Tziyyoni, Menahem ben Meir Tziyyoni, [mid-16th century]

Tziyyoni is a kabbalistic commentary on the Pentateuch by Menahem ben Meir Zioni (late fourteenth–early fifteenth century) a kabbalist and exegete who lived in Cologne. Menahem Zioni was one of the few kabbalists in fourteenth-century Germany, and his work demonstrates that he was heir to two different esoteric traditions: the Spanish kabbalah, including the Zohar, the Sefer ha-Bahir, and the exegetical works of Nahmanides; and the esoteric theology of the twelfth-thirteenth century movement of the Hasidei Ashkenaz.

The whimsical illustrations in the margins appear to be contemporary with the text.

Sotheby’s is grateful to Menahem Schmelzer z”l and Benjamin Richler for cataloguing this manuscript.

Provenance

Mordecai Kozer of Riva [di Trento] who borrowed the manuscript (fol. 1r) — Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 405)

Physical Description

116 leaves on paper, 13 x 9 inches; 328 x 229 mm, written in several Ashkenazic semi-cursive scripts in brown ink, on paper watermarked with anchor in circle and large 6-star surmount (cf. Piccard Anker V:335-337 [1546-1552]), illustrations of animals in the margins of fols. 1r, 11r, 13r, 14v, 15r, 18r, early foliation in ink in Hebrew letters (beginning on fol. 2 and ending on fol. 115), modern foliation in pencil; minor worming in the margins, stains (fols. 1-16, 22-23), marginal dampstaining to fols. 97-116. Marbled paper over boards.

Literature

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 330); first edition of this text published in Cremona, 1559; Y. Peles, in Moriah, xi, 5-6 (1982), pp. 9-20; I. J. Yuval, Scholars in their Time (Jerusalem, 1988), pp. 282-311