Sepher Tziyoni [Kabbalistic homilies to the Pentateuch, with poems]

TZIYONI, MENACHEM OF SPEYER

Vicenzo Conti

Cremona

1560

Second edition. Title and chapter headings with woodblock historiated initials. On title, censor’s signature of “17 August 1590.” (See Wm. Popper, The Censorship of Hebrew Books, Pl. V, No. 5.) On f.82r. a Hebrew marginalium pertaining to the “sod shti va-erev” [secret of the cross] the Author alludes to at beg. Parshath Korach

Vinograd, Cremona 31; Benayahu, Cremona 27 and pp.80-3 (illustrated); not in Adams

Upon issue, the entire first edition of one thousand copies of the Tziyoni issued in 1559 was seized and destroyed by the Dominican Friars of Cremona, zealously seeking to enforce Pope Paul IV’s Index of that year. Despite Pope Paul IV’s Bull “In Coena Dominis,” a bare handful of copies survived. See D. Amram, the Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (1963), pp. 310-315. Concerning the typographical variants between the first and second editions, see M. Benayahu, Ha-Dephus ha-Ivri bi-Cremona (1971), pp.79-83 (illustrated). For information on the author, his descendants and his kabbalistic method, see Sh. Weiss, Tsefunei Tziyoni (1985), Introduction; and B. Huss, Demonology and Magic in the Writings of R. Menahem Ziyyoni, in: Kabbalah, Vol. X (2004), pp. 55-72