BABYLONIAN TALMUD, TRACTATE MAKKOT, VENICE: DANIEL BOMBERG, NOVEMBER 1529

28 folios (14 3/8 x 10 1/8 in.; 367 x 258 mm) (collation: i-ii8, iii-iv6) on paper. Tapering text on f. 7r; manuscript note in Judezmo on f. [1v]; manuscript marginalia, strikethroughs, and/or corrections on ff. 2r-v, 3v, 15v. Slight scattered staining (heavier on ff. 22r-v, 27v); light dampstaining and warping in upper margins; some wear in gutter at foot throughout; two small wormholes near upper-outer corner of ff. 14-26 not affecting text; one small wormhole on ff. 21-26 affecting a few letters; f. 22 bound between ff. 17-18; long tear near gutter at foot of f. 23 repaired; various minor repairs to f. 27; f. 28 supplied, with repairs along gutter and in upper and outer margins. Modern ornately blind-tooled brown leather; spine in seven compartments with raised binds; title and date lettered in gilt on spine; modern decorated paper flyleaves and pastedowns.

Makkot (Lashes), the fifth tractate in the order Nezikin, discusses three separate topics: the first chapter concerns the laws of edim zomemim (conspiring witnesses; Deut. 19:16-20) and the punishment meted out for their plotting; chapter two contains an exhaustive treatment of the circumstances under which an inadvertent murderer is banished to a city of refuge (Num. 35:6, 9-34; Deut. 19:2-13); and chapter three gives a list of offenses for which the penalty is flogging and describes the way in which the penalty is administered. The tractate ends with a famous teaching about the number of commandments in the Torah (613) and a well-known aggadic story in which Rabbi Akiva comforts his colleagues over the destruction of the Temple. Provenance

Solomon al-Nasser(?) (f. [1v])

Isaac ben Moses (f. [1v])

Joseph de Segovia (f. 2r)

Literature

A.M. Habermann, Ha-madpis daniyyel bombirgi u-reshimat sifrei beit defuso (Safed: The Museum of Printing Art, 1978), 65 (no. 136).

Vinograd, Venice 142