Rothschild Miscellany, Facsimile Edition with Accompanying Commentary Volume, London: Facsimile Editions, 1989

FACSIMILE VOLUME: 474 folios (8 1/4 x 6 1/8 in.; 210 x 156 mm), plus the unbound limitation page (#102 of 500 numbered, and 50 ad personam). 816 hand-illuminated pages. Printed by 12-color offset lithography on specially milled Italian, fine, neutral pH, vegetable parchment paper, each leaf shaped and aged. Fine-grain blind-tooled morocco secured by four silver clasps on morocco thongs; attached by silver nails. Housed in a cloth-bound hinged slipcase edged in morocco.  COMMENTARY VOLUME: 256 pages (46 in color) printed on mould-made cold-pressed Magnani 160gsm paper. Bound in blind-tooled morocco goatskin and housed in a cloth covered slipcase to match the facsimile.

AN EXQUISITE FACSIMILE OF THE MOST ELEGANTLY AND LAVISHLY ILLUSTRATED HEBREW MANUSCRIPT OF ANY ERA AND THE FINEST FACSIMILE EVER CREATED OF ANY HEBREW MANUSCRIPT

Commissioned by Moses ben Yekuthiel Hakohen and executed in northern Italy in 1479, The Rothschild Miscellany is the most elegantly and lavishly executed Hebrew manuscript of that (and perhaps, any) era. The Rothschild Miscellany consists of at least 37 main religious and secular texts. These include biblical works, liturgies and rabbinic writings as well as philosophical, moralistic and scientific treatises. There are at least 15 additional marginal texts comprising commentaries, glosses and other material. The large collection of miscellaneous texts became the framework for an unprecedented program of illumination. It contains a wealth of material illustrating almost every custom of daily life in a Jewish Renaissance household. No other Hebrew manuscript equals the richness and scope of the illumination of this Miscellany which includes over 800 illuminated pages. In 1989, Michael and Linda Falter of Facsimile Editions produced what is unequivocally the finest facsimile ever created of a Hebrew manuscript of the Italian Renaissance period. The facsimile is accompanied by a companion volume with learned essays by the leading scholars of Jewish history, art history, paleography and codicology.