MIVHAR HA-PENINIM AND OTHER PHILOSOPHICAL TREATISES, MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER Trino (Italy), 1468. Scribe: Isaiah ben Jacob Masseran

[2], 63 leaves, 7 ¼ x 5 ¼ inches; 186 x 135 mm, written in a mixed Ashkenazic-Italian script, modern foliation in pencil; upper margin cropped, lower outer corner of 26 leaves renewed with text rewritten in a contemporary hand; a few leaves strengthened in gutter margin occasionally obscuring text, a few repaired tears, dampstained and soiled. Library buckram.

Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 117)

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 266); for Alillot Devarim see: Y. Ta-Shema, in Alei Sefer, 3 (1977), pp. 44-53 and R. Bonfil in Eshel Beer Sheva, 2 (1980), pp.  229-264; edited from another manuscript in Ozar Nehmad, 4 (1863), pp. 179–214; on the scribe Isaiah ben Jacob of Masseran, see Yad la-Kore 28 (1995) pp.14-19

Contents

Fols. 1r-26v: Mivhar ha-Peninim (A Choice of Pearls), an ethical work consisting of epigrams usually  attributed to Solomon ben Judah ibn Gabirol (Spain, 1020-ca. 1057). With a commentary in the margins based on the commentary  by Samson of Joigny.

Fols. 27r-52v: Alillot Devarim, a satirical anti-rabbinic polemic attributed in the title to a fictional Palmon ben Pelet with a commentary by Joseph. The identity of the true author and his origin are the subject of dispute among scholars. Some place him in Ashkenaz, Y. Ta-Shema places him in fifteenth-entury Italy  while R. Bonfil places him in Southern Italy or Candia in the fourteenth century.

Fols. 53r-59v: Ruah Hen, an anonymous philosophical treatise providing an introduction to Moses ben Maimon’s Guide of the Perplexed. Attributed to Jacob Anatoli or Judah ibn Tibbon.

Fols. 59v-62r: Ben Porat, a commentary on the first four chapters of the Book of Knowledge in Moses ben Maimon’s  Mishneh Torah by the 14^th century Italian philosopher Judah ben Moses Romano.

Fols. 62v-63v: Short extracts on philosophy.

Copied by Isaiah ben Jacob Masseran in Trino (Italy) in 1468. The last five leaves were copied there in 1470. The scribe’s name was not mentioned in the colophon on fol. 52v and was erased in those on fols. 59v and 62r, but the name Isaiah was singled out on fol. 59v and a comparison of the script and scribal practices in the present manuscript with those in the close to twenty other manuscripts copied by Isaiah Masseran proves that he was indeed the scribe of this manuscript.  Another manuscript by this scribe is Montefiore ms. 45 (Lot 41), a supercommentary on Rashi on the Pentateuch.