Lechem Yehudah, narrative in prose and rhyming poetry by R. Yehudah Zarko of Rhodes. Constantinople: Shlomo son of Yitzchak Yaavetz, 1560. Only edition.

Love story in the form of a maqama about a beautiful princess whose father prevented all her courters from entering the palace, and five princes who, with the help of an elderly advisor, tried with all their might to penetrate to the palace. The lines of poetry are printed in square type. Between the lines of poetry is an allegorical commentary printed in semi-cursive (Rashi) type.

The poems in the book form a complex acrostic of the name of the author and his father, as the author states in his introduction (p. 3b): "The riddle poems are ordered according to the Atbash sequence… with one circuit of poetry going in one direction and the other coming towards it until they meet".

Signature (partially cut off) on second leaf: "Avraham… HaLevi".

[40] leaves. Approx. 20 cm. Fair condition. Stains. Light wear to some leaves. Tears, including large open tear to title page, repaired with paper, bordering text, and tears to other leaves, slightly affecting text. New leather binding.

Complete copy of a particularly rare edition. The present book was published in a limited facsimile edition in 1960 with a foreword by the scholar and bibliographer A.M. Haberman. In the foreword, Haberman notes that he knows of only four copies of the book, one of which is the present copy. The book is documented in the Bibliography of the Hebrew Book based on a facsimile, and the NLI catalogue also only contains a facsimile.

Enclosed (separately) are four leaves of another copy of the book (29-32), with damage and tears.

CB, no. 5772,1; Zedner, p. 395.