Img. ID: 332761
Text column no. 4 (sheet no. 1) surrounded by the hand-painted decoration. The roundel in the upper margin contains a bust of a young woman holding a pen (?) in her hand and in the frame in the lower margin the wedding of Ahasuerus and Esther is depicted. The Book of Esther does not mention this episode and the source for this representation remains unknown. It can be influenced by European paintings in which the scene of the marriage of the Virgin Mary and Josef was similarly composed. The same theme, although illustrated in a slightly different way, can be found in the "Esther scrolls with landscapes" and their copies made by hand, "scrolls with portrait medallions" as well as in the scrolls designed by Marcus Donath (Mordecai ben Jozl Sofer) of Nitra (see their descriptions in the Index).
The pillars flanking the text column are surmounted by a bust of a crowned woman - Esther (?) (on the right) and by a putto with a basket on his head. Below the pillar, a depiction of a house appears.
| Cod. Levy 160
The Book of Esther in Hebrew
The scroll is formed of 4 sheets containing 16 columns of the text with 22 lines, except for col. 14 with 11 lines divided into two parts.
The text is inscribed the square Hebrew Ashkenazi script with tagim, in black ink, on parchment sheets.
The letter ח (Es. 1:6) is highlighted by its size and form (it is decorated with scrolling feet and tagim placed on both ends of the roof). The letter ת (Es. 9:29) is enlarged too. Other enlarged and diminished letters are included in col. 14.
The letters in the Tetragrammaton are marked by short strokes bent to the right.
There are some erasures and corrections in the text.
The membranes in the scroll are stitched.
None
The stickers with the name of the collection and the manuscript's number on the right edge of the first membrane are placed. There are also a calculation of the date (?) and a stamp on it.
Falk Wiesemann, Codex Levy 160, [in:] Irina Wandrey ed., Manuscript Cultures, vol. 6, 260-262.
Ernst Róth, Hans Striedl, Die Handschriften der Sammlung H. B. Levy an der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg. Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, vol. VI, 3, Wiesbaden 1984, no. 9.
Images of the scroll are available on https://resolver.sub.uni-hamburg.de/kitodo/PPN893258369 (accessed on 24.09.2020).