(Maestro Calo). Even Bochan [“The Touchstone”]. Edited by Yom Tov Tzarphathi ben Peretz.

KALONYMOS BEN KALONYMOS OF ARLES

Joseph ben Jacob Aschkenazi Gunzenhauser

Naples

1489

FIRST EDITION. Wide-margined copy. Marginalia in Judeo-Español provide translation of technical terms. Leaves 32-33 printed in correct order (of the copies examined by Isaac Rivkind, only one had these leaves in order; see Dikdukei Sepharim in: Kiryath Sepher II (1925-6) p. 56, no. 3). The Moses Gaster - Elkan Nathan Adler - Jos. Wineman copy.

Vinograd, Naples 7; Goff Heb-66; Offenberg 102; Wineman Cat. 35a.

The Provencal satirist Kalonymos ben Kalonymos of Arles (1287-1337) completed this work in the month of Teveth, 5083 [1323]. (see f. 48v.) The author pokes fun at the human condition, at aspiring patricians who claim bogus pedigrees, self-proclaimed savants and pious frauds (ff. 16-17). Also noted are such important historical references as the first expulsion from France in 1306 and the massacres of 1320-21. Besides Even Bochan, Kalonymos authored a Purim parody: Masecheth Purim. He was also most prolific as a translator. Invited to Italy by Robert of Anjou to produce Latin translations, he rendered Averroes’ Destruction of the Destruction into that language. Independently, Kalonymos also translated from Arabic to Hebrew Averroes’ Commentaries on the Organon and Al-Farabi’s work on the Classification of Sciences. Perhaps Kalonymos’ best known work is the animal fable, Igereth Ba’alei Chaim, which he translated from a Sufi encyclopedia produced in the city of Basra (Iraq). See M. Waxman, A History of Jewish Literature, Vol. II (1933), pp. 207, 600, 606-610; I. Davidson, Parody in Jewish Literature, pp. 28-9; EJ, Vol. VI, col. 1130.