Bidspirit auction | HAKOHEN, DAVID, OF CORFU. Teshuvoth

HAKOHEN, DAVID, OF CORFU. Teshuvoth HaRaDa’CH [responsa]. FIRST EDITION. Title within Soncino’s striking historiated border. Scattered marginalia in a Sephardic hand. ff. (225). Ex-library, variously stained, worn in places, some worming affecting text. Loose in later vellum-backed boards. Sm. 4to. Vinograd, Constantinople 160; Mehlman 703; Stefansky, Sifrei Yesod 278. Constantinople, Eliezer Soncino, 1537-38. R. David ben Chaim HaKohen (beg. 15th century) was rabbi at Corfu and later in Patras, Greece. He was a disciple of the great halachist R. Yehudah Mintz (MaHaR’I Mintz). The title page of these responsa tells of the miraculous rescue of the manuscript from fire in the home of the author’s son R. Chaim Cohen in Adrianople (Edirne), Turkey. There is a typographical curiosity on ff. 183v.-184r: Unlike the rest of the book, the text is double-spaced rather than single-spaced.