Shiltei HaGiborim [“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. The ABRAHAM JOSEPH SOLOMON GRAZIANO (“Ish Ger”) COPY, with his signature on the title (see below)

Vinograd, Mantua 196

An encyclopedic work on war, music, numismatics, weaponry, architecture - all analyzed 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 (1999); and Samuel S. Kottek, Jews between Profane and Sacred Science, in: Renaissance Italy: The Case of Abraham Portaleone - Religious Confessions and the Sciences in the Sixteenth Century (2001) Abraham Joseph Solomon Graziano (d. 1684), the Rabbi of Modena, was a noted halachic scholar, bibliophile and poet. (See S. Baron, "Teshuvah...me’eth R. Abraham Graziano" in: Studies in Memory of A.S. Freidus (1929), pp. 122-37; A. J. Karp, From the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress, pp. 155-6)