Kabbalistic Milah Book [Italy, ca. 1730]

96 leaves (6 3/4 x 5 1/4 in.; 171 x 133 mm). Including 58 blanks at end; ff. 1-30 (f. 30 blank) and final 58 blanks with elaborate printed frames. Written in Hebrew in Italianate square and semicursive scripts; framed leaves unruled; ff. 31-38 unframed, different paper, blind ruled in hardpoint; modern pagination in pencil through f. 38. Single illustration, f. 1r, a crest comprising two lions rampant supporting a fruit-bearing tree. Some browning from ink biting, holed only on f. 28; lightly soiled; several quires cracked at hinges; cellophane tape repair inside upper board at hinge. Sprinkled calf, blind tooled double fillet; cellophane tape repair to spine; rubbed.

All but eight of the 96 leaves in this manuscript feature a printed decorative frame within which the text was introduced. The scribe elected to illustrate the initial leaf with a crest featuring lions rampant supporting a fruit tree.  Spare ground remains above and below the illustration, indicating that there may have been an original intention to insert titular text here as well. Folios 2-28 comprise a kabbalistic circumcision manual rife with sefirotic references, the use of both angelic and Divine Names, numinous kavvanot (intentions) and a variety of mystical nostrums (see f 16r.)  Folios 29-37 are in a different contemporary hand and ff. 31-38 are written on different and unframed paper stock. The texts in both sections however exude the mystical underpinning that permeates this early eighteenth century example of a milah book. Numerous kabbalistic rabbis are cited and quoted including Menahem Azariah of Fano (1548-1620), Samuel Aboab (1610-1694), Israel Sarug (d. ca. 1610), and Moses Zacuto (1625-1697) as well as the famous physician Benjamin Sha'ar Aryeh ( Portaleone, d. ca. 1683).

In addition to the characteristic early eighteenth century Italianate semi-cursive Hebrew scripts used by the scribes of this work, a textual reference further supports the dating of this manuscript to the first half of the eighteenth century. The present manuscript contains a pair of references to the noted kabbalist, Benjamin ben Eliezer ha-Kohen Vitale of Reggio (1651-1730.)  Both references (ff. 5v, 33r; one in each section) are followed by an abbreviation indicating that Benjamin was still alive at the time the manuscript was created. This is of course in marked contrast to the other authorities cited in the present manuscript, all of whose names are followed by a memorializing abbreviation indicating that they were no longer numbered among the living.