BABYLONIAN TALMUD, TRACTATE SOTAH, VENICE: DANIEL BOMBERG, 1520

53 folios (14 1/8 x 9 5/8 in.; 360 x 245 mm) (collation: i-vi8, vii5) on paper. Manuscript references on almost every page of the Talmud portion; diagram printed on f. 43r. Slight scattered staining (see esp. ff. 15v-20r, 32r-33v, 40r-v); some dampstaining in upper quadrant throughout; gutters repaired and/or strengthened throughout, slightly affecting a few letters on ff. 26r-v, 30r, 32v-34r; small tear in upper edge of f. [1]; repair in upper edge of f. 13; small wormhole in lower margins of ff. 18-31 and in outer edges of ff. 39-[50]; lower-outer corners of ff. 35, 48-[50] lacking; part of outer edge of f. 38 lacking and part of lower and outer edges of f. 41 lacking; slight worming at center affecting only individual letters on ff. 40r-47v. Modern calf paneled in blind; spine in seven compartments with raised bands; title, place, and date lettered in gilt on spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.

Sotah (Errant Wife), the fifth tractate in the order Nashim, treats, in nine chapters, the procedure followed when a married woman is suspected of adultery after having been warned by her husband not to seclude herself with another man and then ignoring the warning. Along the way, it also covers the laws of going out to war, the eglah arufah (broken-necked heifer) ceremony (Deut. 21:1-9), and many other tangentially-related topics. The aggadic contents of this treatise are particularly prominent. The only instance of a printed illustration in the Bomberg edition of the Talmud occurs here on f. 43a; in other tractates, the famous publisher simply left a blank space wherever necessary, so that an individual owner could insert a diagrammatic drawing on his own. Literature

A.M. Habermann, Ha-madpis daniyyel bombirgi u-reshimat sifrei beit defuso (Safed: The Museum of Printing Art, 1978), 33 (no. 22).

Vinograd, Venice 27