Avodath Hakodesh [kabbalah]

IBN GABBAI, MEIR

Yitzchak ben Aaon of Prostitz

Cracow

1576 -77

Second edition.The first with the title Avodath Hakodesh. Title letters within decorative woodcut vignettes. Printer’s device on title. (cf. Yaari’s Printer’s Marks nos. 39 and note on p. 138)

Vinograd, Cracow 45; Mehlman 1053; Steinschneider 6303, 4

“Avodath Hakodesh was perhaps the finest account of kabbalistic speculation before the resurgance of the kabbalah in Safed”. G. Scholem, Kabbalah in EJ, X, col. 542. The first edition of the work was entitled Maroth Elokim, thereafter all subsequent editions were known as Avodath Hakodesh. According to Yaari the printer’s mark depicting a deer was used in honor of the publisher Tzvi ben Ha-kadosh Yitzchak of Austria who was on his way to the “Eretz Ha-Tzvi,” the Land of Israel. Prostitz later used a different printer’s mark.