SHE’ELOT U-TESHUVOT (RESPONSA), RABBI SAMUEL DE MEDINA, SALONIKA: ABRAHAM JOSEPH BASEVI, 1594-1597

Rabbi Samuel de Medina (Maharashdam; 1506-1589) was a prominent communal leader, yeshiva dean, and halakhic authority in Salonika. Queries were sent to him from all parts of the Ottoman Empire and Salonika, and his legal decisions continue to exert enormous influence down to the present day, including in Israeli jurisprudence. This lot is a copy of the second, improved edition of his responsa, which had initially appeared in two volumes in Salonika in about 1586-1587. In the introduction to the present printing, the author’s son Moses, who succeeded his father as rabbi of the Portuguese community of Salonika, writes that neither volume had pleased its readers, especially the latter, which was full of mistakes. He therefore chose to reprint the book, spending down his savings in order to import paper, a printing press, and skilled workers from Venice. The books were issued by Abraham Joseph (also: Joseph Abraham) Basevi, scion of an Ashkenazic family from Italy (the surname derives from the Ashkenazic pronunciation of Bathsheba), who, together with his father Shabbetai Mattathias and brother Abraham (see lot 254), published about forty titles in Salonika between circa 1594 and 1605.