Sefer ha-Mitzvot (Book of the Commandments), Moses Maimonides; Translated from Judeo-Arabic by Moses ibn Tibbon, Constantinople: [1515]

68 leaves (8 3/8 x 6 in.; 213 x 152 mm). Woodcut initial; water-stained on title and in some margins affecting text, tear in lower margin of last leaf without loss. Eighteenth-century sheep, blind-tooled in a panel design with lozenges in central panel; rear board loosening, edges and backstrip dry and worn.

Vinograd, Const. 63; Yaari, Const. 80; Mehlman 763; Steinschneider 6513, 62

68 leaves (8 3/8 x 6 in.; 213 x 152 mm). Woodcut initial; water-stained on title and in some margins affecting text, tear in lower margin of last leaf without loss. Eighteenth-century sheep, blind-tooled in a panel design with lozenges in central panel; rear board loosening, edges and backstrip dry and worn.
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first edition

A Talmudic passage in Tractate Makkot attributed to the third century sage, Rabbi Simlai, is the earliest recorded source for the traditional view that "613 commandments were revealed to Moses at Sinai, 365 being prohibitions equal in number to the solar days, and 248 being mandates corresponding in number to the limbs of the human body." In the twelfth century, Moses Maimonides, having found previous attempts at enumerating the traditional 613 commandments unsatisfactory, arranged his own calculation of positive and negative precepts. Maimonides was severely critical of the work of his predecessors, including the Halakhot Gedolot and liturgical poets like Solomon ibn Gabirol, who composed the Azharot, religious hymns based on the enumeration of the commandments. Maimonides sharp criticism of the Halakhot Gedolot was in turn roundly criticized by Nahmanides, a staunch apologist "for the ancients," in the latter's Hassagot (see lot 63).