Mahzor (Festival Prayers), Sephardic Rite, Scribe: Jacob Vitoria, Ottoman Empire: 1796

152 leaves (6  1/4  x 4  1/4  in.; 158 x 108 mm). Written in black ink on polished paper in Sephardic semicursive Hebrew script; several initial words highlighted in rose and green. Folios 1v-96v framed in gilded ink, now mostly oxidized to a viridescent patina. foliation: [ii], 1-150, ff. 37-40, 95 blank. Original foliation in Hebrew charachters; upper right corner of each verso leaf bears the scribe's cipher: "Ya'akov." Two Menorah calligrams, 12r, 48r. Stained as expected in Haggadah section, ff. 14-36. Losses to outer lower corner through f. 50 sympathetically repaired and not affecting text. Marginal tape repairs to final 20 ff, not affecting text. Occasional worm tracks, mostly not affecting text. Several overmargined leaves folded in. Owners' inscriptions on free endpapers. Later paper over boards.

This handsome manuscript prayer book is a product of the vibrant Sephardic community that flourished in the Ottoman Empire, beginning in the centuries following the expulsion of Spanish and Portuguese Jews from the Iberian Peninsula. The characteristically graceful Sephardic calligraphy which adorns the pages of this manuscript was penned by the scribe Jacob Vitoria, who was doubtless a descendant of those Jews expelled from the Northern Spanish city whose name he shares. Most of the Mahzor's pages are framed in gilded ink, now mostly oxidized to a viridescent patina, and several pages feature initial words with subtle rose and green highlights. The upper right corner of each verso leaf bears the scribe's cipher: "Ya'akov."