Bidspirit auction | (TEHILLIM). Sepher Tehillim - I

(TEHILLIM). Sepher Tehillim - I Salmi. First edition.  Hebrew with translation into Italian prepared by Rabbino Lelio della Torre. pp. 262, (2). Lightly foxed, bookplate removed, family notes on last page. Contemporary boards, worn. 8vo. Vienna, Schmid & Busch, 1845. Lelio Hillel della Torre (1805–71) was an Italian Jewish scholar and poet writing in Italian, German, French and Hebrew, best known for his critical translation of the Book of Psalms. Della Torre was the son of Solomon Jehiel Raphael HaKohen, chief rabbi of Cuneo, Piedmont who died in 1807 and so Della Torre grew up as an orphan with his mother's family in Casale Monferrato. After the death of his maternal grandfather in Asti, he was mentored by his mother's brother, Sabbatai Elhanan Treves (to whom this Tehillim is dedicated). His uncle moved to Torino in 1820, being named chief rabbi of the Jewish communities of Piemont. Della Torre studied Greek, Latin and Italian in Torino and from the age of sixteen working as a private tutor in order to support his mother and three sisters. From 1823, he was teacher for Hebrew philology and biblical exegesis at the Jewish Collegio Colonna e Finzi in Torino. In 1826 he was ordained, serving as rabbi of the Torino community from 1827. In 1829, he was called to Padua as professor of Talmud, homiletics and pastoral theology at the newly established rabbinical seminar there, a position he held until his death. He was married to Anna Bolaffio, with whom he had seven children. (Biography by Riccardo Di Segni in Massimiliano Pavan (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI) vol. 37).