chapter ten

A Tale of Two Cities: Leipzig, Hamburg, and Don Isaac Abrabanel1

The popularity of the biblical commentaries of the statesman, philoso- pher, and biblical exegete Don Isaac ben Judah Abrabanel (1437–1508)2 remains undiminished.3 A prolific writer, his works began to be published as early as 1505 with the Constantinople edition of Zevah Pesah on the Haggadah, the first printed commentary on the Passover Haggadah. His renowned commentary first appeared in Venice (1579), preceded by several other titles by Abrabanel, among them Perush al Neviim Ris- honim, his commentary on the Early Prophets, printed in Pesaro in 1511.4

1 The original version of this article was published in the Gutenberg-Jahrbuch (2010): 153–61. 2 There are variant spellings for the Abrabanel family name. Benzion Netanyahu, in a lengthy note in his Don Isaac Abravanel (Philadelphia, 1972), 261–62n1, begins that “the name Abravanel represents a difficult problem with respect to both its pronunciation and origin.” Netanyahu provides several variants of the name and its usage. He concludes that “in view of the heavy preponderance of the spelling Abravanel in Latin transcription, and in view of the various versions of the Hebrew spelling . . . preference must be given to this form.” I have conformed to the spelling of the , ed. Michael Beren- baum and Fred Skolnik, 2nd ed. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007), vol. 1, 276–79, which is Abrabanel. 3 The enduring popularity of Abrabanel’s work is not without dispute. D. L. Rabinow- itz: “Abravanel as Exegete,” in Isaac Abravanel: Six Lectures (Cambridge, 1937), 80, writes that Abrabanel, as an exegete “both in his methods and in the nature of his commen- tary . . . stands alone and without equal, and it is difficult to understand the latter-day neglect of him,” this despite M. Gaster: “Abravanel’s Literary Work,” in Isaac Abravanel: Six Lecturers, 46, who sees Abrabanel, despite defects, as taking “his place in biblical scholarship as the last of the great Jewish commentators.” In contrast, I would suggest that a review of the most important later commentators, such as R. Meir Loeb ben Jehiel Michael Weisser (Malbim, 1809–79), reflects the enduring importance and popularity of Abrabanel’s commentaries, as do their continued republication. 4 The commentary on Deuteronomy, Mirkevet ha-Mishneh, was first published sepa- rately in Sabbioneta [] (1551). Abrabanel began work on Mirkevet ha-Mishneh when still in Lisbon, unlike the remainder of his commentary on the Torah, which was written much later. Its completion was postponed, however, due to his responsibilities at the Por- tuguese court. The incomplete manuscript of Mirkevet ha-Mishneh was lost when Abra- banel was forced to flee Portugal in 1483. However, on his peregrinations, Abrabanel came to the island of Corfu in 1493, where he serendipitously (miraculously) found a copy of the manuscript. Leaving aside other work, he turned to completing this commentary. After the departure of French troops from Naples, Abrabanel went to Monopoli (Apulia), where Mirkevet ha-Mishneh was finally completed in the first part of 1496. 154 chapter ten

The second edition(s) of Perush al Neviim Rishonim, with which we are concerned, appeared in 1686 in two independent printings, in Leipzig and in Hamburg. In this article we will discuss each of the parties involved in the 1686 editions, beginning with the author, Don Isaac Abrabanel, each of the cities and their publishing houses, and then compare the two con- temporaneous editions. Don Isaac Abrabanel, who traced his lineage to King David, was the grandson of Samuel and the son of Judah Abrabanel, the former an advi- sor to three kings of Castile, the latter to the king of Portugal. Don Isaac Abrabanel was unusually well educated, receiving a thorough , studying under R. Joseph Hayyun (d. 1497), as well as instruction in philosophy, classics, and even Christian theology, this last useful in his defense of . Abrabanel succeeded his father as trea- surer to King Alfonso V of Portugal. Upon that monarch’s death in 1481, João II (1481–95) became king of Portugal. In 1483, João accused Abrabanel of participating in a conspiracy. Forewarned, Abrabanel fled to . In Segura de la Orden, near the Portuguese border, Abrabanel composed his commentaries on Joshua, Judges, and Samuel—four volumes com- prising 400,000 words—in four and a half months, between October 11, 1483 and March 8, 1484. However, before he could complete the book of Kings he entered the service of Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile (1484). Those monarchs attempted to induce Abrabanel to convert and remain in Spain at the time of the expulsion in 1492, but he preferred exile as a . Abrabanel sailed from Valencia to Naples, where, on Erev Rosh HaShanah, 1493, he completed his commentary on the book of Kings.5 Cedric Cohen Skali suggests that the composition of Abrabanel’s com- mentary on Neviim Rishonim “was a central achievement of his stormy life,” allowing Abrabanel to remain among the elite of Spanish Jewry after the expulsion from Spain and to offer his concept of what constituted an appropriate form of leadership for the after that catastrophe.6 Perush al Neviim Rishonim has a consistent format, Abrabanel beginning each prophetic book with a lengthy introduction in which he discusses the identity of the authors and the book’s contents. The commentary, generally regarded as prolix, is divided into sections, each preceded by six questions, in contrast to his Perush ha-Torah, where the number is

5 Marvin J. Heller: The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus, vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 44–45. 6 Cedric Cohen Skali: “Abravanel’s Commentary on the Former Prophets: Portraits, Self- Portraits, and Models of Leadership,” 3 (2009): 255–80, 255.