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Treasures of the Valmadonna Trust Library TREASURES OF THE VALMADONNA TRUST LIBRARY A CATALOGUE OF 15TH-CENTURY BOOKS AND FIVE CENTURIES OF DELUXE HEBREW PRINTING EDITED BY DAVID SCLAR WITH BIBLIOGRAPHIC STUDIES BY BRAD SABIN HILL ADRI K. OFFENBERG ISAAC YUDLOV David Sclar, Editor אוצרות יעקב Sharon Liberman Mintz, Project Director Pauline Malkiel, Librarian of the Valmadonna Trust Library CONTRIBUTORS: Brad Sabin Hill, Curator of the I. Edward Kiev Judaica Collection, The George Washington University, Washington, DC Adri K. Offenberg, Emeritus Curator of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, University of Amsterdam Isaac Yudlov, Director of the Institute for Hebrew Bibliography, Jerusalem ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Shimon Iakerson, Head Researcher, Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences Ari Kinsberg, Independent Scholar David N. Redden, Vice Chairman, Sotheby’s NY, and the Staff of the Sotheby’s NY Book Department Jerry Schwarzbard, Librarian for Special Collections, The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary David Wachtel, Senior Consultant for Judaica, Sotheby’s NY Design: Jean Wilcox, Wilcox Design Photography: Ardon Bar-Hama Indexes: Warren Klein Printing: Kirkwood Printing © 2011 London & New York Valmadonna Trust Library FOREWORD 6 INTRODUCTION David Sclar 7 Dedicated to the memory of my teacher and friend, THE HONEYCOMB’S FLOW: H E B R E W I N C U N A B L E S IN THE VALMADONNA TRUST LIBRARY Adri K. Offenberg Professor Chimen Abramsky. 10 Jack V. Lunzer I N C U N A B L E S 28 HEBREW BOOKS PRINTED ON VELLUM IN THE VALMADONNA TRUST LIBRARY Isaac Yudlov 52 BOOKS PRINTED ON VELLUM 62 HEBREW PRINTING ON BLUE AND OTHER COLOURED PAPERS Brad Sabin Hill 84 BOOKS PRINTED ON COLOURED PAPER 112 BOOKS PRINTED ON SILK 148 BOOKS PRINTED IN RED INK 150 INDEXES 152 BIBLIOGRAPHY 164 6 7 FOREWORD INTRODUCTION This volume is the tenth in a series of bibliophile editions, facsimiles, and catalogues of early and ‘Make your books your companions. Let your bookcases and shelves be your pleasure-grounds rare printed books and medieval manuscripts, published over the years by the Valmadonna Trust. and your gardens. Bask in their paradise, and gather their roses. Pluck their fruit, and take their The volumes in the series, most with disquisitions by eminent authorities, are intended as con- spices and their myrrh. If your soul is satiated and weary, change from garden to garden, and tributions to the history of Hebrew printing and the Jewish book. The facsimiles of early imprints from furrow to furrow, and from vista to vista. Then your desire will renew itself, and your from northern Italy, Prague, and Constantinople reflect areas in which the Valmadonna collection soul will be filled with delight’. is especially rich: incunables, 16th-century books, Italian, Central European, and Ottoman printing, From the Ethical Will of Judah Ibn Tibbon (Provence, 12th century) special liturgies, rarissima and unica. A small selection of Valmadonna treasures was described in the catalogue of an exhibit mounted at the Morgan Library in New York in 1989. ‘I will not cease to issue good editions, in order to lighten the burdens of those who read The series also includes a study of Codex Valmadonna I, dated 1189, the oldest manuscript in them and illuminate their darkness, if only God will be with me’. the collection and the only dated Hebrew manuscript written in England before the expulsion of From the words of Gershom Soncino on the title page of Sefer Mikhlol the Jews. Another volume reproduces a manuscript tractate of the Babylonian Talmud written in (Constantinople, 1533) Provence in the 15th century, at the very moment when a Jew in Avignon was experimenting with a metal-cutter from Prague in the ‘art of writing artificially’. The catalogue of Valmadonna manu- In an age when technological innovations have revolutionized our use of the written word, the scripts, published in 1998, covers a broad historical and geographic range. importance of books and their place in society is an ever-intensifying subject in the cultural dis- We bear in mind Solomon’s words: ‘Of making many books there is no end’. Catalogues and course. Jews’ relationships with books, particularly Jewish participation and innovation in the bibliographies — tools by such masters as De Rossi, Steinschneider, Freimann, and Yaari — have printing trade, have been rich and diverse. Scholars are only beginning to understand how crucial always been close to hand (and our reference collection is considerable). Following these ante- the effects of printing were on Jewish cultural developments over the past several centuries. For cedents, the present volume offers a preliminary account of Valmadonna’s incunables and deluxe example, the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century was not solely a period printed books, many of them unique, from different corners of Europe and the Orient. of oppression