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A Typographical Odyssey: The 1505 Constantinople Pentateuch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Nigel Allan
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Extract

Although the Wellcome Collection of Hebraica does not constitute one of the larger and more distinguished collections of oriental material in the Wellcome Institute, it nevertheless comprises a number of important manuscripts along with early printed books representative of several sixteenth and seventeenth-century Hebrew presses. One of these is a fragment of a larger work printed in Constantinople in 1505 at the press of David and Samuel Nahmias. It is the second earliest example of printing in Turkey, the first also coming from the press of the Nahmias brothers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , July 1991 , pp. 343 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1991

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References

1 seeAllan, N., “The oriental collections in the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1981, pp. 10–25.Google ScholarPubMed

2 Allan, N., “Catalogue of Hebrew manuscripts in the Wellcome Institute, London”, Journal of Semitic Studies, XXVII (1982), pp. 193–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 de Rossi, G. B., Libri stampati di Litteratura Sacra Ebraica ed Orientate della Biblioteca… (Parma, 1812), p. 14Google Scholar. It was from examining the colophon of this copy that Offenberg was first able to identify other fragments of the same copy. SeeOffenberg, A. K., “Literature on Hebrew Incunabula since the Second World War”, in Hellinga Festschrift, ed. Croiset van Uchelen, A. R. A. (Amsterdam, 1980), p. 370Google Scholar

4 Cowley, A. E. in A Concise Catalogue of the Hebrew Printed Books in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1971), p.76Google Scholar, suggests that both the larger fragment (Opp. add. 4°v 282) and the three leaves (Heb. c. 7ff. 23–5) were printed at Salonica in 1520 but see Teicher, J. L. “An unidentified Hebrew incunable” in Between East and West: Essays Dedicated to the memory of Beta Horowitz, ed.Altmann, A. Altmann (London, 1958), pp. 129–36, especially p. 128Google Scholar

5 E.g. in T–S Printed Fragments, Box 14, 35; Box 30, 57; Box 31, 38. SeeTeicher, J. L., op cit.Google Scholar

6 According to private correspondence with the reference department of the Jewish National & University Library.

7 SeeYaary, A., ha–Defus ha–'ivri be–qosta (“Hebrew printing in Constantinople”) Supplement to Kiryat Sefer, 42, 1967, p. 59Google Scholar

8 Private correspondence with Mr Brad Sabin Hill, Oriental Collections, British Library, to whom I am indebted for drawing my attention to several relevant publications.

9 SeeBriquet, C. M., Les Filigranes. Dictionnaire historique des Marques du Papier, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1923), iv, p. 792.Google Scholar

10 SeeBriquet, C. M., op. cit., iii, p. 552.Google Scholar All three of these watermarks are referred to by Teicher, J. L., op cit.,Google Scholar although he claims incorrectly that the outstretched hand surmounted by a star occurs only in the paper of haftarot. This watermark is one of the criteria he uses to assign the imprint to the press of Eliezar Toledano in Lisbon around 1492.

11 SeeBriquet, C. M., op. cit., ii, p. 267.Google Scholar

12 Goldstein, D., Hebrew Incunables in the British Isles: a Preliminary Census (London, 1985), p. 34, no. 94.Google Scholar Goldstein lists two copies in the British Library, the copy printed on paper Teicher, J. L., op cit.,Google Scholar states to be printed with slightly larger type while the type used in the vellum copy he identifies with that found in the 1505 Constantinople Pentateuch.

13 SeeZedner, J., Catalogue of the Hebrew Books in the Library of the British Museum (London, 1867), p. 366,Google Scholar and Cowley, A. E., op. cit., p. 260.Google Scholar

14 Isaac ben Abravanel, Zebah pesah, 1505; Nahalat abot, 1505; Rosh amamah, 1505 (Zedner, , op. cit., p. 440, 551, 371Google Scholar respectively; Cowley, , op. cit., p. 256f.Google Scholar and for the third title, Hebraica from the Valmadonna Trust, catalogue by hill, B. Sbin (London, Valmadonna Trust Library, 1989), no. 16);Google Scholar Solomon ibn Yahya, David ben, leshon limmudim, 1506Google Scholar (Zedner, , op. cit., p. 203,Google Scholar Cowley, , op. cit., p. 155.Google Scholar); 155); Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, 1509(Zedner, , op. cit., p. 582,Google Scholar Cowley, , op. cit., p. 474Google Scholar

