Babylonian Talmud, Venice: Daniel Bomberg, Tractate Menahot, 1522, with Hilkhot Ketannot, 1522

2 tractates (14 1/2 x 10 1/8 in.; 367 x 257 mm):

Menahot: 110 of 112 folios (collation: i-xiii⁸, xiv⁶ [lacking only the Piskei tosafot in xv²]) on paper. Woodcut initial word panel; enlarged incipits; title with owner’s inkstamp; intermittent marginalia and pen trials. Marginal loss on title, not affecting text and repaired; two small holes on title; small hole affecting a few letters on f. 17; tape repair on f. 30 affecting some text; slight damage to outer edge of f. 33; tape repair along outer edge of f. 104.



Halakhot ketannot: 16 of 16 folios (collation: i-ii⁸) on paper. Enlarged incipits; sales note on title.



Trace worming, rarely affecting text and sometimes repaired; leaves sometimes reinforced and lightly dampstained along gutter; dampstaining in margins throughout. Later three-quarter cloth over paper; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.

Menahot (Meal Offerings), part of the mishnaic order of Kodoshim, deals with the issues surrounding the various sacrifices of grain brought in the Temple, including the ingredients of the offerings (flour, oil, wine, etc.), the manner in which they were processed and prepared, and detailed discussions of the halakhot specific to certain types of meal offerings. Along the way, valuable information is transmitted on the laws of mezuzah, tefillin, and tsitsit and on the liquid and dry measures used in the Temple. The rare, two-folio Piskei tosafot appendix is absent from this copy, as from many others.

Halakhot (here spelled Hilkhot) ketannot (Short Laws) comprises the pesakim (halakhic decisions) and comments of Rabbi Asher ben Jehiel (Rosh; ca. 1250-1327) on the laws of Torah scrolls, mezuzah, tefillin, tsitsit, tum’at kohanim, hallah, kil’ayim, and orlah. Rosh’s discussions often take into consideration not only talmudic statements, but also the rulings of previous authorities, especially those of the Tosafists. Bomberg’s decision to include Halakhot ketannot in his first edition of the Babylonian Talmud influenced most subsequent printers to do the same.

Provenance

Menahot:

Joseph (f. 1r)

Halakhot ketannot:

[?] ben Moses (f. 1r)

Literature

A.M. Habermann, Ha-madpis daniyyel bombirgi u-reshimat sifrei beit defuso (Safed: The Museum of Printing Art, 1978), 35-36 (nos. 53, 61).

Vinograd, Venice 59, 72