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

148 folios (13 1/2 x 9 5/8 in.; 341 x 245 mm).

Yevamot (Widows Subject to Levirate Marriages), the first tractate in Seder nashim (The Order of Women), discusses, in sixteen chapters, a wide range of laws pertaining to women. (In fact, one manuscript even refers to it simply by the title Nashim, presumably for this reason.) Topics covered, aside from the laws of levirate marriage (and the ritual of halitsah that obviates it), include the obligation to procreate, forbidden marriages, child marriages, iggun (the “chaining” of a woman to a marriage that cannot, as yet, be definitively declared terminated), accidental adultery, paternity issues, and conversion to Judaism – among the weightiest themes treated by the Talmud.

Provenance

Zalman Bass(?) (f. [1r])

Joseph ben Jonah(?) (f. 2r, [148r])

Abraham bar Moses ha-Levi(?) (f. [148r])

Literature

A.M. Habermann, Ha-madpis daniyyel bombirgi u-reshimat sifrei beit defuso (Safed: The Museum of Printing Art, 1978), 35 (no. 50).

Vinograd, Venice 57