Mishneh Torah, Sefer Mada', Ahavah, Zemanim, Moses Maimonides, Venice: Andrea Morisini, 1665

191 leaves (7  7/8  x 5  7/8  in.; 200 x 150 mm). collation: (1⁵), 1-46⁴, 47²= 191 leaves. Apparently lacking only f. 2 of the prefatory material with the dedicatory poem of the funder, Joseph Cividale. Cropped, with some sidenotes and running titles shaved. Marginal repairs to a few leaves. Some dampstaining and soiling. Early calf, restored; rebacked, housed in modern calf-edged over marbled paper slipcase.

Vinograd, Venice 1374; Steinschneider 6513, 13; Yehudah L. Avida "Sefer Mishneh Torah le-ha-Rambam ke-Sefer Limud", Areshet 3, 1961, pp. 31-47

The earliest known illustration of Sabbatai Tzvi

Sabbateanism, the belief in the false messiah Sabbetai Tzvi, in the years 1665-1666, was without question, the largest and most momentous messianic movement in Jewish history. On May 31, 1665, goaded by the urgings of his “prophet,” Nathan of Gaza, Sabbetai Tzvi publicly proclaimed himself to be the Messiah. Almost instantly, word began to spread reaching Europe in less than two weeks. For a brief period of time Jews around the world came to believe that the long awaited Messianic redemption was finally at hand. When Shabbetai arrived in Istanbul in January,1666, he was arrested as a rebel and imprisoned in Gallipoli. Forced by the Sultan to choose between conversion or death, he became a Moslem, and apparently remained so until his death in 1676. The news devastated his supporters, many of whom instantly lost their faith. But astonishingly, many others remained loyal to Shabbetai, leading to an enduring crisis for world Jewry, whose echoes would reverberate well into the modern era. In the century immediately following the disconfirmation of Sabbetai’s messiahship, those who continued to believe in him were universally labeled as heretics by the repentant Jewish establishment.

The present work was printed by Domenego Vedelago under the patronage of Andrea Morisini and funded by Joseph Cividale. Vedelago also printed books for the houses of Bragadin and Vendramin. Virtually all the other Hebrew books printed by Vedelago in his decades as a Venetian pressman, frames the title page, surrounding the descriptive text with either elaborate architectural gateways or by the use of typographic elements serving as borders. Only in the present volume was that consistency abandoned. Here, obviously in haste, Vedelago added a woodblock print of a turbaned Sabbetai Tzvi  riding upon a lion from whose mouth flames emanate, the exact imagery called for in Nathan of Gaza’s famous epistle to the Jewish masses of Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Looking at the crude way in which the typesetters added the woodcut image atop the letterpress title page, it is clear that the Sabbatian image was a last-minute addition to a book which had doubtlessly been well along in its production before the Sabbatian revelation a few weeks prior.

Furthermore, the colophon, which appears at the end of the volume of this edition of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah gives the date of the conclusion of the printing as June 4, 1665, using the unmistakably messianic chronogram bi-shenat Mashiah Nagid (in the year of the anointed one-the prince,) itself a phrase plucked from an overtly messianic passage in the book of Daniel (9:25).

The present work is also important insofar as the printing history of Maimonidean editions. The editor presents a cogently reasoned argument for the innovation of including the “Laws of Forbidden Foods,” which are appended after the text of Z’manim, and the concurrent removal of the “Laws of Consecrating the New Moon.” The printing of the work was funded by Joseph Cividale Zemel, who went to great lengths to procure the highest quality paper and ink and according to the colophon of the pressman, Venturin ben David, even participated in supervising the editorial process. Joseph's son Menahem is known to have been the donor of the magnificent Torah Ark in the Scuola Tedesca (Ashkenazic synagogue) in Venice.

Most copies of printed books that made textual or visual reference to Sabbatai Zevi on either their title pages or in their colophons were subsequently destroyed or at the very least had the offending passages excised, so as not to perpetuate the embarrassing memory of the degree to which the now proven to be false messiah had intoxicated the Jewish masses. The same fate is true of this book; rare to find at all, copies with intact title pages are virtually non-existent. OCLC records only a single copy at Harvard’s Houghton Library and the title page is severely damaged.

An early inscription in the volume indicates its ownership by Abraham Solomon ben Moses Moscato.