Many of the poems in this collection are composed in vernacular languages, such as Turkish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic, but 𝔍written in He🦂brew characters.

The tunes are according to the tunes of songs, and are ☂indicated in the vernacular. Among the authors of the poems are Israel (fol. 14r), Moshe mi-Abbas (fol. 16r), Aro♈n Elijah (fol. 19v), Abraham (fol. 21v), Avtalyon (fol. 20v), Hayyim ha-levi (fol. 48r), Abraham Amirah (fol. 84r), Shlomo (fol. 57v), Jacob Mamrun (fols. 8r, 67r, etc.).

Sotheby’s is grateful to Menahem Schmelzer z”l and Benjamin Richler for cat⭕aloguing this manuscript.

Provenance

Hayyim Pardo (owner’s signature folꦬ. 12r) — Solꦬomon Halberstam (shelf no. 215)

Physical Description

202 leaves on paper, 6 ¼ x 4 inches; 15✤9 x 102 mm, written in black ink in various cursive oriental scripts, remnants of old foliation, numerous errors in later foliation; beginning and end missing, lower outer corners of fols. 46, 𝓀48, 56, 67, 72-73 and lower margins of fols. 53 and 65 torn away with some text loss, numerous leaves frayed along bottom margin (some repaired), browning and staining throughout. Black library buckram.

Literature

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 229)