Zürich, Zentralbibliothek, Ms. Car C 126
Dr. Justine Isserles, chercheure associée, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes-Saprat (Paris), 2019.
Titolo del codice: Moreh Nevukhim (Guide to the Perplexed) by (Moses ben Maimon, 1135-1204)
Luogo di origine: Spain (Catalonia ?)
Datazione: 1292 C.E.
Supporto materiale: Vellum, hair and flesh sides distinguishable, some holes (e.g. ff. 1, 5, 23, 41, 82, 98, 103); stiches (e.g. ff. 163, 151); natural irregularities in the vellum (e.g. ff. 51-53, 103, 126)
Dimensioni:
I +167 folios
Formato: 230 x 178 mm
Numerazione delle pagine: Foliation from right to left in Arabic numerals grey pencil in the top right corner of each recto of each page. Recto of Flyleaf inscribed I in Roman numerals in grey pencil and in black ink on verso side.
Composizione dei fascicoli: 21 quires of quaternions.
I-XX (1r-160v); XXI (161r-167v *) [*: f.168 was glued onto the inner board at the end of the volume].
End of 4 quires are marked with a Hebrew number ‘א’ (f. 8v); ‘ב’ (f. 16v); ‘ד’ (f. 32v); ‘ה’ (f. 40v).
Catchwords: ff. 48v, 56v, 65v, 72v, 80v, 88v, 97v, 105v, 112v.
End of 4 quires are marked with a Hebrew number ‘א’ (f. 8v); ‘ב’ (f. 16v); ‘ד’ (f. 32v); ‘ה’ (f. 40v).
Catchwords: ff. 48v, 56v, 65v, 72v, 80v, 88v, 97v, 105v, 112v.
Condizione: Manuscript in very good condition albeit some stains (ff. 63v, 79v-80r, 87v-88r, 137v, 138r); some folios contain some folds (1, 9, 10, 17)
Disposizione della pagina:
Page laid out in 3 columns of text (150 x 100 mm) with glosses in the lateral and lower margins by same by the same hand as the main text (ff. 16r, 17r, 18r, 20v, 24r, 25r/v, 26r-28r, 29r, 30v, 33v, 116v). Folio 13r contains glosses surrounding the page, framed with small ornamentation. Some forgotten words by this scribe were also added in the lateral margins (e.g. ff. 72r, 101v). Running titles on some upper margins of the pages indicating the sections of the work (חלק ראשון; חלק שני;חלק שלישי). Inner and outer indentations in the text.
Justification: 1+1+2+2+1 columns of text. 35 ruled lines for 35 written lines. Ends of lines respected by letter elongation and compression.
Brown pencil ruling (e.g. ff. 7v-8r, 49v-50r) and grey pencil ruling (e.g. ff. 30v-31r, 80v-81r). Outer pricking visible.
Justification: 1+1+2+2+1 columns of text. 35 ruled lines for 35 written lines. Ends of lines respected by letter elongation and compression.
Brown pencil ruling (e.g. ff. 7v-8r, 49v-50r) and grey pencil ruling (e.g. ff. 30v-31r, 80v-81r). Outer pricking visible.
Tipo di scrittura e mani:
Main text and running titles are written in a small module square Sephardic script. The head of sections and chapters, as well as the closing paragraph on folios 167r-167v are written in a medium module square Sephardic script.
One scribe copied the main text of the manuscript as well as its marginal glosses (see under page and textual layout). It may also be possible that he was responsible for the red and blue ink filigree ornamentation. Some of the words in these glosses are vocalized (e.g. ff. 31v, 34v)
f. 120r: Name יצחק is highlighted by some dots in a diagonal line next to this name, indicating the name of the scribe of the manuscript.
One scribe copied the main text of the manuscript as well as its marginal glosses (see under page and textual layout). It may also be possible that he was responsible for the red and blue ink filigree ornamentation. Some of the words in these glosses are vocalized (e.g. ff. 31v, 34v)
f. 120r: Name יצחק is highlighted by some dots in a diagonal line next to this name, indicating the name of the scribe of the manuscript.
