Auction 4 Part 2 Rabbinic manuscripts, letters by rabbis, autographs, Kodesh books, inscriptions and signatures
Nov 26, 2015
Israel
 Harav Maimon 2, Jerusalem
The auction has ended

LOT 350:

Historical Letter confirming that the Newly-Found Manuscript is in the Handwriting of Maimonides – Chacham David ...

catalog
  Previous item
Next item 
Sold for: $100
Start price:
$ 100
Auction house commission: 19%
VAT: 17% On commission only
Users from foreign countries may be exempted from tax payments, according to the relevant tax regulations
tags:

Historical Letter confirming that the Newly-Found Manuscript is in the Handwriting of Maimonides – Chacham David Sassoon – London 1933
A letter from David Sasson to Mr. Moshe Lutzki, the Hebrew librarian at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. In the letter, Sassoon congratulates Lutzki on the important, incomparable finding in the handwriting of Maimonides. It seems that he is referring to twenty pages in the handwriting of Maimonides which were found in the Cairo Geniza and eventually reached the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The pages include the end of Hilchot Schirut and the beginning of Hilchot She'ela Ve'Pikadon which were published in 1940.
The letter is typewritten and signed by David Sassoon.
Chacham David Saliman Sassoon (1880-1942), the Hebrew librarian at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, was a Torah scholar, researcher and famous collector of rare Jewish manuscript. His collection was defined as the largest private collection of Hebrew manuscripts.
About a hundred years ago, an important event took place: the discovery of the Cairo Geniza in the attic of the synagogue of Ezra the Scribe in Cairo. A huge amount of manuscripts of the Geonim and Rishonim, in Talmud, Halacha, poetry and sciences was discovered. Among the most interesting things discovered were pages in the handwriting of Maimonides.
Moshe Lutzki studied and published these manuscripts. He discovered among the manuscripts in the Geniza pages that looked like they were handwritten by Maimonides. He turned to Chacham Sassoon, who possessed the handwritten autograph of Maimonides' commentary on the Mishna. Sassoon was considered an expert in identifying Maimonides' handwriting. Chacham Sassoon confirmed that the handwriting found by Lutzki is indeed Maimonides'.
Condition: Good. Torn at the top without damage to the content of the letter.

catalog
  Previous item
Next item