10 19 BARUCH BEN DAVID. Gedulath Mordechai [novellae on the Mordechai’s halachic output]. Appended: Agudath Ezov. FIRST EDITION. Signatures on title-page including R. Moshe Mintz of Radavyl (see Otzer HaRabanim no. 14912). ff. 116. Heavily foxed. Bound in Valmadonna-custom mahogany blind-tooled calf, spine in compartments and titled in gilt. Folio. [Vinograd, Hanau 14.] Hanau, Hans Jacob Henna, 1615. $2000 - $2500 ❧ RARE. The contemporary author, a native of Gnessen (Gniezno, vicinity of Posen) records in the present introduction that he wrote this text after arriving in Prague and encountering there three manuscripts on the Mordechai written by three leading rabbinic scholars: The Mahara’l, R. Yitzchak Chajes (Pachad Yitzchak) and R. Eliezer Aschkenazi (Ma’aseh Hashem). He utilized all these works, to make one new composition “lacking nothing - for a three-fold cord is not quickly broken.” See M. J. Heller, The Seventeenth Century Hebrew Book, Vol. I, pp. 314-5. 20 BIBAGO, ABRAHAM BEN SHEM-TOV. Derech Emunah [philosophy]. FIRST EDITION. A wide-margined copy. Few marginal notes. ff. (102). Recently foliated in pencil, previous owner’s signatures, title with two-word title laid down, final page lightly soiled. Bound in Valmadonna-custom full calf. Folio. [Vinograd, Const. 127; Mehlman 1193.] Constantinople, n.p., 1521. $5000 - $7000 ❧ As the title suggests, Derech Emunah is a presentation of the Jewish religion whose ultimate goal leads to the highest understanding of God, and ultimately, eternal happiness. Many Biblical and rabbinic passages are explained here, yet the author also takes note of Christian and Mohammedan theology. He quotes Greek philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Pythagoras, also Euclid and Ptolemeus, Galen and Themistius, as well as Arabic thinkers: Averroes, Avicenna, Alfarabi and Gazzali and even the fable-book “Kalila we-Dimna.” Of Jewish writers he often quotes not only rationalists like Maimonides, Nachmanides, and other such philosophers, but also many Kabbalistic works. Abraham Bibago was born in the Spanish province of Aragon and resided in Huesca and Saragossa. He likely died just prior to the Expulsion of Jews from Spain. According to Isaac Arama, Bibago was “one of the most important scholars and philosophers of our people” (Akeidath Yitzchak, gate 80). See A. Lazaroff, The Theology of Abraham Bibagio: A Defence of the Divine Will, Knowledge and Providence in Fifteenth Century Spanish-Jewish Philosophy (1981). Lot 20 Lot 19