Mikhlal Yofi, Samuel Zarza Ibn Seneh, [Spain, 15th century]

Mikhlal Yofi (The Perfection of Beauty) is a philosophical commentary on the aggadot in both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds by Samuel Zarza ibn Seneh, a fourteenth-century Spanish philosopher. An early note on the front flyleaf of Montefiore ms. no. 79 expresses concern about the heretical nature of Zarza's writings. The work is extant in over a dozen manuscripts but has never been published in its entirety. Sixty-two leaves are missing at the beginning and there are lacunae following fols. 32 and 42.

Signed by the censor Camilo Jaghel, 1611, Lugo (fol. 218r).

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

Provenance

Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 411, extensive notes on the flyleaf)

Physical Description

208 leaves on paper, 12 x 9 inches; 305 x 229 mm, written in Sephardic script in brown ink, early foliation in ink, modern foliation in pencil (errors in foliation after fol. 123); dampstaining throughout, most severe and touching text from fol. 158 onward, a few tears or holes along inside margins of a few leaves, worm trail along inside margin of fols. 181-194, fols. 207-208 very frayed at edges, ink slurred on fol. 208. Black library buckram; stained and faded.

Literature

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 282); the preface was edited by G. Holtzman, in Sinai, 109 (1992), pp. 16-47