BASS, SHABTHAI.
Sifthei Yesheinim [bibliography]. ff. 20, pp. 92 ...

Sifthei Yesheinim [bibliography]. ff. 20, pp. 92, ff. 93-108. * With rare supplement: Tephiloth [prayers]. ff. 24.

First Edition. Title within fine engraved architectural border Previous owner's marks, stained in places, last several leaves remargined. Modern morocco. 4to. Vinograd, Amsterdam 461; Mehlman, 1361; Fuks, Amsterdam 469.

David de Castro Tartas and Jacob de Cordova, Amsterdam: 1678-80.


The First Hebrew Bibliography. This Copy with Rare Supplementary Prayers.
      The Siddur found at the end of this volume, and which appears in only a handful of copies, presents a bibliographical puzzle. It has been postulated by M. M. Zlatkin, that it was included into the Sifthei Yesheinim in order to increase the appeal of the work to the non-bibliography minded book-buyer. However Ch. Liberman in Kiryath Sepher Vol. XXXVIII p. 276 (= Ohel Rachel Vol. I, pp. 370-1) proves that the Siddur, printed in 1678, was sold separately. By 1680, when the Sifthei Yesheinim was ready for publication, Shabbetai Bass had a few copies of the Siddur left over, which he added to his Sifthei Yesheinim, first removing the original title page.
     In his article published for the Habermann Festschrift (1984), H.C. Zafren excitedly confides: "I can here report that the Hebrew Union College Library copy of the Amsterdam 1680 Pentateuch [bound with] the first edition of Bass's Sifthei Chachamim, also has a prayer book bound in at the end. In this case, the prayer book has fourteen leaves" (see The 1678 Siddur and the Sifthei Yesheinim: A Methodological Exercise, p. 276). After a comprehensive analysis of the typographic layout, Zafren concludes that the first 14 leaves of the Siddur which contains a colophon on 14b is a complete entity, and that a further ten liturgical leaves were added later. Thus this scarce liturgical supplement was printed in at least two segments by different printers.
THE PRESENT COPY CONTAINS THE COMPLETE PRAYERS IN 24 LEAVES.