Shiltei ha-Giborim [“Shields of the Mighty”]

PORTALEONE, ABRAHAM

Vicenzo Gonzaga

Mantua

1612

FIRST EDITION. Four parts in one. Three divisional titles all within a decorative typographical border

Vinograd, Mantua 196

An encyclopedic work on war, music, numismatics, weaponry, architecture - all discussed in order to elucidate the composition of the Temple in Jerusalem. “Portaleone’s treatment is so discursive as to make the work a compendium of all branches of science known in his day, in which all of the ten languages he knew were amply used.” EJ, Vol. XIII, cols. 908-9. See also Alessandro Guetta, “Avraham Portaleone: From Science to Mysticism” in Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, II (1999); and Samuel S. Kottek, “Jews between Profane and Sacred Science in Renaissance Italy: The Case of Abraham Portaleone” in Religious Confessions and the Sciences in the Sixteenth Century (2001)