Sepher MaHaRI”L [customs for the entire year according to Aschkenazi rite]

MOELLIN, JACOB BEN MOSES HALEVI.

Tobias Foa

Sabbioneta

1556

FIRST EDITION. Title letters within floriated vignettes. On title, signatures of former owners. On verso of final leaf, woodcut printer's mark containing two rampant lions flanking a palm tree in whose center there is a Star of David, all within a cartouche; surrounding are the words, “A just man will flourish as a palm tree” (Psalms 92:13) and the name “Tobias Foa.” (See Ya'ari, p. 13, pl. 21; p. 133). Censors' signature on recto of final leaf, “Gio[vanni] Dominico Carretto” dated 1610,(see Wm. Popper, pl. III, no. 7)

Vinograd, Sabbioneta 34; Adams J-26; St. Cat. Bodl. col. 1228; no. 5567-1 (ed. rarissiram); Deinard, Atikoth Yehudah, p. 25

The Sepher MaHaRI”L is the most important source for ritual customs (minhagim), both within and without the synagogue. It paints a most faithful picture of the religious and social life of German Jewry in the 14th and15th centuries. On the printer Tobias Foa, see Ya'ari, Mechkarei Sepher (1958), p. 345