Bidspirit auction | Toldos Adam The Wisdom of

Toldos Adam The Wisdom of Face and Palm Reading, with Illustrations! Amsterdam, 1658 * The fascinating study of the wisdom of face reading and palmistry by Rabbi Moshe ben Rabbi Eliyahu Galina. Includes four full-page illustrations, among them a detailed drawing of the palm. An important and popular sefer segulos, of which almost no copies have survived. Extremely rare! To the best of Genazym's knowledge, this edition has never before appeared in public auction. Hebrew printing in Amsterdam had begun only about thirty years earlier, and the city soon became a world center of Hebrew publishing. This sefer is one of the earliest Amsterdam prints to include illustrations. The art of reading a person’s face and palm is an ancient wisdom and skill mentioned in sources as early as the Zohar HaKadosh. It is known that the Arizal was an expert in this wisdom, yet Rabbi Shlomo Shlomil recounts in his letters that the Arizal did not want to relay this wisdom and power even to his prime disciple Rabbi Chaim Vital. (The Chidah also notes this in Midbar Kadmos, entry ‘Chochmos’). This is the third edition of the sefer; the first two — Constantinople, 1515, and Cremona, 1556 — are exceedingly rare and virtually unobtainable even at the highest prices. The illustrations did not appear in the Constantinople edition. Amsterdam, 1658. Page Count: [12] leaves. Size: 17.2 cm. Condition: Restored at the upper edge of the leaves, with a few words completed in facsimile. Fine new leather binding.