Levush Malchuth [elucidations and novellea to the Shulchan Aruch]

JAFFE, MORDECHAI

Giovanni Calioni,

Venice

1620

Third edition. Four parts in two volumes. Divisional title pages. Text illustrations. Volume I - Even Ha’ezer: Levush Butz Ve’argaman ff. 87. * Choshen Mishpat: Levush Ir Shushan ff. 162, (2). AND: Volume II - Orach Chaim: Levush Hatechleth Vehachur ff. 201, (2). * Yoreh De’ah: Levush Atereth Zahav ff. 148, (2).

Vinograd, Venice 1122-25

A Halachic work issued as a “midway between two extremes: the lengthy Beith Yoseph of Karo on the one hand, and the Shulchan Aruch with Isserles’ Mapah, which was too brief on the other.” (EJ, IX cols. 1263-4). In total, the work contains ten “Garments” (Levushim), including Jaffe’s commentaries on other classic works. As a whole, “the Levush Malchuth is thus not only a code of law which sums up the Halachic scholarship of the day, but rather an entire summa of rabbinic Judaism both halachic and non-halachic.” See L. Kaplan, Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century (1983) p. 274.