Hebrew Manuscripts in the Vatican Library STUDI E TESTI 438 Hebrew Manuscripts in the Vatican Library Catalogue Compiled by the Staff of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem Edited by Benjamin Richler Palaeographical and Codicological Descriptions Malachi Beit-Arie´ in collaboration with Nurit Pasternak CITTA` DEL VATICANO BIBLIOTECA APOSTOLICA VATICANO 2008 Published with the support of the American Friends of the Vatican Library ISBN 978–88–-210–0823–8 Design, typesetting and layout: Posner & Sons Ltd., Jerusalem miixard cidÎiazk owiheed ziixtqa belhw miixard cidÎiazk inelvzl oeknd ici lr oked milyexi ,i`hiqxaipe`de ine`ld mixtqd zia jxr xl'vix oinipa miibelewicewe miitxbe`ilt mixe`iz dix`Îzia ik`ln zetzzyda wpxhqt zixep owiheed ziixw 2008 978-88-210-0823-8 a"zqn milyexi ,n"ra eipae xpfet :cenire xcq ,aevir Contents Raffaele Cardinal Farina Librarian of the Holy Roman Church Preface ix Malachi Beit-Arie´ Preface x Benjamin Richler Editor’s Introduction xi Delio Vania Proverbio Historical Introduction xv Abbreviations xxv Vaticani ebraici 1–617 1 Barberiniani orientali 507 Borgiani ebraici 516 Chigi R.IV.37 526 Neofiti 528 Ottoboniani lat. 2911 564 Vat. pers. 61 564 Rossiani 566 Urbinati ebraici 599 Indices Index of Persons 639 Index of Subjects 668 Index of Place Names 670 Index of Manuscripts Mentioned 676 Index of Illuminated and Decorated Manuscripts 679 Concordance to the MSS in Kennicott 679 List of Plates 681 Index of Piyyutim and Poems (Hebrew) 1* Index of Titles (Hebrew) 28* Preface Raffaele Cardinal Farina Librarian of the Holy Roman Church For the last two centuries at least, and probably since the very first years after its founding in 1451, the Vatican Library has preserved a certain number of He- brew manuscripts, which are now known as the Vaticani ebraici. This series has grown over time so that it now includes over 600 items. At the same time, the Library was enriched by the arrival of other Hebrew collections, which are lesser in number, though not in quality (the Borgiani ebraici, Neofiti and Urbinati ebraici). After many attempts in the past to catalogue this material, ranging from the courageous undertaking of Giuseppe Assemani to Umberto Cassuto’s prema- turely interrupted project, the volume which I have the pleasure of presenting here represents the fulfillment of a long- cherished dream: that of a work which would thoroughly document the contents and codicological characteristics of all of the Library’s Hebrew manuscripts, in accordance with modern cataloguing practices. By a remarkable coincidence, however, it has come about that this work was rendered incomplete, so to speak, just as it was at the proofreading stage, by the Library’s acquisition of 108 additional Hebrew manuscripts. My most sincere thanks go to the authors of this catalogue and to all those who have made its publication possible. At the same time, I wish to express the hope that the compilation of a supple- ment will be undertaken as soon as possible; and that someone will find the courage to undertake also the important and difficult task of identifying the many Hebrew glosses and fragments which are scattered in the Library’s other collections. Preface Malachi Beit-Arie´ During over five years of one-month missions to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana I have examined, in collaboration with Nurit Pasternak, all the manu- scripts included in this catalogue, in order to provide some elementary codicological data, such as the number of folios and flyleaves and their order, page dimensions and size of the written space, writing materials and quiring, as well as differentiation between hands that shared the production and be- tween various codicological units artificially bound together within one codex. My main task was to identify the type of writing, localize the region of produc- tion, and the harder task of assessing the approximate date of a manuscript (frequently on the basis of watermarks in paper manuscripts, mainly identified by Nurit Pasternak). In localizing and dating I was assisted systematically by SfarData, the codicological database of the Hebrew Palaeography Project, spon- sored by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, in which the codico- logical features and images of the dated Hebrew manuscripts worldwide are recorded and are retrievable by a wide variety of parameters. Having been the only contributors to the catalogue who examined the man- uscripts in situ, we were charged not only with the above responsibility, but also with the time-consuming task of verifying and amending all the Hebrew cita- tions included in the entries and the references to the textual units made by the cataloguers in Jerusalem on the basis of microfilms. Our work at the Vatican Library was a worthwhile experience indeed, thanks to the warm cooperation and kind assistance granted by many whom we like to extend heartfelt gratitude. First and foremost, Sua Eminenza Mons. Raffaele