Decorazione:
- Fine filigree arabesques decorating the word panels in blue and red ink, with bands of ‘I’s often extending vertically or horizontally into the margins and inter-columns (e.g. ff. 63v, 69r, 80r, 87r, 121v-122r) for heads of sections and chapters as well as inner and outer indentation spaces (e.g. ff. 46v, 57r/v-58r).
- The heads of sections contain larger decorated panels (e.g. ff. 7v, 57r, 103v) than the heads of chapters (e.g. ff. 55v, 104r).
On folio 103v: the last column of section two of the work is written in geometrical shapes and framed by filigreed arabesques in red ink, followed by the title of the third and last section of the work.
On folio 167r: the last paragraph at the end of the work, contains 6 lines of text framed by a large word panel filled with arabesques filigreed in red and blue ink, with bands of ‘I’s extending vertically onto the page. - Decorated catchwords framed with filigree arabesques in red ink (ff. 56v, 64v) and in brown ink (f. 96v).
- Decorated marginal glosses in brown ink: head, arabesques (e.g. ff. 34v-35r).
- Some ascenders of the letter ‘lamed’ are elongated into the upper margin of the page (e.g. ff. 34v-35r, 39v-40r).
- Some descenders of the letter ‘ק’ are elongated and decorated with a small ornamentation in the lower margin (e.g. ff. 9r, 11v, 38r) as well as the final letters ‘ן’ (e.g. f. 113v) and final ‘ך’ (e.g. f. 114v).
- Carpet pages with text in diamond shapes ending sections I and II of the work (ff. 56v, 103r)
- Presence of manicules on certain pages of the text by a later hand (e.g. ff. 75r, 86v, 88v, 89r/v) by a later hand.
Aggiunte:
Later additions:
- Flyleaf Iv: Prefatory verses to the Moreh Nevukhim in an Italian square and bookhand 15th c. script (see Kozodoy).
- f. 10v: dark brown ink, correction in the inner lateral margin in a bookhand script.
- ff. 71v, 72r, 75r, 76r: dark brown ink, manicules (ff. 75r, 86v, 88v, 89r/v) and corrections in the text and in the inner lateral margin in a bookhand script (the word in the outer lateral margin f. 72r was written by the main scribe of the manuscript in a square script).
- ff. 9r, 87v, 88r, 103v, 105r: light brown ink, corrections in the text and in the lateral margin in a square script.
- f. 102r: brown ink, word in margin, bookhand script.
- ff. 7v-8r: Marginal notes in Latin.
- f. 167v: right margin: Latin note with an erroneous date in brown ink: an. 5250 h.e. ara min. 1490 corrected above by another hand in a darker brown ink: anno 1292.
In the same hand as the first Latin note in brown ink is the identification of Ps. 97:11 at the end of the colophon, to the left: Psalm. XCVII.ii.
Inscription of the expurgator Renato da Modena of the manuscript in the bottom margin, in a light brown ink: Visto p me frater Renato da Moda 1626.
Legatura:
Brown leather binding of the 16th century on wooden boards (246 x 175 mm). The outer boards are blind stamped with a central geometrical figure with a 2-lined frame, all of which has been surrounded by a rectangular 2-lined frame. The center sections of the frames are tooled with floral scrolls. The spine is made up of 4 raised bands. Between each band is a blind stamped ‘x’ pattern with two facing tooled floral motifs. A piece of paper has been stuck above the end band with the shelfmark of the manuscript: Ms Car C 126. Presence of two catchplates, clasps and straps. There were originally 4 corner pieces and a center piece on the right and left outer boards which are now missing. The present flyleaf at the beginning of the volume was glued onto a stub of the original flyleaf, at an unknown date after the volume had been rebound.
