[“Omnia in Eo:” compendium of Jewish Law]. (Attributed to Aaron HaKohen of Lunel).

KOL BO

Printer unknown

(Italy [Naples?])

(ca. 1490-1492)

FIRST EDITION. Table of Contents are bound here at the start of the volume.

Vinograd, Italy 5; Goff Heb-67; Steinschneider, col. 555, no. 3589; Thes. A-94; Offenberg 81; BMC XIII, p. 78; Iakerson 78.

Written in the late 13th or beginning of the 14th century, the Kol Bo contains 148 sections dealing with blessings, prayer, the synagogue, Sabbath, holidays, marriage, monetary matters, forbidden foods, and mourning; it also includes one of the earliest commentaries to the Passover Hagadah. The identity of the author remains unknown, although scholars have suggested a relationship between this work and the Orchoth Chaim of Aaron HaKohen of Lunel. Identical language in the two works caused several important rabbinic scholars such as Joseph Karo and Chaim Joseph David Azulai to suggest that Kol Bo is an abridgment of that work. The bibliographer Isaac Ben-Yaacov went so far as to suggest that the Kol Bo was an earlier working of the Orchoth Chaim. The dating of this first printed edition of Kol Bo has long intrigued scholars and A. K. Offenberg`s study of the watermarks in several copies suggests a date of 1491–92. However, in a copy sold at auction in 2013 (Sotheby’s, December 17, Lot 123), contemporaneous hand-written Hebrew genealogical notes appear on an accompanying free endpaper and bear the date 1490, suggesting the possibility of the Kol Bo having been printed at least one year earlier than previously believed. See M. Steinschneider, Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum (1852-60) Addenda et Corrigenda, col. LXXXIII; M. Marx, Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 1:1 (1953) p. 37, no. 38; A.K. Offenberg, The Dating of the Kol Bô: Watermarks and Hebrew Bibliography in his A Choice of Corals: Facets of Fifteenth-Century Hebrew Printing (1992) pp. 59-88. See Treasures of the Valmadonna Trust Library - Otzroth Ya’akov, Incunables no. 51.