Bidspirit auction | ABRABANEL, DON ISAAC. Nachlath Avoth

ABRABANEL, DON ISAAC. Nachlath Avoth [commentary to Ethics of the Fathers, with text]. FIRST EDITION. Initial text page with a poem by the Author’s eldest son, Judah (Leone Ebreo) Abrabanel, enclosed by a metalcut, white-on-black historiated border of animals designed by the Marrano, Alfonso de Cordoba. A fine copy. ff. (116). Few expert marginal paper repairs, trace stained. Modern gilt-tooled emerald crushed morocco. Sm. folio. Vinograd, Constantinople 12; Mehlman 124; S.J. Weiss, Pirkei Avoth no. 4; Stefansky, Sifrei Yesod 38. Constantinople, David & Samuel ibn Nahmias, 1505. Nachlath Avoth contains Abrabanel’s testimony concerning Jewish suffering endured as a result of the Spanish Expulsion. Abrabanel asserts that what gives meaning to Jewish tragedy is the eternal moral heritage guarded by generations of Jews and which, Abrabanel warns, is in jeopardy due to rising materialistic tendencies post-Exile. The Nahmias Brothers, who printed this work, were themselves exiles from Spain. They established their press in Constantinople in 1505. It was the first printing-press, in any language, to operate beyond Europe’s borders.