Melechet Machshevet, a philosophical study on the Five Books of the Torah, by R. Moshe Chefetz. Venice: Bragadin, [1710]. First edition.
Complete copy with fine margins, including illustrated half-title with detailed copper engraving, leaf with portrait of the author and leaf with geometric diagrams. Additional diagram on leaf 57. Below the portrait of the author is a rhyme alluding to his age at the time of the printing: "a hundred (Meah) years old", referring to the numerical value of the word "Meah", 46 (some mistakenly took the word literally, believing he was in fact 100 years old; see below).

R. Moshe Chefetz (1664-1711), Italian rabbi, scholar and philosopher. Born in Trieste, he was raised in Venice, where he later disseminated Torah. He possessed wide-ranging knowledge of physics and metaphysics, as attested by his works Melechet Machashevet and Chanukat HaBayit. He composed this book to find solace for the untimely passing of his son R. Gershom, author of Yad Charuzim. R. Moshe died at the young age of 48 on 30 Cheshvan, 1711 (R. Mordechai Ghirondi, Toldot Gedolei Yisrael, Trieste 1853, p. 239). R. Shmuel David Luzzatto (Shadal) quotes a tradition transmitted by Italian Torah scholars, which maintains that the sages of his generation, upon hearing of the text of the caption R. Moshe intended to place beneath his portrait in his book, tried to dissuade him from doing so, warning him that it is not something one can make jest of. He did not heed their warning, and passed away within the year (Igrot Shadal, VII, p. 1013).
On the title page of the book is a signature of R. "Yaakov de Medina" – a Livorno Torah scholar in the time of the Chida (served as Dayan in Livorno alongside R. Yaakov Nunez-Vaez and R. Shem Tov ben Samun).
On the leaves of the book are several glosses (some trimmed) in his handwriting. On p. 96b is a gloss relating to the French conquest granting equal rights: "…we see with our own eyes today the French kingdom, where the government […] everyone, the lowly as the great".

[11], 98 leaves. 30.5 cm. Fair-good condition. Stains, including dampstains and dark stains. Wear and tears. Several leaves partially detached. Worming in a few places. Original binding, with parchment spine, damaged.