Sha’arei Tzedek [Kabbalah - on the Sephiroth]

GIKATILLA, JOSEPH

Jacob Marcaria the Physician

Riva di Trento

1561

FIRST EDITION. Initial letters of title historiated, initial word of text within elaborate frame. Previous owners' signature and inscriptions in Ashkenazic hands on title (including Wolf Wertheim), f. 29 contains a correction in an Ashkenazic hand supplying missing words, possibly based on an early manuscript text.

Vinograd, Riva 35; Adams G-611; A. Farber-Ginat, R. Joseph Gikatilla's Commentary to Ezekiel's Chariot (1998), p. 17, no. 3 (Sod ha-Chashmal)

A Spanish-born Kabbalist, Joseph Gikatilla, the originator of the doctrine equating the infinate Ein Sof with the first of the Ten Sephiroth, sought in this original work to provide a detailed yet lucid and systematic exposition of Kabbalism. Prof. Farber-Ginat opines that Gikatilia's Sha'arei Tzedek is an early version ("mahadura kama") of his Sha'arei Orah (see next lot). This is the only plausible explanation for the considerable overlap between the two works. In some instances, whole passages from Sha'arei Tzedek appear verbatim in Sha'arei Orah; other times, the material has been reworked and expanded. See Farber-Ginat, p.16, n. 23