RaMBa”N). Peirush HaTorah [Commentary to the Pentateuch]

MOSES BEN NACHMAN (NACHMANIDES/.

Sons of Soncino

Pesaro

1513-14

Title within decorative border with ornate floral design (design repeated on f.3); with poem containing the acrostic “Gershom.” Initial words within white-on-black decorative surround. 17th-century owner’s inscriptions. Wide margins.

Vinograd, Pesaro 34; Mehlman 673.

The great scholarly bookseller David Frankel was wont to advise his clients that the Hebrew books printed in Pesaro are more scarce and to be more prized than many incunabula! After Rashi, the most popular commentary to the Pentateuch is undoubtedly that of Nachmanides (b. Gerona, 1194 - d. Eretz Israel, 1270). The fact that there were as many as three incunable editions (two within one year) of Nachmanides’s Commentary to the Pentateuch, attests to the immense popularity of the work. According to R. Menachem Eisenstadt in the introduction to his super-commentary, this Pesaro edition is textually the most accurate.