Midrash Shmuel [Midrashic commentary to the Book of Samuel]

(MIDRASH).

(Nahmias?)

Constantinople

1517

FIRST EDITION. Complete as issued, without title-page. A fine, wide-margined copy.

Vinograd, Const. 90; Mehlman 176; Deinard, Atikoth Yehudah, p. 25.

Exceptionally rare Midrashic text. The last two leaves of Midrash Shmuel contain the Responses of Sa’adyah Gaon to Ten Questions Concerning the Resurrection of the Dead. Despite Italian dominance over 16th century Hebrew printing, it was the presses of the Sephardic Diaspora (Constantinople and Salonika) that were the first to issue most of the Midrashim published in that century. Sephardic culture had always been receptive of the artistic expression of the Midrash, but especially now, given the trauma of the Iberian Expulsion, its soothing words were greatly needed in the still rootless Sephardic communities of the Ottoman Empire.