Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation), Mantua: Jacob ben Naphtali ha-Kohen of Gazzuolo, 1562

105 folios (7 1/2 x 5 1/2 in.; 190 x 140 mm). Numerous spherical charts and Kabbalistic diagrams; lacking only the additional illustrated leaf, absent in most copies. Title set within architectural frame; stained, shaved, mounted, losses to imagery refreshed in manuscript; a few other minor marginal losses, almost all with sympathetic paper repairs; owners' notations on title page and elsewhere (see main cataloging note). Modern brown morocco, tooled to period style, with diapered panel. 

Abraham Yakhini-his handwritten notes in several places in the margins. The book was in his possession no later than 1676.

first edition

the copy of abraham yakhini, proclaimed "king of israel" by shabbetai tzvi

Called "the earliest extant Hebrew text of systematic speculative thought" by Gershom Scholem, the father of modern Kabbalistic scholarship, the Sefer Yetzirah, is the most esoteric of all Kabbalistic texts and certainly the most influential. The central subject of the Sefer Yetzirah is a compact discourse on cosmogony. It opens with the declaration that God created the world with "thirty-two secret paths of wisdom." These paths are defined as the ten Sefirot and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The first chapter elaborates upon the Sefirot and the remaining five chapters on the function of the letters. In Talmudic times, it was believed that the Sefer Yetzirah could be used to create life. The first edition includes the traditional commentaries of Nahmanides (Ramban) and David of Posquieres (Ra'avad). 

Abraham ben Elijah Yakhini (1617–1682), was a kabbalist and preacher who rose to be a leader of the Sabbatean movement.  In the autumn of 1665 Yakhini joined the "believers" in the new Messiah, soon rising to become the movement's leading disciple and major spokesman in Constantinople. When Abraham traveled to Smyrna to meet with Shabbetai Tzvi, the latter appointed him to be a "King of Israel". Yakhini remained firmly entrenched in his belief even after Shabbetai Tzvi's apostasy and maintained personal contact and corresponded with Tzvi until his death in 1676. In the marginal notations in this work, Yakhini discusses having asked the Holy Master [i.e Shabbetai Tzvi] about the correct interpretation of a Talmudic passage concerning astrology.