Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection

SELIHOT (PENITENTIAL PRAYERS) ACCORDING TO THE ASHKENAZIC RITE, AUGSBURG: HAYYIM BEN DAVID [SHAHOR], 1536

Auction Closed

November 20, 08:47 PM GMT

Estimate

40,000 - 60,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

SELIHOT (PENITENTIAL PRAYERS) ACCORDING TO THE ASHKENAZIC RITE, AUGSBURG: HAYYIM BEN DAVID [SHAHOR], 1536

121 folios (10 7/8 x 7 3/8 in.; 277 x 187 mm) (collation: i-xix⁶, xx⁵, xxi²) (foliation: [1]-[119], [1-2]) on paper; printed without a title page; f. [1] reversed such that the (original) verso is now the recto (i.e., the book originally started with a blank page and the text began on the verso); colophons on ff. 115v, [119r]; index of selihot on ff. [118r-119r]. First page within elaborate figurative woodcut frame by Daniel Hopfer; manuscript corrections and rubrics added in pen and pencil intermittently throughout; self-censored words and phrases filled in in manuscript on ff. 30r, 56v-[57v], 62r, 68v, 67r, 112v; passages expurgated on ff. 76v, 85r; the selihah entitled Sarei kodesh ha-yom, recited on Yom Kippur when it coincides with the Sabbath, inscribed on f. [119v]; two additional manuscript leaves at rear, written in Ashkenazic square and semi-cursive scripts in brown and red inks, listing selihot to be recited on each fast day and during the period of the Days of Awe. Staining and some thumbing throughout; repairs in margins of ff. [1], 2, 7 and in gutters of ff. 3, 5, 6, 104; short tears in outer edge of f. 26 and at foot of f. 63; small holes affecting a few letters on ff. 26, 39; tears repaired on f. 29; minor tear in text of f. 63; repairs in lower edges of ff. [118-119]; ff. [120-121] reinforced along gutter. Beautiful modern gilt-tooled red leather, slightly worn; spine in six compartments with raised bands; title, place, and date lettered in gilt on spine; turn-ins gilt; red-speckled edges; modern patterned paper flyleaves and pastedowns. Housed in a modern cloth-covered slipcase, edged in matching red leather.

A rare copy of the first seder selihot printed in Germany.

Having published an Ashkenazic-rite siddur in 1532-1533 (see lot 106), Passover Haggadah in 1534, and mahzor in 1536, Hayyim Shahor went on, shortly thereafter, to produce the present seder selihot (collection of penitential prayers), comprising the liturgy recited during the period of the Days of Awe and on each public fast day (other than Tish’ah be-Av). Of the 201 selihot included herein, the first 182 are based on the Italian-Ashkenazic seder selihot printed by Gershom Soncino in Italy toward the beginning of the sixteenth century (sometimes referred to as the Fano, 1505-1506 edition by bibliographers); the remainder constitute selihot according to the rite of Ashkenazim living in western and southern Germany. (Some of the text that was censored in the Soncino edition is here restored.) Also appearing here (ff. 105r-106r) are the texts of the public Torah and haftarah readings for fast days. Finally, a manuscript table of contents appended at the rear directs the supplicant to the appropriate selihot for every day on which they are said. Shahor would subsequently reprint the present seder selihot (with some variations, including greater censorship) in Heddernheim in 1546.

Provenance

Moses ben Mordechai (f. [1v])

Uri ben Isaac Kanton (?) (f. [1v])

Solomon (Zalman) ben Moses of Mainz (ff. [118r], [119r])

Jacob bar Eliezer of Beilstein (Koppelman Beilstein) (f. [119r])

Literature

Meir Benayahu, “Seder selihot ke-minhag ha-ashkenazim,” in Haskamah u-reshut bi-defusei venetsyah: ha-sefer ha-ivri me-et hava‘ato li-defus ve-ad tseto le-or (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute; Mossad Harav Kook, 1971), 181-189.

Paul Geissler, “Neues vom hebräischen Frühdruck in Augsburg,” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch (1967): 118-121.

A.M. Habermann, Ha-madpisim benei soncino: toledoteihem u-reshimat ha-sefarim ha-ivrim she-nidpesu al yedeihem (Vienna: David Fraenkel, 1933), 48 (no. 20).

A.M. Habermann, “Ha-madpis hayyim shahor, beno yitshak va-hatano yosef be-r. yakar,” Kiryat sefer 31,4 (1955): 483-500, at p. 492 (no. 13).

Louis Lamm, “Ein 400 Jahre alter Selichot-Zettel,” Judaica: Zeitschrift für Geschichte, Literatur, Kunst und Bibliographie 2,7-8 (April 1935): 14-15.

Mosche N. Rosenfeld, Der jüdische Buchdruck in Augsburg in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts (London: Mosche N. Rosenfeld, 1985), 37 (no. 45).

Vinograd, Augsburg 9