Obj. ID: 38975
Jewish printed books Mizmor Shir Yedidut u-Bnot ha-Shir by Yosef Baruch ben Yedidiah Zachariah Urbino, Mantua, 1659
This text was prepared by William Gross:
Collected verse for various occasions by Joseph Baruch ben Jedidiah Zechariah d’Urbino (17th C), including a poem in honor of his wife-to-be, Yehudit bat R. Netanel Trabot. Urbino was both a rabbi and a physician, serving and residing in Venice, Rovigo, Modena, Mantua and Busetto. He was a student of R. Leone (Judah Aryeh) Modena, who ordained him as a rabbi. Among Urbino’s other accomplishments are the writing of response on the laws of schechitah, and translating the works of the philosopher and mathematician Alesandro Piccolomini into Hebrew from Italian.
Mizmor Shir Yedidut demonstrates Urbino’s wisdom in both revealed and esoteric wisdoms and the quality of his verse. This is the only edition published.
Several pages of this very rare printed book are in facscimile.
The volume includes a set of diagrams explaining the reasons for eclipses. All are original.
Mantua, where Hebrew books had been printed as early as 1474, had several small presses that published Hebrew books in the seventeenth century. Judah Samuel di Perugia and his son Joshua were active there during the second half of the century, producing, along with the other printers, prayer books, communal and tax regulations, other small titles, such as prayers by the rabbis of Mantua prior to the expulsion of Jews from that city in 1630.