Mekor Chaim [super-commentary to Abraham ibn Ezra on the Pentateuch].

ZARZA, SAMUEL.

Jacob Cohen of Gozallo

Mantua

1559

FIRST EDITION. Two copies: First edition first issue; and first edition second issue (see below).

Vinograd, Mantua 63.

The author, a 14th-century Spanish philosopher resident in Valencia, recounts in the introduction of the present work the suffering of the Jews of Castille as a result of the civil-war between Dom Pedro, Duke of Coimbra and his brother Henry the Navigator. In Toledo alone 10,000 Jews are said to have lost their lives. There are extant two issues of this first edition, with variants to the introduction. The present lot contains both issues. A blue-paper copy of Mekor Chaim in the possession of the Valmadonna Trust Library was exhibited in the Pierpont Morgan Library, see their catalogue: Hebraica from the Valmadonna Trust (1989) no. 37.