Sepher Tziyoni [Kabbalistic homilies to the Pentateuch, with poems]

TZIYONI, MENACHEM OF SPEYER.

Vicenzo Conti

Cremona

1560

Second edition. Title and chapter headings with woodblock historiated initials. Replete with rabbinic marginalia

Vinograd, Cremona 31; Benayahu, Cremona 27 and pp. 80-3 (illustrated)

Upon issue in 1559, the entire first edition of the Tziyoni was seized and destroyed by the Dominican Friars of Cremona, zealously seeking to enforce Pope Paul IV’s Index of that year. See D. Amram, the Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (1963), pp. 310-15. For information on the author, his descendants and his kabbalistic method, see Sh. Weiss, Tsefunei Tziyoni (1985), introduction; and B. Huss, Demonology and Magic in the Writings of R. Menahem Ziyyoni in Kabbalah, Vol. X (2004) pp. 55-72