A Medieval "Book of Roots"

The Kimḥi family of Provence was a celebrated medieval Jewish family of biblical commentators and Hebrew grammarians. Rabbi Joseph Kimḥi and his two sons Moses and David were each renowned scholars in their own right, but Rabbi David Kimḥi (1160-1235 C.E., commonly known by his Hebrew acronym "Radak") was the most celebrated of all.

Rauner recently acquired a manuscript of Kimḥi's Hebrew lexicon, Sefer ha-Shorashim (literally translated as "book of roots.") First composed in the late 12th-early 13th century, the Radak's Sefer was one of the most influential Hebrew dictionaries in the medieval period. The entries are arranged alphabetically around the three-letter shorashim, or "roots," common to most Hebrew words, with quotes from religious texts and explorations of etymology.

Our handwritten copy of the Sefer was likely produced by a Sephardic Jewish scribe in Southern France or Northern Italy ca. 1370-1430 C.E., more than a century after Kimḥi’s death. Most of the pages are written in a consistent Sephardic semicursive script, on laid paper common in parts of France and Italy in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. It is possible that this scribe, like the Radak himself, was a descendant of Spanish Jews (Sephardim) who fled persecution and settled in the French region of Provence, which during the Kimḥis' time was a flourishing center of Torah scholarship known as Hachmei Provence.

By the 16th century, our copy had found its way from Provence to Yemen, where a Yemenite Jewish scribe painstakingly copied missing leaves and added some of his own marginal notes to the Radak’s text. Subsequent Yemenite owners of this Sefer also proudly scrawled their names and statements of ownership on the first and last leaves of the tome. After all, to own such an old copy of this famous work would have been quite the status symbol, testifying to the owner's material wealth, as well as his intellectual gravitas.

If you can read Hebrew but are still struggling to parse this 18th century inscription, there's a reason for that. It is partially written in Judeo-Arabic, a dialect of Arabic historically spoken by Jews in Arab countries, written using the Hebrew alphabet. Luckily, the dealer provided a translation of the message, which includes a fabulous book curse:

"I merited to purchase this Sefer ha-mikhlol through the labors of my hands. May the blessed Omnipresent give me the privilege to immerse myself in it—I, my descendants, and my descendants' descendants until the last generation. Amen, so may it be [His] will. He who takes it and does not return it—may his name and memory be obliterated from the world, and may he be bitten by a snake. But may the nation of God dwell in peace. [Signed] the humble Joseph, son of our teacher Shuker al-Sarem, may his Rock and Redeemer keep him and may his end be good."

 

To see our copy of the Sefer ha-Shorashim, come in and ask for Codex 003515.

Dante and Doré

Sometimes we just want to look at something beautiful. Sometimes a thing that is beautiful is also grotesque. This week we're looking at the art of Gustave Doré and his interpretations of some of the most disturbing imagery of medieval literature: Dante's Inferno.

Doré (1832-1883) was a prolific French artist who provided lavish illustrations for over 50 books during his lifetime, not to mention his work in other mediums. His engravings tended to adorn works of classic literature, and if you've seen Dante illustrated before, there's a good chance that it was Doré you were looking at. His style, finely detailed, dark, and dramatic, is a perfect fit for the Italian poet's vision of Hell.

Written in the early 14th century, The Divine Comedy (of which Inferno is only the first part) follows the author's pilgrimage to the underworld, making his way through each circle of Hell before he is able to move on to Purgatory and then to Heaven. Guided in this first stage of his journey by the poet Virgil, Dante sees and describes layer after layer of sinners in torment. Doré's depictions of each circle are appropriately disturbing and atmospheric. We could say more here, but we really just recommend taking a look for yourself.

To see Doré's version of Dante's Inferno, ask for IllusD73dan.

"Whan that Aprille..."

Think fast! What language is this story written in? If you guessed, "English," you're right. If you guessed, "Middle English," then we're really impressed! Middle English was a form of the English language that was spoken from the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066 until the late 1400s. It eventually morphed into Early Modern English, which is what Shakespeare and his ilk spoke.⁠

The arrival of a Norman ruling class in England in 1066 meant that Old Norman, a dialect of Old French, quickly became the preferred language of the island's elite. It wasn't until the late 1300s, when Geoffrey Chaucer began writing in Middle English instead of Old French or Anglo-Norman, that the English language regained some measure of respectability as a vehicle for intellectual and artistic expression⁠

Tomorrow is National Chaucer Day, which celebrates the anniversary of the first time that Geoffrey Chaucer read his Canterbury Tales aloud to the Court of King Richard II in 1371. To celebrate we're sharing an image of a page from the first printed edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The book was printed in London in the 1470s by William Caxton, who is reputed to be the first person to introduce the printing press to England. ⁠

To see our single leaf of this landmark work of book history, ask for Hickmott 201.