Bidspirit auction | MENACHEM TZIYONI BEN MEIR OF

MENACHEM TZIYONI BEN MEIR OF SPEYER. Sepher Tziyoni [Kabbalistic homilies to the Chumash, with poems]. Second edition (first edition of 1559 entirely destroyed, see below). Title and chapter headings with woodblock historiated initials. The final two leaves contain two lengthy poems that do not appear in later editions. Weiss republished them in his Tsefunei Tziyoni (pp. 92-4) emphasizing “the astonishing wonders hidden therein.” ff. 110. Browned in places, final leaf crudely rehinged, f.4 with loss of couple of words. Recent boards. Sm. 4to. Vinograd, Cremona 31; Davidson, Thesaurus of Medieval Hebrew Poetry, Vol. IV (1970) p. 435. Cremona, Vicenzo Conti, 1560. The Author writes that by a mystic combination of letters, the Ineffable Name of God can be written. However the printer states that due to their intense sanctity, he decided not to print such, instead leaving the intended space blank for the reader to inscribe the symbols if he so chooses (see f. 43). Upon issue, the entire first edition of one thousand copies of the Tziyoni issued in 1559 was seized and destroyed by the Dominican Friars of Cremona, zealously seeking to enforce Pope Paul IV’s Index of that year. Despite the Pope's Bull “In Coena Dominis, ” a bare handful of copies survived. See D. Amram, the Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (1963) pp. 310-315. R. Menachem Tziyoni (late 14th-early 15th century), a resident of Cologne, was one of the few German Kabbalists of his day. Unfortunately, virtually nothing is known of his life, or his teachers.