Leshon Limmudim, David ben Solomon ibn Yahya, Constantinople, David and Samuel ibn Nahmias:1506

60 leaves (8 x 5 ½ in.; 203 x 140 mm).  Metalcut title border; tear in upper inner corner of second leaf affecting several letters of text, rust stains in upper portion of four leaves, bottom margin of f. 10 cut away, occasional spotting and dampstaining, bottom margin of last leaf renewed causing tear, other marginal mends. Eighteenth-century quarter sheep and decorated paper boards; backstrip wormed, hinges broken.

Vinograd, Constantinople 10; Yaari, Constantinople 4

60 (8 x 5 ½ in.; 203 x 140 mm). Metalcut title border; tear in upper inner corner of second leaf affecting several letters of text, rust stains in upper portion of four leaves, bottom margin of f.10 cut away, occasional spotting and dampstaining, bottom margin of last leaf renewed causing tear, other marginal mends. Eighteenth-century quarter sheep and decorated paper boards; backstrip wormed, hinges broken.
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David ben Solomon ibn Yahya, was appointed rabbi in his native Lisbon in 1477.  As a result of his efforts on behalf of the Spanish exiles who arrived in great numbers in Portugal after the Spanish Expulsion of 1492, ibn Yahya was denounced before the Portuguese king. He managed to escape with his family to Naples only to have all his possessions confiscated by the French in the invasion of 1494. After being expelled to the island of Corfu, ibn Yahya eventually settled in Constantinople where he was able to publish Leshon Limmudim, the text of which was written before his flight from Lisbon. The work provides the rules of Hebrew grammar in a concise format and was originally composed as a tutorial for the author's cousin and pupil, David ben Joseph ibn Yahya (1465-1543), who prepared an abridgment, printed in Rome in 1540. Following the text of Leshon Limmudim is a work on prosody entitled Shekel ha-Kodesh. Originally attributed to David ibn Yahya, it is now believed to have been written by Solomon ben Jacob Almoli (c. 1485-c. 1542).

The first page of Leshon Limmudim is set within the delicate decorative border first used in Hijar, Spain and created by the silversmith, Alfonso Fernández de Córdoba of Valencia. Through de Córdoba's prior association with Solomon ben Maimon Zalmati the frame came into the possession of Eliezer ben Abraham ibn Alantansi who used it in the earliest Hebrew book to have a border (Bible, Hijar, 1486-89). The border next became the property of Eliezer Toledano in Lisbon, who used it with several books, among them Moses ben Nahman's (Nahmanides) Torah commentary and the Abudarham (1489), in that location, before it came to Constantinople where it was used extensively in the books printed at the ibn Nahmias press. Leshon Limmudim was the last book to use this frame.