- 118
A Collection of Polemical Texts, Northern Italy, ca. 1700
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Description
- paper, ink
164 leaves (11 x 7 ΒΌ in.; 278 x 183 mm), plus a loose flyleaf with owner's note and pen trials. Written in brown ink on paper in 17th century Italian cursive with marginal notations in an Italian 17th century Hebrew semi-cursive script. Watermark strongly resembling Heawood no.1867 (1695). Edges worn. Three quarter calf over marbled boards; hinges cracked with losses to spine
Catalogue Note
The primary text in this volume is entitled: Dialogo di Controversia tra un Cristiano ed Ebreo (Polemical exchange between a Christian and a Jew, ff. 1r-139v), and is a sharply worded Jewish critique of the Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Written primarily in Italian, the specific biblical verses being discussed are recorded in the margin in Hebrew. Throughout the Middle Ages, Jews engaged in frequent written and oral disputes against Christians concerning the veracity of biblical interpretation, though only a few of the many Christological interpretations of the Hebrew Bible dealt with in this work, appear in these earlier Jewish polemical works. The text of the present volume is topically and structurally similar to Sefer Nizzahon Yashan , written in the 12thcentury, though the material found here adds considerably; furthermore, the author here has employed the dialogue form, a literary innovation not previously used in this type of polemic. This text was unknown to the great Hebrew bibliographer Moritz Steinschneider and there are no other known examples of this text.
The remainder of the manuscript (ff. 140-164) is devoted to several commentaries on the vision of “Seventy Weeks,” in the book of Daniel (9:24-27), in opposition to Christian interpretations of the same passage. Includes original material by Mantuan Rabbi Judah Briel (1643–1722), as well as Briel’s translation into Italian of part of Menasseh ben Israel’s Latin work De Termino Vitae. Steinschneider (op.cit.) records a single exemplar of this last work, though not this manuscript.
LITERATURE:
Simonsohn, Toldot ha-Yehudim be-Duksut Mantova (Hebrew). Jerusalem: 1963-65, vol.II, p. 513.; Moritz Steinschneider, “Die italienische litteratur der Juden, ” Monatsschrift fur Geshichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, no. 44: 1900, p.88.
PROVENANCE:
Tobbia Pontremoli-owner's note on loose flyleaf.
The remainder of the manuscript (ff. 140-164) is devoted to several commentaries on the vision of “Seventy Weeks,” in the book of Daniel (9:24-27), in opposition to Christian interpretations of the same passage. Includes original material by Mantuan Rabbi Judah Briel (1643–1722), as well as Briel’s translation into Italian of part of Menasseh ben Israel’s Latin work De Termino Vitae. Steinschneider (op.cit.) records a single exemplar of this last work, though not this manuscript.
LITERATURE:
Simonsohn, Toldot ha-Yehudim be-Duksut Mantova (Hebrew). Jerusalem: 1963-65, vol.II, p. 513.; Moritz Steinschneider, “Die italienische litteratur der Juden, ” Monatsschrift fur Geshichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, no. 44: 1900, p.88.
PROVENANCE:
Tobbia Pontremoli-owner's note on loose flyleaf.