Mahzor mi-Kol ha-Shana…ke-Minhag ha-Ashkenazim (Festival Prayer Book for the Entire Year, Ashkenazic Rite), Sabbioneta/Cremona, Tobias Foa/Vicenzo Conti: 1556-1560

394 leaves (7 ¼ x 4 ¾ in.; 185 x 120 mm). COLLATION: 1-984, 992=394 leaves; FOLIATION: [1], 2-392, [2]= 394 leaves. Title within elaborate decorated frame; cropped, affecting frame at upper margin and fore- edge; some running titles also shaved; f.1v with printer’s mark of Tobias Foa (Yaari, Hebrew Printers’ Marks, no. 21); decorated initial word panels: ff. 4r (x2), 193r, 225r, 287r, 295r, 303v (x2), 368r, 372v, 377r, 389v. Censored and stained; numerous leaves strengthened at gutter; repairs, occasionally affecting text; f. 332, lower portion replaced in facsimile. Later three quarter vellum; gilt stamped ornaments and titles, over marbled paper.

Vinograd, Sabbioneta 42; Benayahu, Ha-Defus ha-’Ivri be-Cremona, #28 (pp.213-15) as well as his extended essay there on pp. 139-178.

The printing of this Mahzor according to the Ashkenazic rite spanned a period of nearly four years, two printers and three Italian cities. Begun in Sabbioneta in November of 1556 in the print shop of Tobias Foa, it was finally completed  in September of 1560, by Vicenzo Conti, printer of Hebrew books in Cremona. From a typographical perspective, the prayerbook remains somewhat of a mystery despite the concerted efforts made by some of the greatest bibliographers of the Hebrew book. Perhaps the most cogent explanation is offered by Meir Benayahu in his monograph on Hebrew printing in Cremona.

According to Benayahu, whose meticulous examination, including measurements and analysis of the various founts, decorative frames, line spacing, etc, extends for 40 pages, we can assert the following. Of the 99 quires that make up the mahzor, quires 1-36 and 38-39, were printed by Foa in Sabbioneta, within the first four months of production before it was inexplicably put aside until Foa’s shop was shuttered in April of 1559. It remains unclear whether Foa transferred his founts to Conti at that time or sometime before. We can ascertain, says Benayahu that quires 40-99 were executed by Conti in Cremona (surprisingly, Benayahu even maintains that in some copies, quires 37-38 were printed in Venice!) It is unclear when Conti took over the work or how long he labored at it but it is clear from his own testimony in the colophon that he did not have an easy time and finally admitted that the endeavor could no longer continue: “not from meanness or stinginess have I delayed, God forbid, rather I saw that the very stars in the heavens fought against me until I arrived at the haven of the end of the year, and said in my heart, ‘I will follow the reapers’ [put an end to the project].” The Mahzor was completed on the eve of Rosh ha-Shana 5361.