A rare copy of a seminal halakhic code, accompanied by learned manuscript marginalia.

Rabbi Jacob ben Asher’s (ca. 1270-1340) magnum opus, Sefer arba‘ah turim, is a halakhic compendium in which the author attempted to organize, summarize, and issue clear decisions on all areas of religious law applicable in the post-Temple era. As its name implies, the book, like the High Priest’s breastplate, is divided into four Turim (Rows): Orah hayyim (The Path of Life; see Ps. 16:11), on the halakhot pertaining to prayer, Sabbaths, feasts, and fasts; Yoreh de‘ah (Giver of Instruction; see Isa. 28:9), on a wide range of rules, including those of kashrut, niddah, usury, and mourning; Even ha-ezer (The Rock of the Helpmate; see I Sam. 5:1 and the rabbinic interpretation of Gen. 2:18), on family law, such as the laws of marriage, divorce, and levirate marriage; and Hoshen mishpat (The Breastplate of Decision; see Ex. 28:15), on civil law, torts, and certain aspects of criminal law. R. Jacob based his rulings on those of previous halakhists, especially his father, Rabbi Asher ben Jehiel (Rosh; ca. 1250-1327), whose responsa he edited (see lot 220) and whose decisions he epitomized in a work called Sefer ha-remazim (later known as Kitsur piskei ha-rosh). Probably due to its comprehensiveness, concision, and comprehensibility, the Tur would achieve wide acceptance throughout Europe and eventually serve as the basis for Rabbi Joseph Caro’s (1488-1575) Shulhan arukh, the most authoritative code of Jew🐎ish law ♋(see lot 37).

So important was the Tur that it became the most frequently printed Hebrew work (excepting Bibles and prayer books) in the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth centuries. The present, folio-format edition is noteworthy for its combination of two innovations introduced in previous printings (Constantinople, 1540 and Augsburg, 1540-[1541]): marginal source references compiled by Rabbi Jehiel Ashkenazi, as well as glosses and explanations of difficult words by Rabbi Abraham ben Avigdor of Prague (d. 1542). (As of 1558, the first complete edition of Caro’s Beit yosef commentary on the Tur had not yet appeared.) A parallel, octavo-format edition of Orah hayyim alone was finished one day after the present work using the same text (one leaf in the folio printing = four in the octavo). The Cremona Tur wou♈ld subsequently be reprinte𝕴d in Riva di Trento, 1560 and 1561, and in Hanau, 1610 (see lot 112).

After the burning of the Talmud in the Papal States in 1553, Cremona, then under Habsburg Spanish rule and thus exempt from the Church’s decrees, became a center of Italian Jewish scholarship and Hebrew printing. The Christian publisher Vincenzo Conti established a press there in 1556 which, over the following eleven years, issued nearly forty beautifully produced (though censored) titles. Interestingly, the Cremona Tur is the one book printed around this time in which a ܫcensor’s imprimatur doesꦬ not appear.

Provenance

[…] ben Todros (f. 1:[1r])

Joseph (f. 1:[1r])

Hayyim ben […] Moses (f. 1:[1r])

“I bought this book from Mr. Seligman Halfon […] atꦍ✱ Passover [5]555 [1795] – I, the humble Raphael ben Moses, of blessed memory […]” (f. 1:2r)

Literature

Meir Benayahu, Ha-defus ha-ivri bi-cremona (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute; Mossad 𒐪Harav Kook, 1971), 203-205 (no. 20a).

Vinograd, Cremona 19