(RaSHB”A). Torath ha-Bayith ha-Katzar [compendium of the author’s legal manual]

ADRET, SOLOMON BEN ABRAHAM

Vicenzo Conti

Cremona

1566

FIRST EDITION. Title within historiated woodcut architectural arch. Inscriptions of former owners on title

Vinograd, Cremona 45; Benayahu, Cremona 31; Mehlman 692; not in Adams

Solomon ben Abraham of Barcelona, known by his initials “RaSHBA” (c.1235-c.1310), was the acknowledged leader of Spanish Jewry. His teachers were the two Geronese cousins Jonah ben Abraham (“Rabbenu Yonah”) and Nachmanides. It was particularly Nachmanides' method that Rashb”a continued: a fusion of the French Tosafists and the early Spanish luminaries. Rashb”a left a literary legacy of commentaries to seventeen tractates of the Talmud and approximately one thousand responsa.Torath ha-Bayith ha-Katzar is the author's own abridgement of the lengthy work by that name, which deals with most of the ritual laws, such as slaughter, forbidden foods, gentile wine, and the menstruant woman. The expanded Torath ha-Bayith would be published some forty years later in Venice, 1607