Auction 97 Part 2 Rare and Important Items
Year-Round Ashkenazi Rite Siddur – Venice, 1587 – Exceptionally Rare Edition – Fine Copy
Year-round siddur according to the Ashkenazi rite, with new additions. Venice: Zuan [Giovanni] di Gara, 1587.
Year-round siddur according to the Western Ashkenazi rite. With instructions in Yiddish.
Contents include: Torah readings for Monday and Thursday, Yotzrot, Selichot for Monday and Thursday (Behab) and fast days, Amidah prayer for festivals, Passover Haggadah (with rhymed instructions in Yiddish at beginning of the Haggadah) and Tractate Avot, Amidah prayers for high holidays, Hoshanot and piyyutim for Simchat Torah, "Maarivim", confession for the deathbed, Tziduk HaDin, Tefilat HaDerech, Maamadot (Shir HaYichud) and Shir HaKavod, list of Torah readings and index.
Colophon on last leaf: "The work was completed… today, Friday, 13th Sivan… 1587". After the colophon appears a poem bearing the acrostic "Yitzchak Salem" (apparently the proofreader of the Siddur).
Inscription on verso of title page: "This siddur (without money) belongs to my wife Mrs. Brunella, whom I married 10th Elul 1584".
Censorship expurgation on one leaf.
359 leaves. 16.5 cm. Gauffered gilt edges. Good condition. Stains, including dampstains. Marginal open tears to several leaves, repaired with paper filling (one leaf supplied from another copy). Worming, affecting text of some leaves, professionally restored with paper filling (with handwritten replacements of letters). Fine new leather binding.
Exceptionally rare edition. We know of another complete copy formerly in the Valmadonna Trust Library (now in the National Library of Israel).