Beur al ha-Torah (Commentary on the Pentateuch), Bahya ben Asher ben Hlava, Pesaro, Gershom Soncino: 1507

286 leaves (11 3/4 x 8 1/4 in.; 300 x 210 mm). COLLATION: 1-9⁸, 10¹⁰, 11-35⁸, 36⁴ = 286 leaves; modern [mis]FOLIATION in pencil: 1-142, 144-287= 286 leaves. Printed in two columns in square Hebrew type, opening pages of Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus within elaborate woodcut frames; initial word panels comprising individual woodcut letter blocks, ff. 1v, 2v, 150v. Title page lightly soiled; some staining, mostly marginal; a few scattered tears, some marginal, repaired with translucent paper tape, text still legible; some leaves strengthened at gutter; f.65 cropped, not affecting text; very lightly wormed in final quires, affecting single a few letters only; ex-library stamp, ff.1v, 286v; nstances of censorship. Censors' notations, ff. 286v-287r:, Dominico Irosolomitano, 1597; Giovanni Dominico Carretto 1617; Girolamo da Durallano, 1640; scholarly noatations f. 287v. Modern blind-tooled tan morocco over heavy wooden boards, wear at  upper front joint at head, plaited leather straps, one torn; brass clasps and catches.

Ex- Schocken copy

Vinograd Pesaro 1; Steinschneider, C.B. 4525, 2.

THE FIRST HEBREW BOOK PRINTED IN PESARO

Bahya ben Asher ben Hlava was a 13th century exegete, preacher, and kabbalist who lived in Saragossa and penned his commentary on the Pentateuch in 1291. Bahya's Be’ur al ha-Torah consciously makes use of four interpretive methods: literal, homiletical, rational, and kabbalistic. Its clarity and easy exposition led to its extreme popularity and resulted in its being frequently republished. Printed twice during the incunabular period (Naples, 1492 and Portugal, 1497), it has been reprinted more than twenty times since and has been the subject of at least ten supercommentaries.

The title page of this edition is undecorated though the opening pages of Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus are each presented within elaborate woodcut frames. The first two of these frames were originally cut for the Decachordum, a non-Jewish book published by Gershom Soncino later that year, in Fano. The frames from the Decachordum were subsequently used by Gershom’s son, Eliezer Soncino, and then by Moses ben Eliezer Parnas, who acquired the Soncino press, being employed in Constantinople into the mid-sixteenth century. The frame used for the first page of Leviticus in the present lot, however, is not from the Decachordum, but is found in several other works printed by Gershom. These highly decorative border frames continued to appear in many of Gershom's subsequent imprints in the various locations in which he printed. The present copy was formerly in the collection of Salman Schocken.