Sha’ar HaShamayim [“The Gate of Heaven”: encyclopedic work on natural science, mathematics and astronomy]

GERSHON BEN SOLOMON OF ARLES

Meir Parenzo

Venice

1547

First Edition. Printer’s device on title (Yaari, Hebrew Printers’ Marks 14). Extensive scholarly marginalia in recent hand.

Vinograd, Venice 329; Adams G-500

Little is known of the 13th-century author, Gershon ben Solomon of Arles, Provence. His Sha’ar HaShamayim reflects the unique synthesis of Jewish and secular learning for which the rabbinic leaders of Provence were reknowned. See M. J. Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Boook, Vol. I, pp. 338-39.