I am pleased to inform you that Magnes Press of the Hebrew University has just
published: Masorah and Text Criticism in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Moshe
Ibn Zabara and Menahem de Lonzano, by Professor Jordan S. Penkower, of Bar-Ilan
University, Department of Bible. This is the first in a new series on the
Jeselsohn Collection – Books and Manuscripts.
This book discusses Zabara and Lonzano who both worked on a particular Bible
manuscript, MS Zurich, Jeselsohn 5, which is the first half of a complete
Masoretic Bible (the other half being MS Sassoon 1209). Zabara was the 15th
century scribe and masoreter of this Bible and Lonzano the scholar who a
century later reviewed the text and masorah and glossed them in detail
(especially in the Pentateuch).
The first chapter deals with Zabara’s work in the manuscript. The bulk of the
book deals with Lonzano: his biography, the books he wrote and those he glossed
(both manuscripts and printed books, running the gamut of Judaica), a sample of
his glosses from several different books, and finally a detailed look at his
glosses in MS Jeselsohn 5.
Lonzano, a scholar in many areas of Jewish studies, did not live a comfortable
life. Yet he was a bibliophile. Whenever he had a little money he added to his
collection of books and manuscripts. Penkower has managed over the past
decades, with much patience, to track down several of the books in Lonzano’s
library, which he could not resist glossing.
The book, published in an elegant small folio format (similar to the two Hebrew
volumes of Maccabees published by Yad Ben Zvi), is illustrated with
approximately150 color photos, several of them demonstrating Lonzano’s glosses,
and includes an appendix with 32 photos of folios from the manuscript where the
masorah magna is written is micrographic form. In addition, there are two other
appendices by specialists in art history, codicology and palaeography.
The book includes a comparison of Lonzano’s work in text criticism to the work
of contemporary Jewish scholars, and a comparison to the work of contemporary
Christain scholars.
This work should appeal to a broad audience – one that has interests in the
areas of Renaissance studies, textual criticism, early modern Jewish history,
Bible studies, Masorah, Kabbalah, and the history of the book.
I close with a link to the book on the Magnes Press website:
http://www.magnes-press.com/Book/Masorah+and+Text+Criticism+in+the+Early+Modern+Mediterranean.aspx?name=Masorah+and+Text+Criticism+in+the+Early+Modern+Mediterranean&code=45-132012
Angelo Piattelli, Jeselsohn Collection, curator
__
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and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL)
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