BABYLONIAN TALMUD, TRACTATE HULLIN, VENICE: DANIEL BOMBERG, 1521

177 of 178 folios (12 5/8 x 9 in.; 321 x 228 mm) (collation: i7 [i1 = f. (1) lacking, reproduced in facsimile], ii-xxi8, xxii6, xxiii4) on paper. Tapering text on f. 159v; manuscript notes/corrections on ff. 16r, 18r, 24v, 37r, 65v, 68v, 70v-71r, 73v, 88v, 90r, 94r, 103v, 105v, 110r-111r, 113v, 114v, 115v, [126r-v], 145v; Arabic writing on f. 39r; illegible owner’s stamp on f. 97; pen trials on f. [177v]. Slight scattered staining; gutters repaired and/or strengthened virtually throughout (somewhat abraded on f. 161); pages closely cropped; upper and/or outer edges of ff. [1]-26, 32, 55-60, [176-177] repaired, with slight loss of text; small tears in outer edges of ff. 44-50, 62-63, 68, in upper edge of f. 62, and in lower edges of ff. 52, 61 repaired; longer tear in gutters of ff. 173-174, in outer edge of f. 50, and in lower edge of f. 117 repaired; upper-outer corner of f. 57, lower-outer corners of ff. 91, 102, 104, 116, and both outer corners of f. [178] repaired; slight damage in gutter of ff. 64-66, 70, 89 repaired; small puncture in f. 70; slight worming in outer edges of ff. 65-70, 110-111, in inner column of ff. 115-120, in upper-outer corners of ff. 115-120, 122-125, and in lower edge of ff. 167-168 repaired; ff. 74-81, 112-114, 121, [178] supplied, with repairs in outer edges and minimal loss of text; long tear in gutter of f. 95; small tears in gutters of f. 97, in upper edges of ff. 109, 118, in outer edges of f. 97, and in lower edges of ff. 105, 113, 121. Modern ornately blind-tooled red leather; spine in seven compartments with raised bands; title, place, and date lettered in gilt on spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.

One of the rarest Bomberg Talmud tractates. Hullin (Profane [Food]), the third tractate in the order Kodoshim, expounds, in twelve chapters, many of the Jewish dietary laws, including the rules of kosher slaughter, physical defects that render a slaughtered animal non-kosher, the status of an embryo found inside a slaughtered animal, the prohibition against slaughtering a female animal and its young on the same day (Lev. 22:28), the requirements to shoo a female bird from its nest before taking the eggs (Deut. 22:6-7) and to cover the blood after slaughtering a fowl or non-domesticated animal (Lev. 17:13), and the prohibitions against consuming the sciatic nerve and meat and milk. These rules, in contrast to most of those discussed in the other tractates of Kodoshim, apply to all Jews at all times, even after the destruction of the Temple.

Literature

A.M. Habermann, Ha-madpis daniyyel bombirgi u-reshimat sifrei beit defuso (Safed: The Museum of Printing Art, 1978), 35 (no. 44b).

Vinograd, Venice 43