Bidspirit auction | KARO, YITZCHAK. Toldoth Yitzchak [novellae

KARO, YITZCHAK. Toldoth Yitzchak [novellae to the Chumash]. Title within woodcut architectural arch. Initial word of each section within decorative woodcut border-piece. ff. (1), 81. Lightly stained in places. Signed by censor at end. Later calf-backed marbled boards, rubbed. Sm. folio. Vinograd, Mantua 58. Mantua, Ruffinelli et al, 1558. A concisely written commentary which includes literal, homiletical, Kabbalistic and philosophical interpretations. The author, R. Yitzchak Karo (not to be confused with his celebrated nephew, R. Yoseph Karo), was a native of Toledo and a man of very wide culture. Several years before the Spanish Expulsion in 1492, he moved his yeshiva to Portugal, but following the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal in 1497, he fled to Turkey. There he entered the rabbinate of Constantinople, where Toldoth Yitzchak was first published in 1518. Its extreme popularity is evidenced by the fact that two editions were published in Riva di Trento and Mantua in the same year.