[Rabbinic law]. Anonymous

KOL BO.

Gershom Soncino

Rimini

1525

Title with prominent printer’s mark depicting the Tower of Rimini (Yaari, no. 6). Initial letters of opening word within white-on-black decorative vignettes. Wide-margined copy. Portions of HilchothYein Nesech and Hilchoth Avodah Zarah with censors deletions

Vinograd, Rimini 7; Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 3561; Habermann, Ha-Madpisim Bnei Soncino, no.79

Written at the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century, the Kol Bo contains some 150 sections pertaining to: blessings, prayer, the synagogue, Sabbath, holidays, marriage, monetary matters, forbidden foods, mourning, etc. Included is one of the earliest commentaries on the text of the Passover Hagadah. Still unknown is the identity of the author and the relation of the Kol Bo to Aaron Hakohen of Lunel's “Orchoth Chaim,” whose contents overlap the material in the Kol Bo. It is possible that the Kol Bo is by the same author - but perhaps, an earlier draft of the Orchoth Chaim. The Kol Bo draws upon the works of many halachic authorities, including R. Eliezer b. Nathan, R. Peretz of Corbeil, and R. Baruch b. Isaac. (See Prof. S.Z. Havlin, EJ, Vol. X, cols. 1159-60). Due to the pernicious activity of the Dominican Church, the printer, Gershom Soncino had been forced to leave the city of Pesaro.The Elders of the City of Rimini offered him hospitaity and enabled him to resume printing there. In gratitude, Soncino adopted as his book-mark the Tower of Rimini, flanking it with a Hebrew motto from Proverbs: ‘“A tower of strength is the Lord - into it, shall run the righteous and be saved” - thus was born the first Hebrew printer’s mark in Italy. See D. Amram, The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (1963) p.130