BABYLONIAN TALMUD, TRACTATE SUKKAH, CONSTANTINOPLE: [JOSEPH JABEZ], [CA. 1583-1590]

A rare volume of the first Talmud edition to incorporate the textual emendations of Rabbi Solomon Luria.

Cognizant of the dearth of Gemara tractates in circulation subsequent to the burning of the Talmud in Italy in 1553, Joseph Jabez undertook the publication of a new edition in lands outside of the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, first in Salonika (ca. 1558-1567) and later in Constantinople (1583-ca. 1590), to which his brother and business partner Solomon had moved. At least sixteen tractates were printed in Constantinople using as their model the first edition of the Talmud printed by Daniel Bomberg (Venice, 1519/1520-1523), as evidenced by the layout of the pages. To make the volumes more user-friendly, Jabez added marginal references to verses from the Bible, other tractates of the Talmud, and major halakhic authorities (Maimonides, Rabbi Moses of Coucy, and Rabbi Jacob ben Asher) – innovations first introduced in the Giustiniani edition (Venice, 1545-1551). He further appended the glosses and textual emendations of Rabbi Solomon Luria, first published as a separate work entitled Hokhmat shelomoh in Krakow (1582; see lot 163), in a special section at the end of several tractates, including Sukkah.

The distribution process undertaken by Jabez is described on the verso of the title page of the first tractate of the edition, Berakhot. In order to defray the costs of printing, the Talmud was published by sections which were disseminated every Sabbath to subscribers, who then paid for the quires they had acquired (see also lot 227). This description helps to explain the scarcity of complete copies of Talmudic tractates from Constantinople.