SEFER HA-ZIKKARON (HALAKHIC TREATISE), RABBI ISHMAEL HA-KOHEN TANUJI, FERRARA: ABRAHAM IBN USQUE, 1555
Auction Closed
November 20, 08:47 PM GMT
Estimate
5,000 - 7,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
SEFER HA-ZIKKARON (HALAKHIC TREATISE), RABBI ISHMAEL HA-KOHEN TANUJI, FERRARA: ABRAHAM IBN USQUꩵE, 1555
216 folios (7 1/2 x 5 3/8 in.; 190 x 137 mm) (collation: i-liv4) on paper. Title within woodcut architectural frame with printer’s device in center; device repeated on f. [216v]. Slight scattered staining; dampstaining; f. [1] mounted; upper-left corner of f. [1] repaired; lower portions of ff. [2-3] repaired; quires 44 (ff. [173-176]) and 51 (ff. [201-204]) bound out of order such that the inner bifolium was placed on the outside and vi🅠ce versa. Later calf, worn around edges and on spine and repaired at corners; headband partially exposed; two paper tickets with shelf marks on spine; red edges; early paper rear flyleaf and decorative pastedowns.
The first edition of the magnum opus of one of the first Tunisian rabbinic authors.
Ishmael ha-Kohen Tanuji (sixteenth-century), a well-regarded rabbi in Tunis who later relocated to Egypt, finished writing his Sefer ha-zikkaron in 1543. The book aimed to summarize all the laws emerging from Talmudic discussions that🏅 still apply in post-Temple times – including the elaborations of later authorities like Rabbis Isaac Alfasi and Jacob ben Asher – in the order of their appearance in the Talmud. It thereby functioned as a type of index to the entire Talmudic corpus. The present lot is a copy of the first and only edition of the book to have been printed prior to the twentieth century, when it appeared again in London in 1974.
Provenance
Nathan Azariah (?) (f. [1r])
Literature
Marvin J. Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus, vol. 1 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), 414-415.
Abramo Pesaro, Memorie storiche sulla Comunità israelitica ferrarese (Feꦍrrara: Premiata Tipografia Sociale, 1878), 24.
Vinograd, Ferrara 34
Isaac Yudlov and G.J. Ormann, Sefer ginzei yisra’el: sefarim, hoverot, va-alonim me-osef dr. yisra’el mehlman, asher be-beit ha-sefarim ha-le’ummi ve-ha-universita’i (Jerusalem: JNUL, 1984), 120 (no. 721).