Jacob ben Asher

Arba'ah Turim [part I]: Tur Orah Hayyim (The Path of Life). Constantinople: David and Samuel Ibn Nahmias, 4 Tevet 5254 (Fri. 13 December 1493)



Chancery folio (11 3/8 x 7½ in., 288 x 192 mm). Types 1:230 (sq.), 2:91 (sc.). Metalcut initial (Thes C1.1). Double column, 49 lines. collation: [1–2^{8 38 (+3*) 4–128 13–146]: 107 (of 109) leaves, lacking only the two blanks, fols. 1 and 109, sheets numbered sequentially, with numerous errors; fols. 2–11 with repaired frayed margins causing some losses to words, many other leaves with repaired margins, most leaves browned and stained, on fol. 108r, the last line of column a is mostly obscured by a paper repair, other crude repairs with cellotape, headlines added by an early reader. Twentieth-century black buckram.}

Offenberg 63; Goff Heb-49; Steinschneider 5500.3; Thes C1; Iakerson 125; BMC XIII 106 (C.50.d.21). See A. K. Offenberg, A Choice of Corals (Nieuwkoop, 1992), ch. V: "The First Book Printed at Constantinople", and, "The Printing History of the Constantinople Hebrew Incunable of 1493: A Mediterranean Voyage of Discovery," British Library Journal 22 (1996), 221–35.

Arba'ah Turim [part I]: Tur Orah Hayyim (The Path of Life). Constantinople: David and Samuel Ibn Nahmias, 4 Tevet 5254 (Fri. 13 December 1493) Chancery folio (11 3/8 x 7½ in., 288 x 192 mm). Types 1:230 (sq.), 2:91 (sc.). Metalcut initial (Thes C1.1). Double column, 49 lines. collation: [1–28 38 (+3*) 4–128 13–146]: 107 (of 109) leaves, lacking only the two blanks, fols. 1 and 109, sheets numbered sequentially, with numerous errors; fos. 2–11 with repaired frayed margins causing some losses to words, many other leaves with repaired margins, most leaves browned and stained, on fol. 108r, the last line of column a is mostly obscured by a paper repair, other crude repairs with cellotape, headlines added by an early reader. Twentieth-century black buckram.
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The first book printed in constantinople, the only incunable printed outside christian europe. Although the names of the brother Nahmias first appear in the colophon of this book (pt. IV), it seems clear that they had migrated from Spain after the edict of expulsion, which ordered all Jews out of the kingdom by the end of July 1492. It similarly seems very probable that they had been in Naples along the way. Their large fount is identical to one used by Eliezer Alantansi in Híjar, and their text fount is apparently a fount of Joshua Solomon Soncino in Naples.

The colophon states explicitly that the work was completed on Friday, 4 Tevet 5254 (=13 December 1493). There is however, a hiatus of twelve years between the Arba'ah Turim and the next Constantinople dated imprints, and for a long time there were many who did not accept its classification among Hebrew Incunabula. Some bibliographers, including Steinschneider, resisted the idea that the work could have been completed as early as indicated, choosing instead to proceed under the supposition that the date of the publication as recorded in the colophon represented a printer's error. Defending the authenticity of the colophon date were the enlightenment philosopher Christian Wolff and more recently the prominent American Jewish bibliographers, Alexander and Moses Marx, who believed that the 1493 date was indeed accurate. Recently, A.K. Offenberg proved conclusively, by means of a scientific analysis of both the paper and type, that the Constantinople Arba'ah Turim was indeed printed by the ibn Nahmias press in 1493 as stated in the colophon.