[Orden de Roshasanah y Kipur]. Machzor for Rosh Hashanah and for Yom Kippur, translated into Spanish by Abraham ben Salomon Usque. Printed by the author. Ferrara, 1553. Spanish, with a few Hebrew titles.
In the mid-16th century, Ferrara was the spiritual center of Italian Jewry. Ferrara rulers, the dukes of the House of Este sympathized with the Jewish Marranos from Spain and Portugal, and under their rule, many Jews returned to Judaism. The city housed a separate Spanish community, several synagogues and a printing press for Hebrew, Spanish and Portuguese books.
The printer of this machzor, Abraham ben Salomon Usque, was born in Portugal and escaped to Ferrara in 1543, fleeing the Portuguese Inquisition. In Ferrara he worked with the printer Yom Tov Levi Athias (one of the Spanish Marranos). The same year that this machzor was printed, the two printed the Ferrara Bible, the first Bible with a Ladino translation in Latin letters. (The Bible was printed in two identical editions with the exception of one difference: One was intended for a Christian audience and therefore was dedicated to the Duke of Ferrara and the other was intended for a Jewish audience and was dedicated to Gracia Mendes Nasi).
XXV-CCLXII leaves (mispagination, i.e XXV-CCLXXII). Total of 248 leaves. Lacking 24 leaves at the beginning (including the title page). Good-fair condition. Many stains. The first leaf and several leaves at the end of the book are detached. On some pages, verses were erased with ink (apparently, ancient censor erasures). Ancient leather-covered binding, worn, torn and partially detached.