DINA DI-GERAMEI (TREATISE ON INDIRECT DAMAGE), RABBI MOSES NAHMANIDES, [CONSTANTINOPLE, CA. 1515-1520]

The first edition of an important exploration of Jewish tort law.

Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (1194-1270), a native of Gerona, was a prominent halakhist, philosopher, kabbalist, biblical exegete, poet, and physician. He wrote enormously influential Talmudic novellae on many tractates, as well as significant monographs and commentaries on a wide range of halakhic topics. His Dina di-geramei (the latter word sometimes vocalized garmei) is an exposition of the laws governing inconvenience to a neighbor and injury to his property. Because these subjects are treated in the second chapter of Bava batra, the treatise was often subsequently printed as an appendix to his novellae on that tractate, beginning with the first edition of Venice, 1523. Its significance in the world of halakhah induced several later scholars to write commentaries on it.