Jacob ben Asher

Sefer Orah Hayyim (The Path of Life). [Híjar: Eliezer ben Abraham Alantansi], Elul 5245 (between Fri. 12 August and Fri. 9 September 1485)



Chancery folio (12 x 8 5/8 in.; 304 x 220 mm). Types 1:230 (sq.), 2:117 (sc.); metalcut (?) printer's device, printed in red and black (Thes B8.2). 34 lines (table in double columns). collation: [1–17^{10]: 165 (of 170 leaves); lacking the three blank leaves 1, 108 (11/8) and 170, and fols. 2 and 9 (within table), the sheets signed sequentially, 1–84, starting with the second sheet, first eight and final ten leaves remargined, marginal stains on most leaves and a few tears, some roughly repaired, but a very tall copy (British Library: 294 x 213 mm), with strong paper. Modern cream leatherette; edges plain.}

Offenberg 65; Goff Heb-51; Hain 1882 (pt. I); Steinschneider 5500.21; Thes B8; Iakerson 93; BMC XIII 86 (C.50.d.4)

Sefer Orah Hayyim (The Path of Life). [Híjar: Eliezer ben Abraham Alantansi], Elul 5245 (between Fri. 12 August and Fri. 9 September 1485) Chancery folio (12 x 8 5/8 in.; 304 x 220 mm). Types 1:230 (sq.), 2:117 (sc.); metalcut (?) printer's device, printed in red and black (Thes B8.2). 34 lines (table in double columns). collation: [1–1710]: 165 (of 170 leaves); lacking the three blank leaves 1, 108 (11/8) and 170, and fols. 2 and 9 (within table), the sheets signed sequentially, 1–84, starting with the second sheet, first eight and final ten leaves remargined, marginal stains on most leaves and a few tears, some roughly repaired, but a very tall copy (British Library: 294 x 213 mm), with strong paper. Modern cream leatherette; edges plain.
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the first book printed in híjar, the first hebrew book with a printer's device. The device, a rampant lion within a shield, though widely recognized, has not been fully explained. Although it is commonly called a woodcut, the small rampant lion may well rather have been cut in metal. The shield proper is a simple broad-banded outline, strikingly printed in red in its first use (in black only in two other uses, Offenberg 72 and 16), and being a flat surface provides little clue to its material. In this first use, there is no printer's name; in the second use (see lot 44) Alantansi's name appears; in the third use, a magnificent Pentateuch with Targum Onkelos and Rashi's commentary, dated Av (August–September) 1490, Alantansi's name does not appear, but rather that of the financier of the edition, the banker Solomon ben Maimon Zalmati, who is known also as an investor in Christian printing in Valencia, 1483. It is therefore not impossible that the device represented Zalmati and not Alantansi.

The Orah Hayyim is the first of the four tracts or "rows" of Jacob ben Asher's full code of law, the Arba'ah Turim (Four rows). There are early separate editions of each of the four tracts, the editio princeps of the Orah Hayyim being that printed by Abraham Conat in Mantua, 6 June 1476 (Offfenberg 64).