Me'or Einayim. Venice, 1574. Book Banned Immediately upon its Publication

Me'or Einayim. Venice, 1574. Book Banned Immediately upon its Publication

Me'or Einayim - renowned work by Rabbi Azariah dei Rossi min HaAdumim. Mantua, 1574. First edition. With all the revised leaves.

A large controversy surrounded Sefer Me'or Einayim. Immediately upon the release of this sefer, opposition arose to several chapters of the author's words, what he wrote about Seder Yemei Olam and on Sefer HaZohar. Venice rabbis banned the sefer. The author attempted to clarify his words, and on condition that it would not be banned, he agreed to add the critiques written on it. Later on, the author also replaced many leaves in the sefer with altered leaves, but this was apparently also insufficient, as the Chid"a writes that in his final days, Rabbi Yosef Karo ordered the ban, but he did not manage to sign on this. The Mahara"l of Prague vigorously disagreed with the author's words, and even dedicated part of his work Be'er HaGolah to opposing the sefer Me'or Einayim. At the same time, there were gedolei Yisrael who did offer some support to the author.

During one stage of the controversy, the author wrote that he agreed that these leaves be removed from the sefer, and there were those who did so. However, given that this also did not help, he printed revised leaves in place of those leaves, yet these revised leaves are not found in all copies.

This copy contains the revised leaves.

For more on this affair, refer to Meir Benayahu, "HaPolmus al Sefer Me'or Einayim" Asufot 5, 1991, pp. 213-265. Yisrael Mehlman, Genuzot Sefarim pp. 21-39.

Due to the existence of several types of copies, we will provide an extensive description of this copy:

The body of the sefer ends with leaf 184. The author writes his name and describes the progression of the work through Tishrei 1572, and on the reverse side of that leaf is a song for its conclusion. Leaves 185-186 bear printed mehudarot - revisions, and the author writes there that some errors crept into the sefer. Leaves 187-188 bear a table of the chapters, concluding with "Completed, praise the Creator of the world." Et questo con la detta licenza.

However, there are copies with additional leaves added to them, after they were printed.

194 leaf, approximately 19 cm. Sketches. Glosses in an antique script.

Fine condition. Minimal aging stains. Semi-leather binding.