Obj. ID: 40254
Jewish printed books Apiryon Shlomo by Avraham Sasson, Venice, 1608
This text was prepared by William Gross:
Apiryon Shlomo, "Kol Sasson". Kabbalistic novellae by the Kabbalist Rabbi Avraham Sasson, among the exiles from Spain and one of the sages of Italy during the early 17th century. Authored the books "Kol Mevaser", Kol Sasson" and this book "Apiryon Shlomo.".
Venice, 1608. First edition. Zanitto Zanetti Press.
This book is offered in a catalog number 14, of books about Kabbalah being offered by two book dealers in a small town in the Ukraine, Husiatyn. The first offereing, labeled "Unica. Einblattdruck" is the book "Kol Sasoon ha-Emperion". This first offereing, labeled "Unica. Einblattdruck" is :
1. Kol sasson, Ha-apiriyon part II. And this is a “tree of the science of the Kabbalah” (ilan ḥokhmat ha-kabbalah), drawn (meẓuyar) with a commentary according to deep Kabbalah (kabbalah ‘amukah). At its end is a poem of eighteen verses in praise of the aforementioned “ilan” by the gaon our teacher the rabbi Judah Aryeh (Leon) Modena. It is one of a kind and no other copy is known to be extant in the world.
Although not among the titles on the desiderata list of Gershom Scholem, "Alu le-Shalom" that he published in 1937, Scholem’s copy of the catalogue marks the item with an “X” – signifying that it was not in his library and desired. He never acquired it.
There are 4 copies in manuscript form from the 17th and 18th centuries, and one of them ( inventory number 990000614390205171) states that it is copied from the printing of 1608. There is a copy in the library of the JTS in New York, but it does not contain the ilan in question. The example in the Fross Family Collection, GFC B.2521, is the only extant copy with the fold-out ilan and poem, in accordance with the catalogue description.
This book is the second part of Avraham Sasson's work "Kol Sasson", the first part of which was published in Venice in 1605. This catalogue is a listing of 294 kabbalistic books for sale at the time by the Galicianer booksellers. This offering is the most expensive among all the 294 listings.
