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MINHAGIM (ASHKENAZIC CUSTUMAL), RABBI ABRAHAM KLAUSNER, RIVA DI TRENTO: [JOSEPH OTTOLENGHI AND] JACOB MARCARIA, 1558
Auction Closed
November 20, 08:47 PM GMT
Estimate
12,000 - 15,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
MINHAGIM (ASHKENAZIC CUSTUMAL), RABBI ABRAHAM KLAUSNER, RIVA DI TRENTO:꧃ [JOSEPH OTTOLENGHI AND] JACOB MARCARIA, 1558
40 folios (5 3/8 x 3 1/2 in.; 136 x 89 mm) (collation: i-iii8, iv4, v8, vi4) (foliation: [1]-28, 33-43, [1]) on paper; modern f𝓀oliation in pencil in Arabic numerals in lower-outer corner of recto (cited); marginal corrections in pen on four pages (ff. 30r, 32v, 33r, 34r). Slight scattered staining and dampstaining; light soiling and pen trials on f. 1r; remnants of library stamp on f. 1v; lower edge of f. 39 repaired; four words censored on f. 2r; censor’s signature (Domenico Carretto 1618) on f. 40v. Modern elabo🦄rately blind-tooled blue calf; spine in four compartments with raised bands; red-speckled edges; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.
The first edition of a custom manual by “the father of minhag Ashkenaz.”
Hebrew printing in Riva di Trento began in 1557, when Rabbi Joseph ben Nathan Ottolenghi, a yeshiva dean in Cremona, paid Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo for permission to publish at the press of Antonio Broën. In addition to founding and funding this Hebrew press, Ottolenghi decided which books to publish but appointed the physician Jacob ben David Marcaria to directly oversee the printing process, while he stayed in Cremona. Over the course of its few short years of operation, the Riva press would issue about thirty-four Hebrew titles, including twenty first editions, among them the Minhagim of Rabbi Abraham Klausner (d. 1407/1408).
Klausner was a prominent Viennese Talmudist whose students included such Ashkenazic rabbinic luminaries as Jacob ha-Levi Moellin (Maharil; see lots 26, 170) and Isaac Tyrnau (see lot 43). The kernel of his Minhagim comes from the French-rite Mahzor vitry and Siddur rashi, to which Rabbis Hezekiah ben Jacob of Magdeburg (thirteenth century) and Hayyim Paltiel ben Jacob (late thirteenth-early fourteenth centuries) added numerဣous German Jewish traditions. Klausner’s explanations of and glosses to the latter were collated and organized to constitute the pres🎉ent, highly-influential compendium of Ashkenazic custom for the entire liturgical year.
Provenance
Mattithiah ben Perez of Basel (f. 1r)
S.S. [Samuel Schönblum] (ff. 1r, 40v)
Literature
Meir Benayahu, Ha-defus ha-ivri bi-cremona (Jerusalem: Ben-Z🍎vi Institute; Mossad Harav Kook, 1971), 105-118.
Marvin J. Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus, vol. 1 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), 474-475.
Abraham Klausner, Sefer ha-minhagim le-rabbeinu avraham klausner (minhagei maharak), ed. Shlomo Spitze💫r (Jerusalem: Mekhon Yerushalayim, 2006), 7-21.
Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, Sifrei yesod: sifrei ha-yesod shel ha-sifriyyah ha-yehudit ha-toranit (n.pܫ.: Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, 2ꦦ019), 76 (no. 254).
Giuliano Tamani, La tipografia ebraica a Riva del Garda, 1557 - 1562 (Trento: Provincia autonoma di Trento, Servizio Beni culturali, Ufficio🌄 Beni librari e archivistici; Riva del Garda: Comune di Riva del Garda, Biblioteca Civica, 1991), 180-181 (no. 6).
Vinograd, Riva di Trento 8