BABYLONIAN TALMUD, TRACTATE EIRUVIN, VENICE: DANIEL BOMBERG, 1522

129 folios (14 3/4 x 10 1/8 in.; 376 x 256 mm) (collation: i-xv8, xvi9) on paper. Manuscript notes/corrections intermittently on ff. 11v-104r; diagrams added by hand on ff. 55r, 56r, 92v-93r; short pedigree of part of the Guenzburg-Ulma family on f. 129v. Scattered staining (heavier on ff. 52v-53r, 94v-97r); dampstaining in upper and outer margins throughout; very slight worming in lower edges near gutter; lower edge of f. [1] lacking; gutters strengthened on ff. [1], 8, 115-129; short tear in upper edge of f. 12, in outer edge of f. 91, and in lower edges of ff. 15, 29, 58-59, [76], 82; upper-outer corner of f. 34 lacking; small repair in gutter on f. 56; minor worming on ff. 104-129; repairs in upper, outer, and sometimes lower margins on ff. 119-129; ff. 125-126 bound between ff. 128-129. Modern red three-quarters leather over cloth, very slightly scuffed; spine in six compartments with raised bands; title, place, printer’s name, and date lettered in gilt on spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns; bookplate removed from pastedown of upper board.

Eiruvin (Mixtures), the second tractate in Seder mo‘ed (The Order of Appointed Times), treats, in ten chapters, the topic of Sabbath “domains”: public, semi-public, private, and “exempted.” Through structural means, distinct domains can be aggregated (“mixed”) in order to permit certain actions, such as traveling long distances or carrying, that would otherwise be prohibited on the Sabbath and Yom Kippur. This is the focus of the bulk of the treatise, considered one of the most difficult to understand due to the mathematical calculations cited as well as the complication of visualizing the various domain designs and their relationship to one another. Provenance

Meir ben Isaac Zekl Ulma (f. 129v)

Literature

A.M. Habermann, Ha-madpis daniyyel bombirgi u-reshimat sifrei beit defuso (Safed: The Museum of Printing Art, 1978), 35 (no. 45a).

David Maggid, Sefer toledot mishpehot gintsburg (St. Petersburg: L. Rabinowitz and S. Sokolowski, 1899), 131-132.

Vinograd, Venice 62