15 Dom Manuel of Portugal, in Early Portuguese Books 1489–1600 (London, 1929), i, p. 48Google Scholar, claims that “the Renaissance found Portugal ready to receive its impetus because the way had already been partly prepared by learned Portuguese Jews…” See also Kayserling, M., Geschichte der Juden in Portugal (Leipzig, 1867), pp. 89f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar (Institut zur Forderung der israelitischen Literatur Schriften. Jahr 12).

16 Goldstein, , op. cit., p. 33, no. 91.Google Scholar

17 Goldstein, , op. cit., p. 33f., no. 92.Google Scholar

18 Goldstein, , op. cit., pp. 34f., no. 95.Google Scholar

19 Goldstein, , op. cit., p. 34, no. 94.Google Scholar

20 SeeRoth, C., “Jewish printers of non Jewish books in the 15th and 16th centuries”, Journal of Jewish Studies, IV (1953). PP. 116–30,CrossRefGoogle Scholar who refers to a Hebrew printing press functioning in Segovia as early as 1470.

21 SeeRoth, C., op. cit., p. 121.Google Scholar

22 Goldstein, , op. cit., p. 32, no. 88.Google Scholar

23 Goldstein, , op. cit., p. 32, no. 89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 The earliest known paper mill in Christian Europe was administered by Jews in Jativa in Aragon in 1273. See Blum, A., Les origines du papier (Paris, 1932), pp. 43ff.Google Scholar

25 Zalmati appears to have been well versed in Talmudic and rabbinical literature corresponding with the most eminent rabbinical authorities of the day on matters of Jewish law. See Friedberg, B., History of Hebrew Typography in Italy, Spain–Portugal, the Turkey (Tel-Aviv), 1956, pp. 99f.Google Scholar

26 See Roth, C., op. cit.Google Scholar

27 Haebler, C., Bibliografía Ibérica del siglo XV: enumeratión de todos los libros impresos en España y Portugal hasta el año de 1500 (The Hague, 1903), no. 49.Google Scholar

28 See Haebler, C., op. cit., nos. 19, 535, 536.Google Scholar

29 Bloch, J., Early Hebrew Printing in Spain and Portugal (New York, 1938), pp. 21, 23,Google Scholar claims that his condemnation by the Inquisition was due to his friendly association with Jews, C. Roth op. cit.,Google Scholar maintains, however, that prescription by the Inquisition would rule out the return of the condemned to the place where the sentence was promulgated and that the sentence could not have been suspended by the Governor.

30 This consortium apparently produced the commentary on the psalms by Perez, Jaime (Valencia, 1484),Google Scholar see Haebler, C., op. cit., no. 535,Google Scholar and probably his minor writings, Opuscula, in the following year which included an anti-Jewish polemic, Tractatus contra judaeos, as well as a Vida de S. Ana, see Haebler, C., op. cit., no. 536.Google Scholar See Roth, C., The jews in the Renaissance (Philadelphia, 1959), p. 175.Google Scholar

31 See various documents published by Morales, J. E. Serranno, Reseña histórica de las imprentas…en Valencia (Valencia, 1898–1899), pp. 149–58.Google Scholar In the course of these transactions de Cordova spoke of Zalmati in such terms as to make clear his high regard for him as an expert in the art of typography.

32 See note 30.

33 See Haebler, C., Geschichte der spanischen Frühdruckes in Stammbäumen (Leipzig, 1923), pp. 36–46.Google Scholar Marx, M., “A catalogue of the Hebrew Books printed in the fifteenth century now in the Library of the Hebrew Union College”, Studies in Bibliography and Booklore, I (1953), pp. 21–4,Google Scholar especially p. 27, to establish the date of the Manuale Caesaraugustanum as 1487, and of the Pentateuch therefore as 1487–8.