and expulsions for Jews; it was also an era when Jews introduced the printing press to Like Berliner in Aus meiner Bibliothek, we have tried to bring to light books never recorded before Portugal, the Ottoman Empire, and North Africa. and otherwise unknown. Any history of libraries and collectors of Hebrew or ‘Jewish’ books must take into account In writing these lines, my thoughts are in gratitude to all those friends and scholars who have the Valmadonna Trust Library. It is home to approximately 13,000 printed books and manuscripts, helped me complete this series, but especially the contributors to this volume: Isaac Yudlov, biblio- primarily acquired over the past seven decades under the custodianship of Jack V. Lunzer. Hebrew grapher par excellence and Director of the Institute for Hebrew Bibliography at the National books, non-Hebrew languages in Hebrew characters, ‘non-Jewish’ books issued by Jewish print- Library of Israel in Jerusalem; the distinguished incunabulist Dr Adri K. Offenberg of the fabled ers, and early books about Jews or Judaism published by non-Jews are all well represented in this Rosenthaliana in Amsterdam; and not least the learned bookman Brad Sabin Hill, curator of the Kiev collection, as are virtually all eras and geographical regions of Jewish and Hebrew book history. Its Collection in Washington, who decades ago promised me a study of Hebrew printing on blue paper, sheer size places it among the greatest private collections of Judaica in history. It is the fine condi- well worth the wait. I am indebted to all of them, as to my long-serving and long-suffering librarian tion of so many books, however, conserved and elegantly bound as jewels of Jewish culture, that sets Pauline Malkiel, who has recorded every step of my journey in the world of Hebrew books. it apart as a library of beauty. Lastly, this volume is dedicated in all humility to the memory of my teacher and friend, Some of the Library’s most outstanding volumes include: a Pentateuch written in England Professor Chimen Abramsky. in 1189, the only Hebrew manuscript known to have been composed in England prior to the expulsion of Jews in 1290; a complete and pristine editio princeps of Bomberg’s Babylonian Talmud JACK V. LUNZER (Venice, 1519–1523), housed for most of its existence in Westminster Abbey; the major portion of Custodian Isaac Lampronti’s autograph manuscript of Paḥad Yitsḥak, a comprehensive encyclopedia of halakhah; and nearly 600 broadsides (single sheets) from diverse places and periods, exceedingly valuable Passover 2011 / Pesaḥ 5771 because of their ephemeral nature. In addition, the Valmadonna Trust Library contains exceptional examples of the rarest and most desirable books: incunables, books printed on vellum, and books printed on coloured paper. Precious to book history and collecting, these three genres of the Library’s collection are show- cased in Treasures of the Valmadonna Trust Library. For each genre, the present volume provides a bib- liographic study by a distinguished scholar in the respective field, and a catalogue noting the title, authorship, publication information, and size of each book, accompanied by relevant bibliographic 8 9 references. The breadth of Jewish literature is represented, with copies of Bible, Talmud, commen- 18th-century Amsterdam presses of Moses Frankfurt and Isaac Templo; and an array of editions taries, halakhah, responsa, liturgy, poetry, ethics, Kabbalah, and Karaitica. printed in Livorno in the late 18th century, and in Bombay and Calcutta in the mid-19th century. Part one of Treasures of the Valmadonna Trust Library presents the Library’s large and well- Keeping with the spirit of deluxe printing, lists of the Valmadonna’s holdings of Hebrew books preserved collection of incunables, that is, books printed in the 15th century, after Gutenberg’s printed on silk and printed in red ink are appended to this section, and they are briefly discussed in invention of movable type. The Library is home to more than one-third of all known editions of Hill’s study. Hebrew incunables. Fifty-one incunable editions are represented in 68 copies, including: four of the group of six books printed in Rome, ca. 1469–1473; a copy of the first complete Bible issued by While Treasures of the Valmadonna Trust Library records about 250 titles in total, the lists of incunables, the Soncino family (Soncino, 1488); a Mishnah with Maimonides’ commentary (Naples, 1492), one vellum, coloured paper, silk, and red ink are separate and self-contained; each list begins anew with of the first illustrated Hebrew books; and copies or fragments of five of the 14 editions of the legal ‘No. 1’. Due to the preciousness and scarcity of these books, the numbers reflect the Library’s cop- code Arba‘ah Turim printed during this period, including the first book printed in the Ottoman ies, not merely the titles. Thus, the two copies of Albo’s Sefer ha-‘Ikarim printed in Soncino in late Empire (Constantinople, 1493).
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