Contenuto:
, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (acronym Rambam) was the foremost figure in Judaism from the Middle Ages onwards. No other spiritual leader exercised such an influence in his own and subsequent generations. A Rabbi, philosopher, astronomer and physician, Maimonides was born in 1135 Cordova, Muslim Spain, under the Almoravid rule. In 1148, he had to flee, as a result of the Almohad invasion and Jewish persecutions. After many years of tribulations, he and his family settled in Fez in 1160 and several years later, in Fustat in Egypt, where he was appointed head of the Jewish community in 1177 and as one of the physicians to the Vizier of Egypt in 1185. It was during these busy years that Maimonides not only wrote his two monumental works, Mishneh Torah (compiled 1178) and the Guide to the Perplexed (completed 1190 or 1200), upon which his fame mainly rests, but also corresponded with many other Jewish communities, leaving us written traces of his responsa and opinions on various subjects, such as with the famous Iggeret Teiman (1172), an epistle to the communities of Yemen, urging them not to accept forced conversions. He is also the author of a Treatise on the Art of Logic (1160s) and eleven medical works influenced by Galen and Avicenna, whose majority have been translated into Hebrew and Latin (Zonta, pp. 35-61).
The Guide to the Perplexed was written in Judeo-Arabic under the title Dalalat al-Ha’irin circa 1190 or 1200 and was translated twice into Hebrew shortly after, as Moreh Nevukhim (Zonta, p. 28). The first and literal translation was made by Samuel ben Judah Ibn Tibbon (1150-1230) in 1204 (Ed. Prin. Italy, 1473-74) and a second, freer translation was made by the poet Judah al-Ḥarizi between 1205 and 1213 (Schlossberg). Our manuscript described here, Ms. Car C 126, is a copy of the translation by Samuel ben Judah Ibn Tibbon, as stated in the first words of the introduction of Ms. Car C 126, on folio 3r: Samuel ben Judah ben Tibbon may his memory be blessed said…(אמר שמואל בן יהודה בן תבון זל'). Although there are numerous extant manuscripts of the Hebrew translations of this work, either by Ibn Tibbon or al-Ḥarizi, housed in various public and private libraries around the world, there are only a handful of manuscripts of the work in Judeo-Arabic; the earliest extant complete copy, having been copied in Yemen in 1380. It is now part of the Hebrew manuscript collection in the British Library (Tahan, p. 11), under the shelfmark MS Or. 2423 (On the extant manuscripts, editions and textual transmission of the Moreh Nevukhim, see Friedländer, pp.16-26).
Whilst the Mishneh Torah is a halakhic work, systematizing the material in the Talmud and intended as an aid for anyone wanting to live a life according to traditional Jewish praxis, the Guide to the Perplexed is considered the leading work of Jewish medieval philosophy. It attempts to reconciliate traditional Jewish theology and Aristotelian rationalism, which was very influential in Maimonides’ time. Furthermore, the Guide was addressed to a select and erudite readership, able to understand ideas deliberately concealed from the masses. The guide is divided into three books and mainly focuses on the philosophic interpretation of Scripture (Robinson, pp. 460-462 and notes), discussing a number of subjects relative to: divine attributes, anthropomorphism, existence and unity of God, Creation, structure of the universe, prophecy, the nature of evil, divine Providence, the nature of Man, moral virtue and the 613 laws (mitsvot) contained in the five Books of Moses (Encyclopedia Judaica, pp. 771-775). In addition to profoundly influencing the course of medieval Jewish philosophy, the Guide had a strong impact on Christian scholastic thought. Among the scholastics are Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart and Duns Scottus, who either quote Maimonides by name or cite him anonymously in their works. Later on, 16th century Christian Hebraists, such as Agostinus Justinianus, published the first Latin translation of the Guide, based on al-Harizi’s Hebrew translation, under the title Rabbi Mossei Aegyptii Dux seu Director Dubitantium aut perplexorum (Paris: 1520), followed by a second translation by Johann Buxtorf ‘The Younger’ (1599-1664) who based himself on Ibn Tibbon’s version of the Guide and entitled it Doctor Perplexorum (Basel:1629). An anonymous Latin note on the pastedown at the beginning of Ms. Car C 126 mentions this latter translation (see transcription of this note under ‘owners notes in the manuscript’).
