Selections from The Valmadonna Trust Library: Highly Important Hebrew Printed Books
Nov 10, 2017
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Time in New York: 3 pm
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LOT 3:
ABRABANEL, DON ISAAC
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Sold for: $1,700
Estimated price:
$
1,000 - $1,500
Auction house commission:
25%
VAT: On commission only
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Nachlath Avoth [commentary to the Ethics of the Fathers, with text]. With introduction by Maimonides.
Second edition. Printer’s device on title (Yaari, Hebrew Printers Marks no. 16). Laudatory poem by the Author’s eldest son, Judah (Leone Ebreo) Abrabanel on verso of title. ff. 216 (i.e. 215). Trace marginal worming, touch foxed, final three leaves neatly remargined. Modern blind-tooled tan calf. 4to. Vinograd, Venice 248.
Giustiniani-Adelkind, Venice: 1545.
The commentary Nachlath Avoth is replete with Abrabanel’s quest in determining the tragedies of his time. Abrabanel himself was no stranger to hardship, and had gone into exile at least three times in his life, first fleeing Portugal after being accused of treason, then leaving Spain under the Alhambra Decree and later escaping Naples as it fell to the French. He died in Venice in 1508, 37 years before Nachlath Avoth would be printed there. For a detailed biography of Abrabanel’s experiences and philosophical conclusions regarding the Spanish Expulsion, see B. Netanyahu: Don Isaac Abravanel, Statesman & Philosopher (1968).
