(Manoello Giudeo). Sepher Machberoth Immanuel.

IMMANUEL BEN SOLOMON OF ROME.

Eliezer ben Gershom Soncino

Constantinople

1535

Second edition. Title within woodcut architectural border. Title-page with inscriptions by a mebers of the Halfon Family of France, as well as David Vitali.

Vinograd, Const. 153; Yaari, Const. 119; Adams I-53.

Sepher HaMachbaroth is the most important work of Immanuel ben Solomon of Rome (ca. 1261-1328), poet, scholar and author of both Hebrew and Italian texts. Combining poetry and prose on subjects as diverse as love, wine, and friendship, along with satires, epistles, elegies and religious poems, Sefer HaMachbaroth represents a unique example of the blending of traditional Jewish together with secular Italian literature that characterized much of the Jewish literary output during the Italian Renaissance. With his linguistic artistry and use of skillful wordplay, Immanuel sets a tone that is generally light-hearted and witty. Due to certain lewd sections, R. Joseph Karo famously forbade the reading of this text and consequently, a further edition did not appear for another two centuries. According to Cecil Roth, Immanuel of Rome was “the most remarkable and the most important figure of the Renaissance period in the Jewish world.” See C. Roth, The Jews in the Renaissance (1959) pp. 89-10.