Neveh Shalom [philosophy]

SHALOM, ABRAHAM BEN ISAAC.

Giovanni di Gara

Venice

1575

Second edition. With seven foldout inserts pasted on margins of original leaves with interesting lengthy notes (see below), with many other marginal notes.

Vinograd, Venice 607; Habermann, di Gara 37.

A series of homilies on aggadic passages in the Talmud, interwoven with a discussion meant to serve as a defense of Maimonides’s reconciliation of Greek philosophy and Jewish thought. The author had a thorough command of all fields of knowledge of his time and this work is rich in references to Greek and Arabic philosophical literature. See EJ, XIV, cols. 1270-1. The inserted leaves contain philosophical comments and explanations. The leaf attached to f. 197b bears the name “Shoel ben Yechezkel Cohen” spelled out on the first eight initial lines, with the year 1775 on the final line.