(Attributed to). Halachoth Gedoloth [Gaonic Rabbinic Code]

KAYARA, SHIMON

Cornelio Adelkind for Marco Antonio Giustiniani

Venice

1548

FIRST EDITION. Title within ornamental arch. Printed in double columns. The Jacob Z. Lauterbach Copy

Vinograd, Venice 333; Habermann, Adelkind 51; Adams S-1157

The authorship and date of the Halachoth Gedoloth have been the subject of much study and has given rise to conflicting views. Generally speaking, medieval Aschkenazic authorities tended to the view that the author was R. Yehudai Gaon, while their Sephardic counterparts adopted the view that the author was R. Shimon Kayyara. Modern scholarship inveighs with the latter view. In the introduction to the work, there is an enumeration of the negative and positive commandments. Whereas Maimonides veered away from this reckoning of the Halachoth Gedoloth in his Book of Commandments, Nachmanides in his glosses to the work of Maimonides, upholds the opinion of the Halachoth Gedoloth on many an occasion. See EJ, VII cols.1167-70 (illustrated)