Masechta Sotah [The Suspected Adulteress]. With commentaries by Rashi, Tosafoth, etc

(TALMUD, BABYLONIAN)

Tzvi ben Abraham Klonymous Jaffe

Lublin

1619

FIRST EDITION WITH THE COMMENTARY OF THE MAHARSHA. Title letters within decorative woodcut vignettes

Vinograd, Lublin 123; Mehlman 155:5; Rabinovitz, Talmud pp. 85-91

This third printing of the entire Talmud was begun in Lublin in 1617 and completed in 1639, with a handful of Tractates printed in Hanau. This edition enhanced those previous to it with the addition of novellae and aggadic interpretations of R. Samuel Edels, the Maharsha, who was the then Rosh Yeshivah of Lublin. His commentary has since become a standard feature in all comprehensive editions of the Talmud. There is some question regarding the identity of the printer. Rabinovitz speculates that Tzvi was the son of the famous Lublin printer Kalonymous Jaffe and that Kalonymous took on the additional name Abraham at a time of illness. See M. Heller, Printing the Talmud (1992) pp. 345-58