Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection
Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection
COMMENTARY ON THE PENTATEUCH AND THE FIVE SCROLLS, RABBI SOLOMON BEN ISAAC, VENICE: DANIEL BOMBERG, 1522
拍卖已结束
November 20, 08:47 PM GMT
估价
15,000 - 20,000 USD
拍品信息
描述
COMMENTARY ON THE PENTATEUCH AND THE FIVE SCROLLS, RABBI SOLOMON BEN ISAAC, VENICE: DANIEL BOMBERG, 1522
128 of 140 folios (8 5/8 x 6 in.; 218 x 152 mm) on paper. Enlarged initial word panels on ff. 2r, 120v; woodcut floral letters on ff. 31r, 62r, [81r], 101r; scattered marginalia in pen. Lacking ff. 1, 6, 131-140 (ff. 1, 6, 131-134r, 135v-140 replaced in facsimile); slight scattered staining; some marginal repairs intermittently throughout; several pages closely cropped; ff. 2-3 remargined; several words on f. 7v replaced in facsimile; sporadic expurgation by a censor. Modern maroon calf, slightly scratched; spine in six compartments with raised bands; title, place, and date lettered in gilt on spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.
Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac (Rashi; 1040-1105) is the author of the most widely disseminated commentary on the Hebrew Bible. His unparalleled ability to present the basic meaning of the text in a concise yet lucid fashion has won him readers among both beginners and learned scholars and has made his exposition an indispensable companion to both casual and serious students of Judaism's primary text.
Within a century of his death in 1105, Rashi’s Hebrew commentaries on the Bible and Talmud had spread from the communities of France and Germany to Spain, Africa, Asia, and Babylonia. Considering the time and expense required for the production of hand-copied books, the high cost of writing materials, and the great difficulties and obstacles encountered in their distribution in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the early popularity of Rashi’s oeuvre is nothing short of remarkable. It is no wonder, therefore, that his commentaries were among the very first Hebrew works to be printed in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries (first edition of the commentary on the Pentateuch: Rome, ca. 1470; first edition of the commentary on the Five Scrolls: Bologna, ca. 1483).
The present lot is a rare copy of Rashi’s commentary on the Pentateuch and Five Scrolls. The book would next be reissued at Bomberg’s press in 1538 under the editorship of Judah Leib ben Isaac ha-Levi of Frankfurt.
Literature
A.M. Habermann, Ha-madpis daniyyel bombirgi u-reshimat sifrei beit defuso (Safed: The Museum of Printing Art, 1978), 41 (no. 71).
Marvin J. Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus, vol. 1 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), 150-151.
Menahem Schmelzer, “Rashi’s Commentary on the Pentateuch and on The Five Scrolls, Venice, Bomberg, 1538,” in Charles Berlin (ed.), Studies in Jewish Bibliography, History, and Literature: In Honor of I. Edward Kiev (New York: Ktav, 1971), 425-433.
Vinograd, Venice 71
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), 115 (no. 683).