Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection

SEFER HA-ZOHAR (THE BOOK OF SPLENDOR), ATTRIBUTED TO RABBI SIMEON BAR YOHAI, CREMONA: VINCENZO CONTI, 1559-1560

Auction Closed

November 20, 08:47 PM GMT

Estimate

18,000 - 20,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

SEFER HA-ZOHAR (THE BOOK OF SPLENDOR), ATTRIBUTED TO RABBI SIMEON BAR YOHAI, CREMONA: VINCENZO CONTI, 1559-1560

3 parts in 1 volume (11 1/2 x 7 7/8 in.; 291 x 200 mm): Part 1 (Genesis): 132 folios; Part 2 (Exodus): 122 folios; Part 3 (Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy): 146 folios on paper; printed in square (body of the Zohar) and semi-cursive (additions) fonts; double-column text (excepting 3:116r-v, which is printed in one column); columns numbered, with count restarting for each of the three parts; every ten lines numbered in margin. Title within elaborate architectural border featuring a depiction of the Binding of Isaac at the summit, surmounted by an eagle; large decorative woodcut frames at the start of Genesis (1:[3r]), Exodus (2:1r), Leviticus (3:[1r]), and Numbers (3:57r); decorative woodcut letters used at the start of Deuteronomy (3:122r); the start of most parashiyyot enclosed within a simpler decorative frame; diagrams printed on 1:13v, 29r, 120v, 2:23r-v, 3:72r, 126v; florets added to the headlines; marginal manicules printed intermittently throughout; occasional short marginalia in pen. Slight scattered staining; outer edges dampstained throughout, with edges toward front and rear expertly remargined, generally not affecting text; title page remargined along lower edge; library stamp removed from title page, slightly affecting architectural frame; dark ink stain in upper edge of 1:18r-44v; small tear at foot of 2:85. Modern blind-tooled maroon calf, with minor scratches; spine in five compartments with raised bands; title, place, and (incorrect) date lettered in gilt on spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.

The first edition of the Zohar gadol (folio-format Zohar).

Vincenzo Conti of Cremona seems to have both started and finished printing his edition of Sefer ha-zohar before his Mantua competitors (see lot 31), as evidenced by the influence of Cremona’s text on that of Mantua. However, because the Inquisition, in mid-1559, ordered the Talmud and associated literature burned in Cremona (which was, at the time, under Habsburg Spanish rule), numerous volumes of Conti’s Zohar, too, were apparently seized and destroyed. (The apostate Sixtus of Siena testifies that he found two thousand of these Zohars in Conti’s printshop and saved them from the flames.) Indeed, Conti was subsequently forced to complete many copies of his edition by reprinting the title page and eight additional folios (1:5-6, 2:113, 118-122) at the Hebrew press in Mantua.

While the Cremona edition relied on six manuscripts and that of Mantua on eleven, modern scholarship has begun to demonstrate the textual superiority of Cremona vis-à-vis Mantua. Nevertheless, the Mantua Zohar would eventually achieve hegemony, not only because of the influences of Rabbis Isaac Luria and Moses Zacuto, but also because the Cremona edition was burned, and so copies of it were scarcer. The Zohar gadol of Cremona would therefore be reissued only twice, in Lublin in 1623 and in Sulzbach in 1684.

Provenance

Issachar ben Eliezer (title page)

Literature

Daniel Abrams, “Eimatai hubberah ha-hakdamah le-sefer ha-zohar? Ve-shinnuyyim bi-tefasim shonim shel ha-hakdamah she-bi-defus mantovah,” Asuppot 8 (1994): 211-226.

Meir Benayahu, Ha-defus ha-ivri bi-cremona (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute; Mossad Harav Kook, 1971), 119-137, 207-209 (no. 21b).

Giulio Busi, Libri ebraici a Mantova, vol. 1 (Fiesole: Cadmo, 1996), 207-208 (no. 331).

Ephraim Gottlieb, “Ma’amarei ha-‘pikkudin’ she-ba-zohar,” Kiryat sefer 48 (1973): 499-508, at pp. 500-502.

Marvin J. Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus, vol. 1 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), 502-503.

Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, Sifrei yesod: sifrei ha-yesod shel ha-sifriyyah ha-yehudit ha-toranit (n.p.: Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, 2019), 94 (no. 325).

Isaiah Tishby, “Ha-pulmus al sefer ha-zohar ba-me’ah ha-shesh-esreh be-italyah,” Perakim: sefer ha-shanah shel mekhon schocken 1 (1967-1968): 131-182.

Vinograd, Cremona 25