Talmud Yerushalmi

(TALMUD, JERUSALEM).

Daniel Bomberg

Venice

(1523)

First Edition. Four parts in four volumes. Three divisional titles. Each title within woodcut architectural border. Opening word of each part within elaborate floral woodcut. Marginalia.

Vinograd, Venice 89; Mehlman 138; Adams T-111.

The text of this first edition of the Yerushalmi was checked and compared to three other manuscripts. The most important of these being the famed Leiden Manuscript, the earliest Yerushalmi text extant (1289). “The Yerushalmi has not been preserved in its entirety, large portions of it were entirely lost at an early date, while other parts exist only in fragments. This editio princeps terminates with the following remark: “Thus far we have found what is contained in this Talmud, we have endeavored in vain to obtain the missing portions.” Of the six orders of the Mishnah, the fifth, Kodashim, is entirely lost, while the sixth, Taharoth, contains only the first three chapters of Tractate Nidah. See M. Heller, The Sixteenth-Century Hebrew Book, Vol. I, pp. 148-9.