s second edition, often overlooked, in analyzing the development of the text of the Talmud.