Printed wall calendar for 5355 (1594-1595). Mantua: Solomon son of Samuel of Norzi, [1594].
Large leaf, printed on one side. Detailed calendar of the months of the year, with the times of the molad, the Parashiot read every week, the dates of festivals and special days, the tekufot, and the Hebrew dates of Christian saints' days.
In the upper right-hand corner, printer's device of Solomon son of Samuel of Norzi (active in Mantua in the late 16th century): a black, blindfolded figure, flanked by a crescent and a star. The printers Samuel and his son Solomon of Norzi inherited the type from the descendants of the printer Meir son of Efraim of Padua (who printed a series of similar calendars in the 1560s-1590s), and he is mentioned as deceased in the lower-right corner of the calendar. (see: Diglei Madpisim, Yudlov, Jerusalem, 2002, illustration 14, pp. 41-42; and pp. 119-120, no. 29 [Hebrew]).
Listed in the Bibliography of the Hebrew Book based on a photocopy of the present copy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the sole extant exemplar.
The NLI catalogue (previously the Valmadonna collection) lists most of the calendars printed in Mantua in the 1560s-1590s in similar format. The present calendar is one of the very few lacking in the collection.

Approx. 46X34 cm. Fair-good condition. Stains, including dampstains and traces of past dampness to upper part of leaf. Worming and open tears to margins and center of leaf, affecting text and printed border, repaired with paper, with some handwritten text replacement (leaf restored with paper on verso).

Reference and exhibitions:
1. Italia Hebraica, Tel Aviv, Istituto di Cultura, 2007.
2. Only on Paper, Six Centuries of Judaica from the Gross Family Collection. Chicago, Columbia College, 2005.
3. Palaces of Time, Jewish Calendar and Culture in Early Modern Europe, by Elisheva Carlebach. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2011 (a wall calendar similar to the present item appears on p. 63).
4. The Writing on the Wall, a Catalogue of Judaica Broadsides from the Valmadonna Trust Library, London and New York, 2015, pp. 239-244.
Provenance: The Gross Family Collection, Tel Aviv, 075.011.018.