Lechem Setarim [Talmudic novellae to Tractate Avodah Zarah and miscellanea]

ALGAZI, SOLOMON BEN ABRAHAM

Bragadin

Venice

1664

FIRST EDITION. Title within architectural columns, flanked by Moses on right and Solomon on left, while above two angels hold aloft the Ten Commandments; at bottom, printer's mark of three leonine heads (Yudlov, Hebrew Printers' Marks 18). Learned rabbinic marginalia in old Sephardic hand (ff. 4v., 6r., 11v.)

Vinograd, Venice 1366 (correct ff.132 to read ff.134); Steinschneider 6894-9 (col. 2278)

Algazi (1610? -1683) was an outspoken opponent of the pseudo-Messiah of Izmir, Shabbetai Zevi. At the height of Zevi’s power, Algazi, one of Izmir’s distinguished rabbis, was forced to flee the city. See G. Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, p. 414; EJ, Vol. II, col. 610. The book opens with an panegyric composed in honor of the Author by the "magi'ah" (proofreader), R. Moses Zacuto, who pays tribute to R. Solomon's pilpulistic ability. Zacuto, no mean halachist in his own right, is most famous as being the doyen of the Italian kabbalists of the 17th-century.