COMMENTARY ON SONG OF SONGS AND RUTH, MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER Moses ben Isaac Halayo [14th century]

109 leaves, 7 1/2 x 5 1/4 inches; 190 x 133 mm,  21 lines, written in brown ink in Sefardi scripts on paper watermarked with a bird standing on a mount (cf. Briquet 13070 [Viterbo, 1367]), a few marginal notes, fols. 101v-102v in a different script, fols. 102r (second foliation)-106r in a more cursive script, modern foliation in pencil (with errors towards end: fols. 102, 103, 104 repeat following fol. 104); margins of fols. 1-4 reinforced.  Library buckram.

Samuel Lazaro Vita Bassani (owner’s inscripton, fol. 106v) — Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 17)

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 39); Hebraische Bibliographie, 10, p. 97; On Halyo see: B.D. Walfish, Esther in Medieval Garb, 1993, p.215-216

On fol. 102r the author identifies himself and explains that after writing a commentary on Ruth according to its simple meaning and according to the Midrash, he realized that it could only be explained according to its mystical meaning [neum Moshe bar Yitzhak Halayo … ahar she-perashti Megillat Ruth al derekh ha-peshat ve-ha-midrash … ve-lo yittakhen le-forsham akh derekh ha-nistar … ].  However, the author’s words may refer to the commentary found in manuscript Vienna, Nationalbibliothek Hebr. 178, which is not identical to the present manuscript. 

Some of Halayo’s commentaries were copied by converts to Christianity and by Christian Hebraists.

Signed by the censor Clemente Renatto (fol. 106r).