Almost immediately after their completion toward the end of the 12th century, the Mishneh Torah and Moreh Nevukhim, with their subsequent Hebrew translations, were not received without contention by most medieval rabbinical authorities. Indeed, especially between the 13th and early 14th centuries, the debate known as “the Maimonidean Controversy” raged in several phases among Jewish scholars of Franco-Germany, Provence and Spain (see Dobbs-Weinstein, Grossman, Nahon, Silver). In 1232, a ban was placed upon both these works as well as the study of philosophy (Woolf, p. 432) by Provençal rabbis [involving among others, David Kimḥi (Radak, 1160-1235) and Solomon b. Abraham of Montpellier (Shlomo Min ha-Har, 1st half 13th c.)]. Furthermore in 1305, as the cultural war between the proponents and the opponents of philosophy had been going on in Jewish Europe for over a hundred years, Rabbi Solomon Ben Adret (Rashba, 1235-1310), an important rabbinical authority in Spain, was persuaded to also prohibit the studying of philosophy and science, but only to those under the age of twenty-five. Although his ban was only destined to his own community of Barcelona, Adret’s enormous influence led many others to accept it. Consequently, one can observe that the main focus of the controversy changed during the successive phases, going from the rejection of Maimonides’ views and the content of both his works to the general ban on the study of philosophy and science themselves; ending with a shift to the age under which it was forbidden to study these subjects.
Finally, with the expulsion of the Jews from the Kingdom of France in 1306, the heat of the controversy abated, however, leaving the question about the possibility or impossibility to combine Jewish tradition and science/philosophy unresolved. Punctual contentious flares were reignited in the 16th and 18th centuries, but opposing Maimonides generally became more and more questionable in the following centuries, until today, when Maimonides is universally considered one of the greatest rabbinical authorities in Jewish tradition.
Last but not least, the Zurich Moreh Nevukhim Ms. Car C 126 includes some laudatory prefatory verses on Maimonides on the recto of flyleaf I at the beginning of the volume. This literary form, interspersing prose and verse, flourished in Sepharad during the 13th and 14th centuries and found its place at the beginning of other works by Maimonides and other medieval authors, such as Judah al Ḥarizi’s Takhemoni (1218-20) or Jacob ben Eleazar’s Sefer ha-Meshalim (1233) (Kozodoy, p. 258). Regarding the prefatory verses only preceding the Guide, they could be laudatory or cursory toward Maimonides and more than 30 manuscripts spanning from the 13th to 15th centuries include them. (Kozodoy, p. 258, note, 5, see mention of Zurich, Zentralbibliothek, Ms. Car C 126, which has been erroneously noted as Ms. ‘Cov. C 126’). Although the verses were probably composed earlier, they were nonetheless copied in Ms. Car C 126, with a square and bookhand Italian script of the 15th century.
The Guide to the Perplexed was written in Judeo-Arabic under the title Dalalat al-Ha’irin circa 1190 or 1200 and was translated twice into Hebrew shortly after, as Moreh Nevukhim (Zonta, p. 28). The first and literal translation was made by Samuel ben Judah Ibn Tibbon (1150-1230) in 1204 (Ed. Prin. Italy, 1473-74) and a second, freer translation was made by the poet Judah al-Ḥarizi between 1205 and 1213 (Schlossberg). Our manuscript described here, Ms. Car C 126, is a copy of the translation by Samuel ben Judah Ibn Tibbon, as stated in the first words of the introduction of Ms. Car C 126, on folio 3r: Samuel ben Judah ben Tibbon may his memory be blessed said…(אמר שמואל בן יהודה בן תבון זל'). Although there are numerous extant manuscripts of the Hebrew translations of this work, either by Ibn Tibbon or al-Ḥarizi, housed in various public and private libraries around the world, there are only a handful of manuscripts of the work in Judeo-Arabic; the earliest extant complete copy, having been copied in Yemen in 1380. It is now part of the Hebrew manuscript collection in the British Library (Tahan, p. 11), under the shelfmark MS Or. 2423 (On the extant manuscripts, editions and textual transmission of the Moreh Nevukhim, see Friedländer, pp.16-26).
