Shulhan Arukh, Joseph Caro, Venice: Giovanni Gryphio,1567

Estimate

18,000 - 22,000 USD

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Description

226 leaves (13 1/4 x 9 3/8 in.; 335 x 238 mm). Collation: 1-9^{6, 10^{4; 1-8^{6, 9^{4; 1-5^{6, 6^{4; 1-12^{6 = 226 leaves. Foliation: 1-61 (1), 1-57 (1), 1-34, 1- 71 (1)= 226 leaves, including original blanks. Four parts in one volume; printer's device on each of the four title pages. Initial word panels within decorative woodcut frames. First title page repaired and strengthened; pt. 1, f.2 marginal tape repair; pt. 4, f.8 loose, several other leaves precarious; final two leaves holed with lacunae adhering to adjacent leaves. Dampstaining. Lightly wormed in final quires. Censor's signature (Domenico Irosolomitano, 1598) on verso of final leaf. Half vellum with 19th century marbled paper boards, rear board dampstained, spotted, and creased. This lot includes 12 leaves from 6 other Hebrew printed books including a number of rare leaves, unknown to bibliographers.}}}}}}}

Provenance

Moise Marco Segre; Abraham David Segre; Shimon Hayyim Montel; Michel (Samson) Lattes--ownership inscriptions on endpapers and title page.

Literature

Vinograd, Venice 552.

Catalogue Note

second edition: the first folio edition of the single most influential and authoritative digest of halakha

A little more than a year after the press of Alvise Bragadin published the first edition of the Shulhan Arukh in 1565, two other Venetian printers scrambled to produce their own versions in order to capitalize on the work's great popularity. Both Giovanni Gryphio and Giorgio di Cavalli decided to produce folio editions, presumably in the belief that the larger format was more prestigious and would achieve commercial success. The present lot, Gryphio's edition, was completed in April of 1567, a full three months before the competing edition of di Cavalli.

The Shulhan Arukh is an abridgement of Caro's magnum opus, the Beit Yosef (see previous lot.) Owing to its halakhic intricacy, the Beit Yosef remained inaccessible to all but the most learned scholars. Although the Beit Yosef was written to render the vast Talmudic literature more accessible and to present it in a topical and organized fashion, it is rife with extensive halakhic, theological and philosophical discussions as well as aggadic and kabbalistic content. A boon to scholars, the Beit Yosef did little to provide a ready reference to the practical application of Jewish law. Accordingly, Caro therefore composed the Shulhan Arukh as a digest of the Beit Yosef, maintaining the four-part division he had borrowed from the Arba'ah Turim of Jacob ben Asher.