Sefer ha-Mahbarot, Immanuel ha-Romi ( Book of Collected Writings, Immanuel of Rome), Brescia: Gershom ben Moses Soncino, 1491

Offenberg, Census, 58; Iakerson, JTS 66; Goff Heb 43; Fabian Alfie, "Immanuel of Rome, Alias Manoello Giudeo: The Poetics of Jewish Identity in Fourteenth-Century Italy." Italica, Vol. 75, No. 3. (Autumn, 1998), pp. 307-329.

Sefer ha-Mahbarot, is the most important work of Immanuel ben Solomon of Rome (ca. 1261-1328), poet, scholar and author of both Hebrew and Italian texts.  Combining poetry and prose on subjects as diverse as love, wine, and friendship, with satires, epistles, elegies and religious poems, Sefer ha-Mahbarot represents a unique example of the blending of traditional Jewish and secular Italian literature that characterized much of the Jewish literary output during the Italian Renaissance.  With his linguistic artistry and use of skillful wordplay, Immanuel sets a tone that is generally light-hearted and witty in twenty eight chapters that combine poetry and prose on subjects as diverse as love, wine, and friendship, with satires, epistles, elegies and religious poems. In fact, the liturgical poem based on Maimonides' thirteen principles of faith,Yigdal, is an abridged adaptation of a poem by Immanuel included in the fourth chapter of this work.

The last chapter of the work is based on Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and portrays the prophet Daniel leading Immanuel to Tophet (Hell) and Eden (Heaven). In this chapter, Immanuel, by composing a Jewish response to Dante's Christian Commedia, firmly situates himself in both the Hebrew and Italian literary traditions. The prohibition cited in the legal code Shulhan Arukh which explicitly forbids the reading of this book due to its secular and sometimes erotic imagery, had little effect on the popularity of Immanuel's work, resulting in its inclusion among the corpus of Hebrew incunabula.

Sefer ha-Mahbarot was the first Hebrew book printed by Gershom Soncino in Brescia, the site of his second press.  Soncino became the greatest of the pioneers of Hebrew printing and may be credited with numerous firsts, both in style and in content, including: the first illustrated Hebrew book, Meshal ha-Kadmoni (Brescia, 1491); and the first Hebrew book with a title page, Sefer ha-Rokeah (Fano, 1505).  The only printer of Hebrew incunabula to continue his printing activities into the sixteenth century, Gershom printed in at least a dozen cities, often signing his name Ger-Sham (a temporary sojourner). In total, his extraordinary productivity included the printing of nearly one hundred Hebrew titles and perhaps as many non-Hebrew ones.