Bidspirit auction | ABARBANEL FIRST EDI. COPY OF

ABARBANEL FIRST EDI. COPY OF RAV CHAIM BERLIN. ABARBANEL, DON ISAAC. Commentary on the Chumash. First Edition. Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1579. - The first printed edition and the textual foundation of virtually every subsequent edition of Don Isaac Abravanel's monumental commentary on the Torah . Although Abravanel's commentaries to the Prophets appeared in print shortly after his death, his complete Torah commentary, the largest and most ambitious of his biblical works, remained in manuscript for more than seventy years before finally emerging from the press in Venice. Few Jewish commentators approached Scripture with a life experience comparable to Abravanel's. Court financier to the crowns of Portugal and Spain, diplomat, philosopher, communal leader, and ultimately exile following the Expulsion of 1492, he read the Torah through the lenses of history, kingship, political authority, exile, and Divine providence. His celebrated method of opening each section with a carefully structured series of questions before developing broad thematic responses transformed the study of Tanach and secured his place among the most influential biblical exegetes of the Renaissance. The publication of this edition marked a turning point in the transmission of Abravanel's writings. Prepared for the press under the supervision of the distinguished Italian scholar R. Shmuel Archivolti (c. 1515–1611) and printed by Giovanni di Gara (fl. 1564–1613), it preserved a work that had circulated only in manuscript and established the text upon which virtually all later editions would depend. Yet modern scholarship has demonstrated that this edition tells a more complicated story. In the absence of any surviving autograph manuscript, the present printing became the ancestor of the received text while simultaneously transmitting editorial revisions, typographical changes, and censorial interventions that accompanied the commentary into later generations. Ironically, the edition that rescued Abravanel's Torah commentary from manuscript obscurity also became the vehicle through which its earliest textual alterations were perpetuated. An especially interesting provenance copy , bearing the ownership stamps of R. Chaim Berlin (1832–1912), formerly Rabbi of Moscow, Av Beth Din and Rosh Mesivta of Volozhin, and later Rabbi of Jerusalem , appearing on the title-page and ff. 47a, 181a, 330b, and 410b. The repeated impressions suggest the volume formed part of his personal rabbinic library rather than merely passing through his hands. An additional early ownership signature at the foot of fol. 235b, apparently reading Jacob Rodrigess. Condition. Complete copy in later cloth covers. Age stained leaves throughout. Very minor worming to the outer margins of the opening portion of the volume (approximately through the seventies), with additional minor pinholes affecting the inner columns on ff. 132–141 and lower margins from ff. 297–308 and 329 to the conclusion of the work. Tears to ff. 86–88. Minor ink smudge on fol. 301a. Lower corners of ff. 380 and 390 torn away, without significant loss of text. Final leaf professionally repaired at the lower margin. Text complete. A distinguished provenance copy of the first printed edition of Abravanel's Torah commentary, preserving the ownership marks of one of the leading rabbinic figures of the Lithuanian yeshiva world during its transition from Eastern Europe to Jerusalem. Reference : Habermann, Di Garra 53; Benayahu, Haskamot 208. Provenance : The collection of Abraham Lieberman, Flatbush, Brooklyn NY