Olam Hafukh, Abraham Catalano, [Italy, 17th century]

Olam Hafukh is a chronicle of the plague in Padua in 1631, by Abraham Catalano a physician in Padua; it includes verses on the plague by Moses, the son of the author. Only five other copies of this text are extant in manuscripts.

Sotheby’s is grateful to Menahem Schmelzer z”l and Benjamin Richler for cataloguing this manuscript.

Provenance

Judah the doctor Mi-shalom? (owner’s inscription, inside front cover) — Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 399)

Physical Description

12 leaves on paper (one blank), 8 x 5 ¾ inches; 204 x 146 mm, written in Italian semi-cursive script, modern foliation in pencil; worming in gutter margin of last few leaves, various stains and smudges especially on fol. 6v where text is obscured but legible. Nineteenth-century decorated paper over boards; backstrip torn.

Literature

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 473); edited from this manuscript by C. Roth, in Kovez al-Yad, 4 (1946), pp. 65-101