Joseph Albo

Sefer ha-Ikkarim (Book of the Principles of Faith). Soncino: [Joshua Solomon Soncino], 22 Marheshvan–21 Tevet 5246 (31 October to 29 December 1485)



Chancery folio (11½ x 8 in.; 293 x 205 mm).  Types 1:240 (sq.: fo. 8v only); 2:90 (sq.); 3:90 (sc.); 5:88 (sc.: used in the 2nd and 5th quires). Metalcut initials of two sizes (Thes A32.1-2). collation: 1–2^{8 36 4–138 146: 108 leaves, complete;  scattered annotations in several early hands, many words and passages censored; first and last leaves remargined, the latter supplied from another copy, as also fols. 56–68 (8/2–4), a tall copy. Early nineteenth-century vellum, yapp edges, gilt roan spine label, edges plain.}

Joseph ben Elijah Delmedigo, 1591–1655 (inscription on blank fol. 1r, with that of a presumed kinsman Judah). Censors' signatures of Domenico Irosolomitano, 1597, Giovanni Dominico Carretto, 1618, and Isaiah of Rome, 1623

Offenberg 3; Goff Heb-64; Hain 606; Steinschneider 5882.1; Thes A32; Iakerson 27; BMC XIII 36 (C.50.d.15)

Sefer ha-Ikkarim (Book of the Principles of Faith). Soncino: [Joshua Solomon Soncino], 22 Marheshvan–21 Tevet 5246 (31 October to 29 December 1485) Chancery folio (11½ x 8 in.; 293 x 205 mm). Types 1:240 (sq.: fo. 8v only); 2:90 (sq.); 3:90 (sc.); 5:88 (sc.: used in the 2nd and 5th quires). Metalcut initials of two sizes (Thes A32.1-2). collation: 1–28 36 4–138 146: 108 leaves, complete; scattered annotations in several early hands, many words and passages censored; first and last leaves remargined, the latter supplied from another copy, as also fols. 56–68 (8/2–4), a tall copy. Early nineteenth-century vellum, yapp edges, gilt roan spine label, edges plain.
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First edition, followed by numerous sixteenth-century reprints. The philosopher Joseph Albo flourished in Spain between 1413, when he participated in the Disputation of Tortosa, and 1433. The authorial colophon of Sefer ha-Ikkarim records its completion at Soria, 1425. The colophon of this edition closes with a paraphrase of the famous verse of Isaiah 2:3, "for out of Zion shall go forth the Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem", which Joshua Soncino changed to: "and the word of the Lord from Soncino." The printer's preface states that the edition was begun on 22 Marheshvan (31 October), and the colophon that it was finished on 21 Tevet (29 December), an interval of eight and a half weeks. As this is a work of 54 sheets, it can be calculated that the average production rate was almost exactly one sheet (four pages) per day, given a six-day work week.

A long section of book III of Sefer ha-Ikkarim, fols. 56–58 in this edition, was taken to be anti-Christian, and the papal censors removed the leaves from a large proportion of the surviving copies. This is specifically alluded to in the Book of Expurgation compiled by Domenico Irosolomitano, of which several manuscript copies are known: Domenico wrote of part III ch. 25 of the Sefer ha-Ikkarim that it was proper to obliterate the entire chapter, "or better still, to tear it out of the book" (William Popper, The Censorship of Hebrew Books [1899], p. 85).

This copy is of distinguished provenance, having belonged to Joseph ben Elijah Delmedigo (1591-1655), the polymath scholar and philosopher of Candia, who was current with the great astronomical discoveries of his age, and referred in one of his writings to "my teacher Galileo." In the last four decades of his life Delmedigo travelled widely, from Cairo and Constantinople to Prague, Vilnius, Hamburg, Amsterdam (where he was befriended by Manasseh ben Israel, who published his book Elim in 1629), and finally Frankfurt.