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The Earliest Printings of the Talmud1, 2 Raphael Natan Nuta

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The Earliest Printings of the Talmud1, 2 Raphael Natan Nuta CHAPTER twenty-one THE EARLIEST PRINTINGS OF THE TALMUD1, 2 This edition is most becoming and beautiful. If the entire Talmud had been printed, it would have been the glory and most beautiful jewel of Israel. All the editions before and after would not have compared to it. How- ever, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Ps. 127:1).3 Raphael Natan Nuta Rabbinovicz’s praise for the Sabbioneta Kiddushin (1554) can be contested only for his limiting it to the final Italian printing of a tractate from the Babylonian Talmud. The first editions of the Baby- lonian Talmud, and the individual tractates that preceded them as well, can almost uniformly be characterized as aesthetically pleasing and textu- ally superior to most later editions of the Talmud. The pioneer printers of early Hebrew books, engaged in a holy work (melekhet ha-kodesh), were artisans, craftsman, entrepreneurs—often scholars—whose handiwork reflected their skill and the pride that they took in their labors. The first printed tractate of the Talmud was Berakhot, excluding pos- sible Spanish treatises, the first work to be issued from the new press established by Joshua Solomon Soncino in 1483. To appreciate the accom- plishments of Joshua Solomon Soncino, Gershom Soncino, Daniel Bomberg, and other early printers of the Talmud, it is worth considering the appear- ance of the Talmudic page prior to the invention of printing with move- able type. The Talmudic text of the Babylonian Talmud, comprising approximately two million words in sixty-three tractates, was customar- ily written in codices without accompanying commentaries, which were considered separate books, although later manuscripts not infrequently included Rashi.4 1 The original version of this article was published in Printing the Talmud: From Bomb- erg to Schottenstein, ed. Sharon Liberman Mintz and Gabriel M. Goldstein (New York: Yeshiva University Museum, 2005), 61–78. 2 I would like to express my appreciation to Joseph I. Lauer for reading this paper and for his critical comments. 3 Raphael Natan Nuta Rabbinovicz, Ma’amar al Hadpasat ha-Talmud im tikkunim, ed. A. M. Habermann (Jerusalem, 1952), 59 [Hebrew]. 4 There are instances where both Rashi and Tosafot both appear on the page with the text. E. E. Urbach, The Tosafists: Their History, Writings and Methods (Jerusalem, 1980), 422 chapter twenty-one Scribes were not constrained by the need to adhere to either preset foliation or page composition. The physical placement of identical-text manuscript tractates is inconsistent, so the same passage in two codices of a tractate more often than not had a different number of lines to a page and words to a line, with the text beginning and ending at different positions on the page, resulting in a varying number of leaves for two copies of the same tractate. The advent of printing forever changed the face of books in general and the Talmud in particular. Indeed, the Talmud was physically transformed by printing. One of the most significant modi- fications from the codex to the printed book is standardization. In the case of the Talmud, the replacement of unique editions of tractates with a standard format and fixed foliation and page composition (zurat ha- daf ) begins with tractate Berakhot, printed in the northern Italian town of Soncino by Joshua Solomon Soncino. The Soncino family traced its ancestry to the thirteenth–century Tosafist, R. Moses of Speyer. At some time in the following centuries, although not later than 1453, the date of the general expulsion of the Jews from Speyer, the family resettled in Bavaria. Moses Mentzlan (Mentschlein = manikin), a name reflecting his diminutive stature, was a fifth-generation descen- dant of Moses of Speyer. He is remembered for his opposition to the itinerant anti-Semitic friar John of Capistrano (1386–1456) in the city of Feurth. Moses’ sons, Samuel and Simon, fled Bavaria for Italy. When Duke Francesco Sforza permitted Samuel to settle in Soncino in the Duchy of Milan in 1454, Samuel and his family, the only Jews in Soncino, exercised the privilege granted them to open a bank and engage in moneylending. Israel Nathan Soncino, Samuel’s son, practiced medicine and assisted his father in the banking business. However, when a monte di pieta (public loan office) was opened in Soncino, the family was compelled to find another occupation. In 1480, through Israel Nathan’s influence, the family turned to printing. Under the direction and management of Joshua Solo- mon Soncino, Israel Nathan’s son, the Soncino press printed its first title, which was, as noted above, excluding possible Spanish imprints, the first printed tractate of the Talmud.5 29 [Hebrew], lists several such fragments and their locations, for example: Yevamot with Rashi, Tosafot, and the Sefer Mordekhai (Oxford); Yevamot and Kiddushin with Tosafot (Vatican); Gittin with Rashi and Tosafot (Paris); Shabbat with Rashi and Tosafot (Gratz); Bava Mezia with Rashi and Tosafot (Augsburg); and Ketubbot with Tosafot (Melk). These occasions, however, are the exception rather than the rule. 5 David Amram, The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (Philadelphia, 1909; repr. London, 1963), 51–57..
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