Whilst the Mishneh Torah is a halakhic work, systematizing the material in the Talmud and intended as an aid for anyone wanting to live a life according to traditional Jewish praxis, the Guide to the Perplexed is considered the leading work of Jewish medieval philosophy. It attempts to reconciliate traditional Jewish theology and Aristotelian rationalism, which was very influential in Maimonides’ time. Furthermore, the Guide was addressed to a select and erudite readership, able to understand ideas deliberately concealed from the masses. The guide is divided into three books and mainly focuses on the philosophic interpretation of Scripture (Robinson, pp. 460-462 and notes), discussing a number of subjects relative to: divine attributes, anthropomorphism, existence and unity of God, Creation, structure of the universe, prophecy, the nature of evil, divine Providence, the nature of Man, moral virtue and the 613 laws (mitsvot) contained in the five Books of Moses (Encyclopedia Judaica, pp. 771-775). In addition to profoundly influencing the course of medieval Jewish philosophy, the Guide had a strong impact on Christian scholastic thought. Among the scholastics are Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart and Duns Scottus, who either quote Maimonides by name or cite him anonymously in their works. Later on, 16th century Christian Hebraists, such as Agostinus Justinianus, published the first Latin translation of the Guide, based on al-Harizi’s Hebrew translation, under the title Rabbi Mossei Aegyptii Dux seu Director Dubitantium aut perplexorum (Paris: 1520), followed by a second translation by Johann Buxtorf ‘The Younger’ (1599-1664) who based himself on Ibn Tibbon’s version of the Guide and entitled it Doctor Perplexorum (Basel:1629). An anonymous Latin note on the pastedown at the beginning of Ms. Car C 126 mentions this latter translation (see transcription of this note under ‘owners notes in the manuscript’).
Almost immediately after their completion toward the end of the 12th century, the Mishneh Torah and Moreh Nevukhim, with their subsequent Hebrew translations, were not received without contention by most medieval rabbinical authorities. Indeed, especially between the 13th and early 14th centuries, the debate known as “the Maimonidean Controversy” raged in several phases among Jewish scholars of Franco-Germany, Provence and Spain (see Dobbs-Weinstein, Grossman, Nahon, Silver). In 1232, a ban was placed upon both these works as well as the study of philosophy (Woolf, p. 432) by Provençal rabbis [involving among others, David Kimḥi (Radak, 1160-1235) and Solomon b. Abraham of Montpellier (Shlomo Min ha-Har, 1st half 13th c.)]. Furthermore in 1305, as the cultural war between the proponents and the opponents of philosophy had been going on in Jewish Europe for over a hundred years, Rabbi Solomon Ben Adret (Rashba, 1235-1310), an important rabbinical authority in Spain, was persuaded to also prohibit the studying of philosophy and science, but only to those under the age of twenty-five. Although his ban was only destined to his own community of Barcelona, Adret’s enormous influence led many others to accept it. Consequently, one can observe that the main focus of the controversy changed during the successive phases, going from the rejection of Maimonides’ views and the content of both his works to the general ban on the study of philosophy and science themselves; ending with a shift to the age under which it was forbidden to study these subjects.
Finally, with the expulsion of the Jews from the Kingdom of France in 1306, the heat of the controversy abated, however, leaving the question about the possibility or impossibility to combine Jewish tradition and science/philosophy unresolved. Punctual contentious flares were reignited in the 16th and 18th centuries, but opposing Maimonides generally became more and more questionable in the following centuries, until today, when Maimonides is universally considered one of the greatest rabbinical authorities in Jewish tradition.
Last but not least, the Zurich Moreh Nevukhim Ms. Car C 126 includes some laudatory prefatory verses on Maimonides on the recto of flyleaf I at the beginning of the volume. This literary form, interspersing prose and verse, flourished in Sepharad during the 13th and 14th centuries and found its place at the beginning of other works by Maimonides and other medieval authors, such as Judah al Ḥarizi’s Takhemoni (1218-20) or Jacob ben Eleazar’s Sefer ha-Meshalim (1233) (Kozodoy, p. 258). Regarding the prefatory verses only preceding the Guide, they could be laudatory or cursory toward Maimonides and more than 30 manuscripts spanning from the 13th to 15th centuries include them. (Kozodoy, p. 258, note, 5, see mention of Zurich, Zentralbibliothek, Ms. Car C 126, which has been erroneously noted as Ms. ‘Cov. C 126’). Although the verses were probably composed earlier, they were nonetheless copied in Ms. Car C 126, with a square and bookhand Italian script of the 15th century.