Farina, the Librarian, who encouraged the project and made our stay in the library so pleasant. His Deputy, Ambrogio M. Piazzoni, was always ready to attend to our requests. The Director of the the Manuscripts Department, Dr. Paolo Vian and his predessor Mons. Louis Duval-Arnould, generously helped us in various matters; Luigina Orlandi, secretary to the director and presently head of the cataloguing department, was always ready to assist and lend ad- vice. Last but not least, the remarkable staff of the manuscript reading room, headed by Antonio Schiavi, who took good care in providing hundreds of manuscripts to our desk and enabled us to study them in the best possible conditions. Editor’s Introduction Benjamin Richler The collection of Hebrew manuscripts in the Vatican Library is one of the most important in existence, even though it is not one of the largest. In this catalogue 813 manuscripts are described. Many of these manuscripts, especially those from the “Vaticani ebraici” collection, are volumes consisting of several MSS bound together or of fragments from different MSS bound together, so that the actual number of MSS in the library is far greater than the nominal number. Almost all the subjects of Jewish intellectual activity are represented in the codices of the Vatican Library. Except for a few dozen items, all the manuscripts were written in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance from the 9th to the 16th centuries. The collection includes a manuscript that is probably the earliest He- brew codex in existence, a copy of the Sifra written towards the end of the 9th century or in the first half of the 10th century (MS Vat. ebr. 66). In addition, the Vatican Library houses several other of the most ancient and most important codices of midrashic texts all written in southern Italy in the 11th century, among them another copy of the Sifra written in 1072/3 (MS Vat. ebr. 31), and copies of the Sifri and Leviticus Rabba (MS Vat. ebr. 32) and Genesis Rabba (MS Vat. ebr. 60). There are well over fifty codices of Bible texts, excluding small fragments, among them a copy of the entire Bible written around 1100 in Italy (MS Urb. ebr. 2). The unique copy of a Palestinian Targum of the Pentateuch known as the “Targum Neofiti” is found in the Library (MS Neof. 1). No other collection includes as many copies of tractates of the Talmud as the Vatican Library; over twenty codices in the Library include copies, multiple copies or fragments of almost all the thirty-six tractates of the Babylonian Talmud and MS Vat. ebr. 133 is one of only a few extant copies of tractates from the Jerusalem Talmud. In addition there are large numbers of volumes of texts in the fields of Biblical commentary, Halakhah, Kabbalah, Talmudic commentaries, liturgy and liturgical commentaries, philosophy, medicine, astronomy and other sci- ences as well as both Jewish and Christian polemical texts. Previous to the publication of this catalogue no description of the Hebrew manuscripts in the Vatican Library was available in English or in any other Eu- ropean language. A number of handwritten inventories of Hebrew MSS were compiled in Latin in the seventeenth century by F. C.. Borromeo, G. Bartolocci, J. B. Giona and G. Morosini. The first printed catalogue of the Hebrew MSS was also in Latin, Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae Codicum Manuscriptorum Catalogus, Recensuerunt Steph. Evodius Assemani et Jos. Sim. Assemani, I: Codices Ebraicos et Samaritanos (Rome 1756, facsimile reprint, Paris 1926). In the cata- logue, 453 MSS in the “Vaticani ebraici” collection, 59 Urbinati MSS and two Samaritan MSS were described. Angelo Mai, in ‘Appendix ad Catalogum xii EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION codicum hebraicorum Bibliothecae Vaticanae’, in his Scriptorum Veterum Nova Collectio e Vaticanis Codicibus, IV, Rome 1831, pp. 83–93, described 78 additional MSS ( Vat. ebr. 454–531). A supplement to these catalogues, containing descrip- tions of MSS Vat. ebr. 532–598, was prepared by Marianus Ugolini but has never been published. Umberto Cassuto was commisioned by the library to compile a full descriptive catalogue of the collection, but only the first part of this cata- logue, containing very detailed descriptions in Latin of manuscripts Vat. ebr. 1–115 - Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae Codices Manuscripti Recensiti, Codices Vaticani Hebraici, Codices 1–115, Vatican 1956 - was published. Thirty-nine He- brew MSS from the Neofiti collection were described in Italian by G. Sacerdote in I Codici Ebraici della Pia Casa dei Neofiti in Roma (Rome 1893). The illuminated MSS in the Rossiana collection acquired in 1921 were previously described by H. Tietze, Die illuminierten Handschriften der Rossiana in Wien-Lainz (Leipzig 1911), nos. 97, 98, 100, 160. A total of 801 Hebrew or Judaica MSS from all the collections in the Vatican Library were briefly described in Hebrew by N.