34 The use of a decorative border in Hebrew and non-Hebrew books is not exclusive to this instance but is witnessed in the Aquila Volante ascribed to Leonardo Aretino and printed by Ayolfus de Cantoro in 1492 at Naples by a border also found in Bahya ben Asher's commentary on the Pentateuch printed by Azriel Gunzenhauzen also in Naples in 1492. This border again appears around the first page of the Pentateuch with commentaries printed by Samuel Nahmias in 1522 in Constantinople and in a work, Aderet Elijahu printed by Gershon Soncino in 1530-I also in Constantinople. See Roth, C., “The border of the Naples Bible of 1491–2”, Bodleian Library Record, IV (1953), pp. 295–303.Google Scholar

35 Haebler, C., Geschichte des spanischen Frühdruckes…, op. cit.,Google Scholar incorrectly assumes that this border was originally cut to serve with Hebrew type, and that it was only due to chance that it is first met in a Christian liturgical work.

36 See note 14.

37 Habermann, A. M., “The Jewish art of the printed book” in Jewish Art, An Illustrated History, ed. Roth, C. (London, 1961), col. 464,Google Scholar points out that a highly conscientious printer might have the entire border recut at considerable expense to suit the requirements of Hebrew books, or again the border could be cut into four pieces and rearranged with the wide margin outside as witnessed in some of the Soncino imprints.

38 The Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. ix (New York, etc., 1905), p. 145,Google Scholar also Steinschneider, M. & Cassel, D., Jüdische Typographie und jüdischer Buchhandel (Jerusalem, 1938), p. 17.Google Scholar

39 Goldstein, , op. cit., p. 38, no. 104.Google Scholar

40 Steinschneider, M. & Cassel, D., op. cit.Google Scholar

41 Yaary, A., op. cit., p. 17.Google Scholar

42 This type has been identified with that used by Joshua Solomon Soncino in his edition of the Mishnah printed in Naples in 1492. See Marx, M., op. cit., p. 33.Google Scholar

43 See Graetz, H., Geschichte der Juden, viii (Leipzig, 1864), pp. 330–63.Google Scholar

44 Graetz, H., op. cit., ix (Leipzig, 1866), pp. 31–44.Google Scholar The remarkable career of ja'ḳūb Pāsha who was appointed physician to Mohammed the Conqueror, Pasha and Vezir and appears to have been involved in Ottoman espionage is an example of the regard Jews were held in in the new Ottoman Empire. See Babinger, F. “Ja'qūb Pascha, ein Leibarzt Mehmed II: Leben und Schicksale des Maestro Jacopo aus Gaeta”, Revista degli studi Orientali, XXVI (1951), pp. 87–113.Google Scholar

45 See Zafrin, H. C. “Bible editions, Bible study and the early history of Hebrew printing”, Eretz Israel, XVI (1982) (H. M. Orlinsky Volume), pp. 240–51,Google Scholar especially p. 241 where he also suggests that this was also due to the profit motive of early printers who realising the primacy of the Pentateuch and the tendency to study it with more than one commentary, concentrated on the printing of commentaries and other popular and therefore profitable works such as Arba'ah Ṭurim.

46 It has been suggested that Ibn Yahya, who was in the employment of Toledano, carried the Lisbon types to Constantinople. See The Jewish Encyclopedia, viii (1904), p. 107,Google Scholar and Manuel, Dom of Portugal, op. cit., p. 27.Google Scholar

47 The colophon is reproduced by Yaari, A., op. cit., pp. 59f.Google Scholar

48 Teicher, J. L., op. cit.,Google Scholar erroneously associates the occurrence of an acrostic in the colophon which discloses the name Eliezar with Eliezar Toledano and so claims the imprint for the Lisbon press.

49 See works cited in note 14 and Perush halakot ḳodesh ha-ḥodesh of Maimonides by Obadiah ben David (Zedner, , op. cit., p. 619;Google Scholar Cowley, , op. cit., p. 514.).Google Scholar

50 Yaari, A., op. cit., pp. 17f.Google Scholar