HAYYEI RUHI, MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER Abraham ben Daniel of Modena [Italy], December, 1574

466 leaves, 5 5/8 x 4 inches; 143 x 102 mm, written in Italian cursive script in brown ink, early foliation in black ink, modern foliation in pencil with errors after fol. 284 (text foliated 1-467); fol. 277 inserted between fols. 292-293, fols. 4-5 and 10-11 loose, 2 minor marginal repairs, a few inner margins strengthened at the beginning, some dampstaining and browning, strongest on fol. 1r and last 2 quires. Black library buckram.

Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 360)

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 251); a detailed description of the contents of this manuscript is found in Halberstam’s catalog, Kohelet Shelomo, (1890), pp. 88-92; Y. Boksenboim, Letters of Jewish Teachers in Renaissance Italy (1551-1591), (1985), pp. 25-26 (on the basis of Montefiore ms. 462, Lot 346) (in Hebrew); M. Benayahu, Yosef behiri: R. Yosef Karo, (1991), pp. 530-534 (in Hebrew); the prayer on fol. 110v was published from this manuscript by J. Schirman, Anthologie der hebraeischen Dichtung in Italien, (1934), p. 243 (in Hebrew); W. Popper, The Censorship of Hebrew Books, (1969), p. 146, no. 142

According to the colophon (fol. 451r), this book of prayers was completed in December 1574 and is called Hayyei Ruhi. On fol. 337r, the author writes that he  composed close to 5000 prayers and wrote them in two books.  The present manuscript represents the first of these books; the second book is manuscript Oxford, Bodleian, 1181.  The author, Abraham ben Daniel of Modena, mentions his own name throughout the manuscript (fols.174v, 294r, 358r, etc.), and on fol. 80v he writes that he was sixty-one years old in 1571.  Many other personal, family and communal matters are mentioned in the prayers as well.  For example, the author prays for Rabbi Joseph Karo on (fol. 428r), and composes an elegy for him upon his death.  According to Benayahu “his prayers are unique of their kind in our literature.”

Signed by the censor P...iussu R[everedissimi] Inq[uisito]ris Taurini Zomegnius, with the permission of the Inquisitor of Turin, 1589 (fol. 1r).