- Work divided into 3 sections, preceded by an introduction (פתיחה) ff. 1v-7v
- Section I: ff. 7v-56v Chapters 1-77
- Section II: ff. 56r-103v Chapters 1-48
- Section III: ff. 103v-167r Chapters 1-54
-
Colophon: A colophon is found on folio 167v. The two scratched out lines probably contained the name of the patron who commissioned the manuscript. The manuscript is dated Marḥeshvan 5052 since the creation of the world, equivalent to November 1292 C.E.
Transcription:אני יצחק בר יוסףTranslation:
בר יהוסף א'י'ת'ך'
כתבתי זה הספר
[scratched out line]
[scratched out line]לעצמו
והשלמתיהו
בשנת חמשת אלפים ושנים
וחמשים לבריאת עולם בחדש
מרחשון והשם בחסדו ובטובו
[...]
אור זרוע לצדיק
ולישרי לב שמחהI am Isaac son of Joseph(The last two lines of the colophon come from Ps. 97:11).
Son of Jehoseph may the Almighty be blessed
I wrote this book
[scratched out line]
[scratched out line] for himself
And I completed it
In the year five thousand and two
And fifty since the Creation of the world in the month
Of Marḥeshvan and the Almighty in His compassion and His goodness
[…]
Light is sown for the righteous
And joy on the upright.
Origine del manoscritto: This manuscript was copied in Christian Spain in 1292 (possibly in Catalonia), because of the layout of the text and decoration of the word panels, which are reminiscent of Latin manuscript production.
Provenienza del manoscritto:
- Owner’s notes in the manuscript:
- Jewish owner’s notes:
- Flyleaf Ir: name on the top part of the flyleaf: Iseppe Sforno.
- Flyleaf Iv: Hebrew poems attributed to Maimonides in a square Italian script, introduced by very small bookhand Italian script.
- f.1r: cursive Hebrew script the following name on the top part of the page: שלי ברוך בלאניס, translated as: This is mine Barukh Blanes.
- Christian owner’s notes:
- Pastedown at the beginning of the volume contains 2 Latin inscriptions by one same hand but in two different inks, one light brown and the other dark brown, the second note added after the first. The notes mention the names of two Christian Hebraists, Johann Caspar Ulrich (1705-1768) and Johann Buxtorf ‘The Younger’ (1599-1664).
- Latin note in light brown ink:
Codicem Huncce HebraeumDate: 1000 500 262 = 1762.
Elegantissimum et rarissimum
R. Mosis Maimonidis Librum
מורה נבוכים
Complexum
Et a R. Schmuel Ben Jehuda Aben Tibbon
Ex Arabico in Hebraeum sermonem translatum
Biblioteca Eccles. Carolina
Possidet
Ex munificentia
Viri humanissimi ac plurimum Reverendi
Joannis Huldrici
Sacrorum ministri apud concionem Christianam
Quo in Zollikon cogitur.
A.R.S. CIↃ IↃ CCLXII - Latin note in dark brown ink:
Rambam seu R. Moses Ben Maimon floruit XIII sec.
Ipsi aqualis fuerat R. Samuel ben Jehuda eius interpres.
Huncce Maimonidis librum ex Hebraeo in Latinum Sermonem
Transtulit et typis exscribendum curavit vir clarissimus as He=
Braica litteratura vindex Joannes Buxtorfius. Fil.
Sub. Titulo Doctoris Perplexorum Basilea 1629. In Ato.
- Latin note in light brown ink:
- Pastedown at the beginning of the volume contains 2 Latin inscriptions by one same hand but in two different inks, one light brown and the other dark brown, the second note added after the first. The notes mention the names of two Christian Hebraists, Johann Caspar Ulrich (1705-1768) and Johann Buxtorf ‘The Younger’ (1599-1664).
- Jewish owner’s notes:
- While still in Spain, the manuscript was owned by a Jew perhaps of the end of the 13th-early 14th century, named Barukh Blanes (f. 1r), the latter being a toponym of a town in the province of Girona, Catalonia. Despite this information, it is possible that the Blanes family did not live in the town of Blanes proper, but somewhere in the vicinity. However, here below are some possible relatives, extracted from notary references and Hebrew manuscripts from Girona, all dated between the middle and end of the 14th century and who could perhaps be Barukh Blanes’ descendants: Iossef de Blanes / Iossef Blanes, Astruc de n’Itsaq de Blanes, Bonastruc de Blanes, Alietzer Suslam de Blanes, Jucef Belshom de Blanes, Isaac Jucef de Blanes, Belshom de Blanes, Isaac de Blanes. [Many thanks to Dr. Esperança Valls-Pujols of the Institut Privat d’Estudis Món Juïc in Barcelona for this information.]
