Pirush Chamesh Megiloth [commentary to the Five Scrolls, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, Ezra & Nehemiah and Chronicles].

JOSEPH IBN YACHYA.

The Company of Jewish Silk Weavers

Bologna

1538

FIRST EDITION. Initial word of each chapter within decorative woodcut frame. Wide-margined copy. Censored.

Vinograd, Bologna 11.

The author took sharp exception to Maimonides’ rationalist philosophy and universalism, aligning himself with R. Judah Halevi’s doctrine of the chosenness of the Jewish People as expounded in the Kuzari. Thus, it is little wonder that Church censors found ibn Yachya’s works to be pernicious. Joseph’s son, Gedaliah ibn Yachya, author of Shalsheleth HaKabbalah, a classic of Jewish historiography, relates that after his father’s passing, Church censors burned all of the deceased’s unpublished manuscripts.