Sepher Sha’ar Hashamayim [encyclopedic work on natural science, mathematics and astronomy].

GERSHON BEN SOLOMON.

Meir Parenzo

Venice

1547

First Edition. Scattered marginalia, signed by censor on last page.

Vinograd, Venice 329.

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