Rav Pe'alim and Tzurat Olam, Isaac ben Abraham Ibn Latif, [Italy, early 16th century]

Fols. 1r-5v: Rav Pealim, a philosophical-kabbalistic work expounded in the form of aphorisms. Edited. by S. Schoenblum (Lemberg, 1885).

Fols. 5v-26v: Zurat Olam, a systematic treatise on kabbalah. A few lines missing at the end. Edited (Vienna, 1860).

Signed by the censor Giovanni Dominico Carretto, 1617 (fol. 26v)

Two works by the Spanish philosopher and kabbalist Isaac ben Abraham ibn Latif (ca. 1210-1280). Ibn Latif is believed to have lived in Toledo. He had a good knowledge of philosophy and knew Arabic well. In addition, Latif had personal connections with kabbalist circles and studied kabbalah seriously. Latif's language is philosophical, his disposition was kabbalistic. However, as a result of his disappointment in both philosophy and kabbalah, to which he testified explicitly in Zurat Olam, Latif undertook his own unique system, a synthesis of the two, and established a new, philosophic-mystical school in Spanish kabbalah.

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

Provenance

At one time this manuscript was a part of a larger work that is now in Moscow, (Russian State Library, Ms. Guenzburg 341), which contained a compilation of works in philosophy and kabbalah — Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 161)

Physical Description

26 leaves on paper, 7 ¾ x 5 ½ inches; 197 x 140 mm, written in Italian semi-cursive script; a few marginal stains, library stamps on first and last pages. Nineteenth-century quarter cloth.

Literature

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 275); on Ibn Latif’s works cf. S. Heller-Wilensky, in Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge 1967), pp. 185-223