Exceedingly rare!
Manuscript of Kabbalistic Shaarei Tzion Prayerbook
Italy, End of 17th – Early 18th century.
Italian manuscript with illustrated title page and illustration of menorah: Sefer Shaarei Tzion, an anthology of kabbalistic prayers by the holy kabbalist Rabbi Nosson Nutta Hanover.
This manuscript was used by many Italian kabbalists and contains numerous kabbalistic marginalia. Three sides of kavanos that were not included in Rabbi Nosson Nutta’s ‘Shaarei Tzion’ are attached to this manuscript (leaves 11b-12b), among them the famous depiction of the menorah shaped by the words of “Lamenatzeach”.
The present manuscript is very old and was copied by hand from the first printed edition of the sefer (Prague, 1662) which encompasses fundamental differences from later editions. One prominent example is the division of days in Chapter 3, this division does not appear in the original edition. There is only one known copy of the first edition of ‘Shaar Tzion’, in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, with its end missing. The present manuscript is also missing its end, presumably one page, yet it includes slightly more text than the printed version.
This sefer is one of the most fundamental, popular anthologies of kabbalistic prayers and tikkunim. Originally printed in 1662, it was reprinted another 100 times over the course of the ensuing two centuries! Since it was reprinted so frequently, there were very few who expended the effort to copy it by hand.
Italy, End of 17th century – Early 18th century.
Page Count: [38] leaves, [73] handwritten sides. (Leaves 24-25a are blank and intended to complete a section of the sefer that was not copied.) Approximately one leaf missing at the end.
Page Size: 14 cm.
Condition: Good with one hole created by singed ink. Used. Attractive new binding.
