Selections from The Valmadonna Trust Library: Highly Important Hebrew Printed Books
By Kestenbaum & Company
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Nov 9, 2017
242 West 30th Street, 12th Floor, New York NY 10001, United States
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LOT 203:
VITAL, DAVID BEN SOLOMON
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Sold for: $3,500
Estimated price :
$
3,000 - $5,000
Buyer's Premium: 25%
sales tax: 8.875%
On commission only
Users from foreign countries may be exempted from tax payments, according to the relevant tax regulations
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(The Physician). Kether Torah [on the precepts]
FIRST EDITION. Title within historiated woodcut border surmounted by coronet. Illustration of hand (relating to calendar) on f. 14v, illustration of cow’s lung (relating to dietary laws) on f. 92v.
An uncut copy. Signature of Samson Cohen Modon of Mantua on title. ff. (128). Opening three leaves trace wormed and stained, upper portion of title-page remargined. Modern blind-tooled maroon morocco; slip-case. 4to. Vinograd, Const. 154; Mehlman 705.
Eliezer ben Gershom Soncino, Constantinople: 1536.
A Spanish exile, David Vital settled in Greece, first in Patras and following the Turko-Venetian war of 1532, in Arta, where he was welcomed as a pre-eminent halachic authority. Kether Torah is a rhymed summary of the 613 Commandments in accordance with Maimonides’s enumeration, together with the seven rabbinical commandments. Hence, the numerical value of the title, “Kether” (620). The work is a commentary to Maimonides’ Sefer HaMitzvoth - indeed, the author writes that he has “not strayed from the great Eshel (tamarisk tree), neither left nor right.” Despite its unusual poetic form, the Kether Torah remains an important halachic source frequently quoted in rabbinic literature.