- The manuscript must have then arrived in Italy either in the aftermath of the anti-Jewish Spanish massacres of 1391 or after the ensuing 1492 expulsion of Spain.
- During the 16th century, the manuscript was probably rebound in Italy, as an owner signed his name on the recto of the first flyleaf of the volume, which had been glued onto a stub of the original flyleaf after the volume had been rebound (see also the prefatory verses on flyleaf I recto in an Italian 15th c. script). The owner’s name in question is Iseppe Sforno, a member of the prominent Bolognese Jewish Sforno family. The Sforno surname is of Spanish origin and one is tempted to suggest that the manuscript may have been in the possession of this family since their arrival in Italy from Spain, sometime between the end of the 14th or end of the 15th century and thus would have been responsible for rebinding the manuscript.
- Furthermore, in the early 17th century, the manuscript was in the hands of the well-known Italian Jewish apostate and inquisitor Renato da Modena (Popper, §132-133), who verified the manuscript and signed his name accompanied by the date of 1626 on its last page (f. 167v: Visto per me frater Renato da Modena a. 1626).
- After more than a century, the manuscript reappeared in the possession of Johann Caspar Ulrich (1705-1768) (see DHS in bibliography), a Protestant theologian, Christian Hebraist and minister in Zurich, as is witnessed by a note dated 1762 on the pastedown at the beginning of the volume, which attests to the donation of this manuscript by the latter to the Bibliotheca Ecclesia Carolina, the chapter library of the reformed Grossmünster church of Zurich, named after its legendary founder, Charlemagne. [The shelfmark ‘Ms. Car.’ refers to this institution and a catalogue of 1776 by Johann Jakob Breitinger (1701-1776, see DHS) mentions Ms. Car. C 126].
Acquisizione del manoscritto: In 1835, when the chapter was dissolved, the books and manuscripts of the chapter library became part of the new Cantonal Library in Zurich. Finally, in 1917, the holdings of the Cantonal Library and those of the City Library were united to form the new Zentralbibliothek. [Many thanks to Mr Rainer Walter, Curator of the Manuscript Department at the Zentralbibliothek, Zurich, for the information on the provenance of this manuscript between the 18th and 20th centuries.]
Manuscript catalogues :
- J. Prijs, Die hebraïschen Handschriften der Zentralbibliothek Zürich. Im Auftrag der Verwaltung der Zentralbibliothek beschrieben von Joseph Prijs (7 vols.), vol. 4, Nr.161, pp. 326-328
Printed catalogues and secondary literature:
- L. V. Berman, "The Structure of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed," Proceedings of the Sixth World Congress of Jewish Studies, vol. 3 (Jerusalem, 1977), pp. 7-13.
- Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse (DHS), s.v. Johann Caspar Ulrich, http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/textes/f/F10886.php (viewed 6.05.2019) and s.v. Johann Jakob Breitinger, http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/textes/d/D11613.php (viewed 6.05.2019).
- I. Dobbs-Weinstein, “The Maimonidean Controversy”, in History of Jewish Philosophy (ed.) D. F. and O. Leaman (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 331-349.
- Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem, Keter Publishing House, 1973), vol. 11, s.v. Maimonides, Moses, pp. 752-764; 768-777 and s.v. Maimonidean Controversy, pp. 746-753.
- A. Grossman, “Me-Andalusia le-Europa: Yaḥasam shel Ḥakhme Ashkenaz ve-Zarefat ba-Me’ot ha 12-13 el Sifre ha-Halakhah shel ha-RiF ve-ha-Rambam”, Pe’amim 80 (5759/1999), pp. 24-29.
- M. Kozodoy, “Prefatory Verse and the Reception of the Guide of the Perplexed”, Jewish Quarterly Review 106, n°3, (summer 2016), pp. 257-282.
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