Shiltei ha-Giborim [“Shields of the Mighty”]

PORTALEONE, ABRAHAM BEN DAVID

Vicenzo Gonzaga

Mantua

1612

FIRST EDITION. Four parts in one. Three divisional titles all within a decorative typographical border

Vinograd, Mantua 196

An encyclopedic work on war, music, incense, numismatics, weaponry, architecture - all discussed in order to elucidate the composition of the Temple in Jerusalem. “Portaleone’s treatment is so discursive as to make the work a compendium of all branches of science known in his day, in which all of the ten languages he knew were amply used.” EJ, Vol. XIII, cols. 908-9. Abraham Portaleone (1542-1612), a successful medical practitioner, wrote the Shiltei ha-Giborim toward the end of his life. In the author’s letter to his three sons, he discusses his motives for writing the book: “The Lord has seen fit to oppress me. I have been ill-disposed for two years now. My left side is totally paralyzed. I am able neither to return my hand to my breast nor walk about on my stick. I have lost all sensation in these limbs. I reviewed my deeds, and I saw upon reflection that in addition to my sins, which are more numerous than the hairs of my head, I have greatly neglected the study of the Lord’s Torah, for I imbibed the Greek scholars. I aspired to pursue philosophy and medicine…I did not study the inheritance of Jacob as is proper. For this reason, the Lord was wroth with me.” See Shiltei ha-Giborim f. 2v; and cited in Simonsohn, p. 638. See C. Roth, Jews in the Renaissance (1959), pp. 315-318; S. Simonsohn, History of the Jews of the Duchy of Mantua (1977), p. 584, 637-8, 645-6; Alessandro Guetta, “Avraham Portaleone: From Science to Mysticism” in Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, II (1999), pp. 41-47; Samuel S. Kottek, “Jews between Profane and Sacred Science in Renaissance Italy: The Case of Abraham Portaleone” in Religious Confessions and the Sciences in the Sixteenth Century (2001), pp. 108-118