Obj. ID: 38955
Jewish printed books  Choshen ha-Mishpat by Ya'akov ben Asher, Cracow, 1613

This text was prepared by William Gross:

The Tur Choshen ha-Mishpat from the Arba Turim by Ya’akov ben Asher. This edition contains the commentary "Bet Yosef" from Yosef Karo of Safed. It is one of four volumes that comprise this edition, published between 1613 and 1615.
Title in decorated woodcut letters. At the bottom of the page is a woodcut of the Sacrifice of Isaac, a reference to the father of the printers, Yitzhak Prosstitz, the founder of the printing house. Such illustrations were rare at this period of Hebrew printing. Early books from Cracow are also quite rare, as so many of the libraries in that area were destroyed in the pogroms of Chmelnitzki in 1646.
Yitzhak Prosstitz opened a Hebrew press in Cracow in 1569. He received permission to do so in October, 1567, for himself "and his seed after him," for a period of fifty years, including the right to print the Talmud and other Hebrew books. Despite experiencing many hardships and obstacles, Prosstitz printed more than two hundred Hebrew and Yiddish titles over three decades. His press was inherited by his children, who issued the present volume.

Commentator: Yosef ben Ephraim Karo, 1488 - 1575