Compilation of Halakhic Works and Communal Records, [Italy, 16th century]

Fols. 1r-11v: Novellae and glosses on the Alfasi on Shabbat and Bava Kamma and on Nissim Gerondi’s commentary. Many corrections and additions in the margins. Perhaps a draft of Samuel Del Vecchio’s Tikkunei ha-Ri”f. On the author of Tikkunei ha-Ri”f see Y.M. Peles, in Ha-Ma’ayan, 44 (2004), issue 2, pp. 64-68.

Fols. 12r-59v: Copies of records, ordinances and decisions from the pinkas  (record book) of the Jewish community in Cremona in the second half of the 16th century. A record concerning the founding of a society in 1582 was printed from this manuscript by D. Kaufmann in ha-Assif, 3 (1887), p. 220, and S. Simonsohn published several documents in Michael, 1 (1973), pp. 254-276. In addition to the documents, this part of the manuscript includes extracts and copies of other documents and texts, among them a text on the Ten Lost Tribes (fols. 16r-17r), regulations decreed by Judah Minz of Padua in 1507 (fols. 24r-25r; see R. Bonfil, in Zion, 41, 1977, pp. 68-96), a letter from the leaders of the Venice community in 1555 (fols. 25r-26r, published by Bonfil, ibid.), other ordinances by Moses Basola edited by Halberstam in Ivri Anokhi, 15 (1879), pp. 266-267, a eulogy on a woman by Abraham Provencali (fols. 53r-54v) and a decision concerning Jacob Reiner and Isaac Abarbanel (the grandson of the famous scholar of the same name).

Fols. 60r-71r: Mar’eh ha-Ofanim, Solomon ben Abraham Avigdor’s Hebrew translation of Johannes de Sacrobosco's astronomical treatise Sphaera mundis. See M. Steinschneider, Hebr. Uebersetzungen, p. 643. With a few figures illustrating the text.

Signed by the censor: Domenico Irosolomi[ta]no, 1597 (fol. 70v).

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

Provenance

Isach Norsa (owner’s inscription, fol. 11v) — Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 217)

Physical Description

71 leaves on paper, 7 5/8 x 5 ½ inches; 193 x 141 mm, written in brown ink in Ashkenazic-Italian and Italian scripts, fols. 60, 62, and 63 with astronomical diagrams, occasional catchwords, modern foliation in pencil; diagrams cropped, initial leaf laid down, wormed and severely dampstained throughout, about 35 leaves with tissue-patched wormtrails costing text, final leaf torn through, library stamps on initial and last pages. Black library buckram, early red-speckled edges.

Literature

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 94)