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 in form of Menorah on title (Yaari, Printers’ Marks, no. 14)

Vinograd, Venice 329

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 Provence was famous. Through the Hebrew translations of Samuel ibn Tibbon and other gifted Provencal scholars, the Jews of Provence had at their disposal the extensive corpus of Aristotelian and Arabic learning. See M. Waxman, History of Jewish Literature, Vol. II, pp. 317-8; Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Boook, Vol. I, pp. 338-39