(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

Sheldon Theatre

Oxford

1691

Farissol, Abraham. Igereth Orchoth Olam - Itinera Mundi. First Latin Edition. Translated by Thomas Hyde. * Bound With: Tractatus Alberti Bobovii [Muslim Liturgy and Religious Practices] (Oxford, 1690). Text in Latin and Osmanli (Turkish in Arabic characters), with notes by the Editor, Thomas Hyde

Vinograd, Oxford 4; Wing F-438

The Igereth Orchoth Olam is a pioneering work on geography. First published in Ferrara in 1524, it is the first Hebrew book to contain a description of America (chap. 29). Besides its rudimentary description of the “Erets Hadasha”(The New World), the book also contains a valuable reference to the enigmatic personality David Reubeni (chap. 14). Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol (c. 1451-c. 1525) was born in Avignon, France, but spent most of his life in Ferrara and Mantua. For a thorough account of his life and achievments, see David B. Ruderman, The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol (Cincinnati, 1981); see also André Neher, Jewish Thought and the Scientific Revolution of the Sixteenth Century (Oxford, 1986), pp. 122-135; and EJ, Vol. VI, cols.1184-1185. According to the preface to the second work, Albert Bobowski was a Polish interloper in the Ottoman Empire who, in recognition of his linguistic ability, was given the title “Turjeman Bashi” (chief interpreter) by Sultan Mohammed IV. Bobowski recorded Muslim practices, including the hajj to Mecca and the Muslim rites of circumcision.