Sefer ha-Shorashim (Book of Roots), David Kimhi [Spain: ca. 1400]

270 leaves (10 1/8 x 7 1/2 in.; 260 x 190 mm). Written in brown ink on paper in a Sephardic semicursive Hebrew script with partial vocalization (scriptural quotations only).  Six leaves, ff. 1-2,18-25, 269-70 in a different, later hand; ff. 16-17, 15 misbound and should be between ff. 2-3; several pairs of leaves reversed (ff. 8-9, 145-46, 186-187, 190-189); f. 236 misbound and should be between ff. 267-68. Tape repairs ff. 2-4, 14-17 affecting text; a few later tape repairs, ocassionally affecting text; tears f. 43, 132;  corner f. 204 torn off but present. Edges speckled green. Modern 3/4 polished calf. Gilt titles on spine. Rubbed.

Said ibn Daud ibn Yitzhak Rahim Gershom al-Kohen- his inscription on f. 270v.; Yosef ibn Moshe ibn Yitzhak-his signature and inscription on f. 1r, 2r and 270v.

An important early manuscript of David Kimhi's grammatical magnum opus

Rabbi David Kimhi (1160?-1135?), also known by the acronym RaDaK, was the most prominent grammarian of the Hebrew language in the medieval period, surpassing all others in simplicity, comprehensiveness, and methodical presentation of the subject matter.  Kimhi was born in Provence after his father fled the Almohade persecutions in Spain. Both his father and brother were accomplished grammarians in their own right and David Kimhi's own philological writings would owe a great deal to their early influence.

This work was originally part of a longer grammatical treatise, called Mikhlol. The first section, Helek ha-Dikduk (grammar) retained that title, while the second section, Helek ha-Inyan (lexicon), would become known as Sefer ha-Shorashim, a glossary of Hebrew and Aramaic words. The title derives from the layout of the text, where the root letters of individual words are written in large bold letters followed by philological explanations and biblical citations. It was due to the popularity of both Mikhlol and Sefer ha-Shorashim that most of the works of Kimhi's predecessors fell into disuse.  Circulating in manuscripts such as the present lot for more than three centuries after his death, Kimhi's philological writings became the primary grammatical text for the study of Hebrew and biblical vocabulary for centuries to come.

In addition to the characteristic Sephardic script in which this manuscript is written, an examination of Briquet's Les Filigranes reveals that the watermarks embedded within the paper most closely resemble those found in a series of papers produced between 1353-1390 (Lettre. N.; no. 8427).

The present manuscript contains text not found in the 1490 Naples edition.