STUDI E TESTI 438 Hebrew Manuscripts in the Vatican Library Catalogue Compiled by the Staff of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem Edited by Benjamin Richler Palaeographical arte1 Codicological Descriptions Malachi Beit-Arie in collaboration with Nurit Pasternak cittA del vaticano BIBLIOTECA AP OSTOLICA VATICANA 2008  Conltents Raffaele Cardinal Farina Librarian of th e Holy Roman Church Preface IX MalachiMalachi Beit-Arie Preface Benjamin Richler Editor's Introduction XI Delio Vania Proverbio Historical Introduction XV Abbreviations XXV Vaticani ebraici 1-617 Barbeririiani orientali 507 Borgiani ebraici 516 ChigiChigi R.IV.37 526 NeofitiNeofiti 528 Ottoboniani lat. 2911 564 Vat. pers. 61 564 Rossiani 566 Urbinati ebraici 599 Indices Index of Persons 639 Index of Subjects 668 Index of Place Names 670 Index of Manuscripts Mentioned 676 Index of Illuminated and Decorated ]Manuscripts 679 Concordance to the MSS in Kennicot t 679 List of Plates 681 Index of Piyyutim and Poems (Hebrew ) 1* Index of Titles (Hebrew) 28*  Preface Raffaele Cardinal Farina Librarian of th e Holy Roman Church For the last two centuries at least, and probably since the very first years after its founding in 1451, the Vatican Library has preserved a certain number of He brew manuscripts, which are now known as the Vaticani ebraici. This series has grown over time so that it now includes over 600 items. At the same time, the Library was enriched by the arrival of other Hebrew collections, which are lesser in number, though not in quality (the Borgiani ebraici, Neofit i and Urbinati ebraici). After many attempts in the past to catalogue this material, ranging from the courageous undertaking of Giuseppe Assemani to Umberto Cassuto's prema­ turely interrupted project, the volume which I have the pleasure of presenting here represents the fulfillment of a long- cherished dream: that of a work which would thoroughly document the contents and codicological characteristics of all of the Library's Hebrew manuscripts, in accordance with modern cataloguing practices. By a remarkable coincidence, however, it has come about that this work was rendered incomplete, so to speak, just as it was at the proofreading stage, by the Library's acquisition of 108 additional Hebrew manuscripts. Mv most sincere thanks go to the authors of thi? catalogue and to all those who have made its publication possible. At the same time, I wish to express the hope that the compilation of a supple­ ment will be undertaken as soon as possible; and that someone will find the courage to undertake also the important and difficult task of identifying the many Hebrew glosses and fragments which are scattered in the Library's other collections.  Preface MalachiMalachi Beit-Arie During over five years of one-month missions to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana I have examined, in collaboration with Nurit Pasternak,;all the manu- scripts included in this catalogue, in order to provide some: elementary codicological data, such as the number of folios and flyleaves an<i their order, page dimensions and size of the written space, writing materials and quiring, as well as differentiation between hands that shared the produc:tion and be- tween various codicological units artificially bound together within one codex. My main task was to identify the type of writing, localize the regie>n of produc- tion, and the harder task of assessing the approximate date of £i manuscript (frequently on the basis of watermarks in paper manuscripts, mailily identified by Nurit Pasternak). In localizing and dating I was assisted syste:matically by SfarData,SfarData, the codicological database of the Hebrew Palaeography I'reject, spon- sored by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, in which the codico- logical features and images of the dated Hebrew manuscripts w‫׳‬orldwide are recorded and are retrievable by a wide variety of parameters. Having been the only contributors to the catalogue who examiiled the man- uscripts in situ, we were charged not only with the above responsibdlity, but also with the time-consuming task of verifying and amending all the !Hebrew cita- tions included in the entries and the references to the textual units made by the cataloguers in Jerusalem on the basis of microfilms. Our work at the Vatican Library was a worthwhile experience indeed, thanks to the warm cooperation and kind assistance granted by many w horn we like to extend heartfelt gratitude. First and foremost, Sua Eminenza Mons. Raffaele Farina, the Librarian, who encouraged the project and made ou r stay in the library so pleasant. His Deputy, Ambrogio M. Piazzoni, was alw ays ready to attend to our requests. The Director of the the Manuscripts Dep>artment, Dr. Paolo Vian and his predessor Mons. Louis Duval-Arnould, gener!ously helped us in various matters; Luigina Orlandi, secretary to the director a nd presently head of t he cataloguing department, was always ready to assist;and lend ad- vice. Last but not least, the remarkable staff of the manuscript re:ading room, headed by Antonio Schiavi, who took good care in providing hundreds of manuscripts to our desk and enabled us to study them in the 1?est possible conditions.  