Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection
Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection
MOREH NEVUKHIM (GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED), RABBI MOSES MAIMONIDES, TRANSLATED BY SAMUEL IBN TIBBON, VENICE: ALVISE BRAGADINI AND MEIR BEN JACOB PARENZO, 1551
Auction Closed
November 20, 08:47 PM GMT
Estimate
7,000 - 10,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
MOREH NEVUKHIM (GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED), RABBI MOSES MAIMONIDES, TRANSLATED BY SAMUEL IBN TIBBON, VENICE: ALVISE BRAGADINI AND MEIR BEN JACOB PARENZO, 1551
198 folios (10 7/8 x 7 1/4 in.; 275 x 185 mm) (foliation: [1-12], 1-[186]) on paper. Printer’s device on title page; elaborate woodcut initial word panel on f. 1r; smaller decorative woodcut initial word panels on ff. 2r, 3r, 8r, 72r, 79r, 125v, 126v; scattered marginalia in pen and pencil in both Latin and Hebrew characters. Slight scattered staining; some worming in gutter at head intermittently throughout, mostly repaired and mostly not affecting text; library stamp removed from title page; lower-outer corners of last few leaves repaired; outer edge of f. [186] replaced in facsimile; tear in upper edge of f. [186] repaired. Modern elaborately blind-tooled morocco; spine in five compartments with raised bands; title, place, and date lettered on spine; pinkish upper edges; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.
The second edition of perhaps the most influential work of Jewish philosophy.
Alvise Bragadini, scion of a noble Venetian family, hired Meir ben Jacob Parenzo as the manager of his newly-established Hebrew press in 1549 and issued his first title, Rabbi Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh torah, the following year. Bragadini, whose distinctive printer’s mark comprised of three crowns in triangular formation graces the title pages of many of his imprints, would go on to print another book by Maimonides, Moreh nevukhim, in 1551. The latter work, translated from the original Judeo-Arabic by Rabbi Samuel Ibn Tibbon, constitutes Maimonides’ most expansive treatment of Jewish philosophy and thought, in a distinctly Aristotelian key. Unlike the first edition (Rome, ca. 1473-1475), this printing includes two commentaries: one by the fifteenth-century Sephardic preacher and philosopher Rabbi Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov and a second by the Sephardic physician Profiat Duran (d. ca. 1414). Parenzo writes in his introduction that great care was taken to produce an accurate version of Maimonides’ text, which had been corrupted in the course of scribal transmission.
Provenance
Solomon (f. [1r])
Literature
A.M. Habermann, “Ha-madpisim benei r. ya‘akov parenzo be-venetsi’ah,” Areshet 1 (1959): 61-90, at pp. 72-73 (no. 9).
Marvin J. Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus, vol. 1 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), 370-371.
Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, Sifrei yesod: sifrei ha-yesod shel ha-sifriyyah ha-yehudit ha-toranit (n.p.: Chaim and Betzalel Stefansky, 2019), 141 (no. 494).
Vinograd, Venice 421