Bidspirit auction | (TALMUD).  Kitzur Shas. Hebrew manuscript

(TALMUD).  Kitzur Shas. Hebrew manuscript written in a tight cursive Italian hand on paper. A digest of Tractates: Bava Kamma, Bava Metziah, Bava Basra, Sanhedrin, Makoth, Shavu’oth and Avodah Zara. The colophon at the end identifies the scribe as Yedidiah ben Moshe, and an ownership mark inside reads Reuven ibn Yahya. pp. 44. Worn and stained, heavily so in places, inner corner of three leaves torn with loss of few words, two small burn-holes. Unbound. Sm. 4to. Italy, mid-16th-century.  A manuscript that reflects the consequences of the Pope’s denunciation of the study of the Talmud.  This is the third part of an abridged, handwritten Talmud, a mechanism to which Italian Jews were forced to employ in order to cope with the draconian decree banning further publication of the Talmud.  Tractate Avodah Zara is euphemistically referred to here as ‘Avoda Z’ for the manuscript dates to the era of the Papal ban of the Talmud enacted in 1553-4. Hence the self-censorship.