NOTES, RULES AND DIAGRAMS, ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER Isaac Navarra (or Noveira) [Italy, 18th century]

105 leaves (7 blank), 8 1/8 x 5 5/8 inches; 207 x 143 mm, written in black and brown ink in Italian scripts, modern foliation in pencil; in very good condition, Eighteenth-century mottled sheep; old tears to extremities and boards.



[Together with:]



SUPERCOMMENTARY ON ABRAHAM IBN EZRA’S COMMENTARY ON EXODUS 3:15, ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER
Isaac Navarra
[Italy, 18th century]



42 leaves (4 blank), 7 ¾ x 5 ¾ inches; 197 x 146 mm, text in 2 columns, with passages by Ibn Ezra in Hebrew, and commentary in Italian, illustrations of Kabbalistic spheres (fol. 7r), celestial spheres and the Zodiac (fol. 15r), two hands (fol. 14v), other geometrical diagrams (fols. 23r-v, 24r-v, 25v, 26r), contemporary foliation in ink,  modern foliation in pencil; reinforced margins throughout. Library buckram.

(Montefiore ms. 53): Solomon Bassan (owner’s inscriptions in Hebrew and Italian, fol.73r)  — Chimon (?) d’Isaac Navarra Firenze, (owner’s inscription, fol.73r) — Samuel David Luzzatto — Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 211) — Samuel David Luzzatto — Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 212). (Ms. 52):  Samuel David Luzzatto —Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 212)

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 53); B. Barry Levy, Planets, Potions and Parchments: Scientifica Hebraica from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Eighteenth Century; catalog of an exhibition at the Jewish Public Library in Montreal, 1990, #55, p. 47 with fol. 59r reproduced; for Isaac and Menahem Naverra, see D. Pagis, A Secret Sealed: Hebrew Baroque Emblem- Riddles from Italy and Holland, 1986, 85 (in Hebrew).  Hirschfeld (ms. no. 52)

These manuscripts appear to have been the notebooks of a teacher.  In the first manuscript Navarra copied various rules and helpful information for the teaching of Talmud and other subjects.  Fols. 1 through 43 feature rules relating to the Hebrew calendar, to Talmud study, to Jewish dietary law, and to weights and measurements.  Also included are instructions for vocalization and for measuring the volume of a mikveh (ritual bath), as well as information regarding forbidden marriages and differences between the customs of the Land of Israel and Babylonia.  We also find biographical data on Talmudic rabbis, proverbs, samples of kabbalistic script, mnemonic devices and even a riddle (fol. 27r).  Finely executed diagrams illustrate architectural features described in the Talmud, mainly in Tractates Sukkah and Eruvin, and some cruder kabbalistical and astronomical designs are included as well (fols. 48r-63v).  On fol. 27r, the novellae of Rabbi Mordecai Bassan (ca. 1632-1703) are quoted.  Isaac Navarra was the great grandson of Bassan.  Isaac’s brother, Menahem Navarra, was the author of several wedding poems, presently housed in the Jewish Theological Seminary.  The final fifteen leaves of the first manuscript, as well as the entirety of the second manuscript, contain Ibn Ezra’s commentary on Exodus 3:15 (written in Hebrew), with Navarra's own comments in Italian alongside it.