RaMBa’M). Moreh Nevuchim [“Guide for the Perplexed”]. * With: Moses Provencal. Biur Inyan Shnei Kavim [dissertation on the Theorem of Apollonius].

MOSHE BEN MAIMON (MAIMONIDES /

Cornelio Adelkind for Tobias Foa

Sabbioneta

1553

Third edition. With commentaries by Shem Tov, Ephodi and Crescas. Title within garlanded architectural columns with printer’s device (Yaari, Hebrew Printers' Marks 20). Censors marks, notations and signatures. Half-page manuscript gloss on the verso of the title page comments on the polemic between the Jewish philosophers and anti-Maimonideans. The author cites from the Sepher Ha'Emunoth of Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov, a noted opponent of philosophy. Ironically, Shem Tov's own grandson of the same name authored a commentary to Moreh Nevuchim which appears in this very volume.

Vinograd, Sabbioneta 8.

Undoubtedly the most celebrated philosophical text in all of Jewish literature. A work that earned Maimonides his worldwide rabbinic acclaim and the affectionate moniker HaNesher HaGadol (’The Great Eagle’). The Guide to the Perplexed, the final work by Maimonides, was completed in 1185 or 1190. It had a troubled history, sparking centuries of Maimonidean controversies. Heavily influenced as it was by Greek - specifically Aristotelian philosophy - the work was thought by some to conflict with Judaic tradition. Tragically - and obviously due to other motivations - the work was publicly burned by the Dominicans in Paris in 1232. Provencal’s dissertation and commentary on the Theorem of Apollonius concerning two straight lines that never meet was translated into Italian in 1550 and from Italian into Latin in 1586. See C. Roth, Jews in the Renaissance (1959) pp. 28-9, 236, 266.