SEFER GAL SHEL EGOZIM (SERMONS ON GENESIS), RABBI MENAHEM BEN MOSES EGOZI, BELVEDERE: JOSEPH BEN ISAAC ASHKELONI, [CA. 1593-1595]

The only edition of this title ever published, issued in a limited print run.

Rabbi Menahem ben Moses Egozi (second half of the sixteenth century) was a preacher and poet in Constantinople. His Sefer gal shel egozim, a collection of sermons on the book of Genesis evoking his surname, takes its title from a passage in the Babylonian Talmud (Gittin 67a) praising Rabbi Tarfon as “a mound of nuts.” The author explains toward the end of his introduction that “a mound of stones served as a parable, for any man who wishes to make for himself a mound quarries large stones, hewn stones, as well as crushed limestone, and wraps them in his garments. So, too, I descended to the nut grove [Song 6:11] […] our Holy Torah and the words of our rabbis – may their portion be in everlasting life – gathering after the gatherers nuts with brittle shells, large and small, and made for myself this mound…”

Following Solomon Jabez’s demise and the consequent cessation of Hebrew printing in Constantinople in 1593, a new press opened in the nearby palace of Belvedere, overlooking the Bosporus (the name means “Fair View” in Italian). The palace served as the residence of Doña Reyna Nasi, daughter of the famous Doña Gracia Nasi (ca. 1510-1569) and widow of Don Joseph Nasi (ca. 1524-1579), duke of the Greek island of Naxos. Doña Reyna, a patron of Jewish scholars and scholarship, appointed Joseph ben Isaac Ashkeloni as manager of the press, which produced seven titles between about 1593 and 1595.