Bidspirit auction | AROBAS, ISAAC.  Emeth Ve'Emunah [Code

AROBAS, ISAAC.  Emeth Ve'Emunah [Code of Jewish Law]. FIRST EDITION. Hebrew and Italian on facing pages. Title within typographic border. One divisional title within typographic border prior to final section (Hilchoth Yom Tov). Formerly in the library of the Valmadonna Trust. ff. 7, 288, (16), 36. Dampstained, several remargined, nonetheless, an attractive copy. Modern calf-backed marbled boards in the Valmadonna-style. Thick 12mo. Vinograd, Venice 1393. Venice, Ambrosino-Bragadin, 1672. The author, Isaac, son of Hananiah Arobas, “Justice and Leader of various Communities of the Maghreb (Morocco), ” sought to present the basic texts of Judaism in both Hebrew and the vernacular for the Jews of Italy. To this end, he gathered here a digest comprising the Thirteen Principles of Faith from Maimonides’ commentary to the Mishnah Sanhedrin; Maimonides’ Sepher HaMitzvoth (Book of Precepts); and a popularized version of R. Yoseph Karo’s Shulchan Aruch. Thus the layman was here provided with the rudiments of Halacha, both dogmatic and practical. The book is prefaced with a laudatory poem by the Italian Kabbalist R. Moshe Zacuto. On the final leaf there is a endorsement by Chief Rabbi Solomon Chai Saraval of Venice. See M.J. Heller, The Seventeenth Century Hebrew Book, pp. 924-5.