In the Middle Ages, numerous Jewish wayfarers and pilgrims to the Holy Land wrote travelogues describing their experiences of the sites they visited. Of particular interest to many of these travelers were the graves of righteous biblical, mishnaic, and Talmudic figures that they encountered. With time, authors began compiling itineraries listing these sacred burial places and reproducing the text of prayers to be recited in their proximity. Sefer yihus ha-tsaddikim is an anonymous work, possibly originally written in Judeo-Arabic, that includes such prayers, as well as legal dicta attributed to each of the buried sages, “so that one standing at his grave will merit to recite a halakhic teaching in his name.” The first edition was published under the title Sefer yihus kol ha-tsaddikim in Salonika in🎉 1527 at the behest of Solomon ben Samuel ben Yohai, and the present, second edition wa💫s brought to press by Gershom ben Moses Asher of Scaramella, “in order to bring merit to the public through it.” A Ladino translation of the book was printed in Belvedere in about 1595 and a third Hebrew edition appeared in Venice in 1598. 

Provenance

The Mehlman copy

Literature

Vinograd, Mantua 76