Editor's Introduction Benjamin Richler The collection of Hebrew manuscripts in the Vatican Library is one of the most important in existence, even though it is not one of the largest. In this catalogue 813 manuscripts are described. Many of these manuscripts, especially those from the "Vaticani ebraici" collection, are volumes consisting of s everal MSS bound together or of fragments from different MSS bound together, so that the actual number of MSS in the library is far greater than the nominal number. Almost all the subjects of Jewish intellectual activity are represented in the codices of the Vatican Library. Except for a few dozen items, all the manuscripts were written in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance from the 9th to the 16th centuries. The collection includes a manuscript that is probably the earliest He­ brew codex in existence, a copy of the Sifra written towards the end of the 9th century or in the first half of the 10th century (MS Vat. ebr. 66). In addition, the Vatican Library houses several other of the most ancient and most important codices of midrashic texts all written in southern Italy in the 11th century, among them another copy of the Sifra written in 1072/3 (MS Vat. ebr. 31), and copies of the Sifri and Leviticus Rabba (MS Vat. ebr. 32) and Genesis Rabba (MS Vat. ebr. 60). There are well over fifty codices of Bible texts, excluding small fragments, among them a copy of t he entire Bible written around 1100 in Italy (MS Urb. ebr. 2). The unique copy of a Palestinian Targum of the Pentateuch known as the "Targum Neofiti" is found in the Library (MS Neof. 1). No other collection includes as many copies of tractates of the Talmud as the Vatican Library; over twenty codices in the Library include copies, multiple copies or fragments of almost all the thirty-six tractates of the Babylonian Talmud and MS Vat. ebr. 133 is one of o nly a few extant copies of tractates from the Jerusalem Talmud. In addition there are large numbers of volumes of texts in the fields of Biblical commentary, Halakhah, Kabbalah, Talmudic commentaries, liturgy and liturgical commentaries, philosophy, medicine, astronomy and other sci­ ences as well as both Jewish and Christian polemical texts. Previous to the publication of this catalogue no description of the Hebrew manuscripts in the Vatican Library was available in English or in any other Eu­ ropean language. A number of handwritten inventories of Hebrew MSS were compiled in Latin in the seventeenth century by E C.. Borromeo, G. Bartolocci, J. B. Giona and G. Morosini. The first printed catalogue of the Hebrew MSS was also in Latin, Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae Codicum Manuscriptorum Catalogus, Recensuerunt Steph. Evodius Assemani et Jos. Sim. Assemani, I: Codice s Ebraicos et bamaritanos (Rome 1756, facsimile reprint, Paris 1926). In the cata­ logue, 453 MSS in the "Vaticani ebraici" collection, 59 Urbinati MSS and two Samaritan MSS were described. Angelo Mai, in 'Appendix ad Catalogum  Historical Introduction Delio Vania Proverbio* The earliest documents regarding the existence of acore of Hebrew manuscripts in the pontifical Libreria segreta d ate to the period immedia tely following the Sack of Rome in 1527, an event so traumatic that it is likely tc• have erased even the memory of any previous acquisitions on the part of the:Popes. We find an explicit reference to Hebrew books in the Bibliotheca magna i iecreta in the Index omniumomnium librorum of the Custodians Fausto Sabeo^ and Niccolo Maiorano,2 dated to September 1533, which gives a few details about fc>ur Hebrew books (including a triglot parchment Pentateuch), as well as menticming multi alii libri avmeniavmeni Greet 111‫ ׳‬bi ct 11cbfciici in folio 4 et 8• ItbTt n^ 61.^ Howevi=r, Sabeo explains, at the end of this list, that [...] suprascripti libri [...] non sw nt nobis cuptodibu s assignatiassignati quid sunt hebrei et culdcj In spite of this, the two (Custodians, on 5th April 1549, received into the Library a bibbia hebbrea in duj vtolumi in pergameno scrittascritta a mano,5 gift of a Cardinal styled de Viseo, i. e. of Alessandro Farnese the Younger (1520-1589); again, on 15th May of the same yea r, a libro hebreo in pergamenopergameno scritto a mano,6 gi ft of the then Cardinal of Santa Croce, Marcello Cervini (1501-1555);7 on il dl ultimo di aprile MDLI (30th April 1551), a book chiamatochiamato Isaac ben Parlij [sic] designificationibus [...] scritto in hebreo;8 another gift of Cervini, who, we are told, had received it from Joannes catrd. Compostellanus, i. e. Juan Alvarez de Toledo (1488-1557); and finally, on il di uItimo di aprile1552 (30th April 1552), an euangelio disan Mattheo in hebraico.9 On '15th January 1555, the Custodians Fausto Sabeo and Guglielmo Sirleto10 recei\fed from Cardinal Cervini un espositore in ebreo sopra alcuni luoghi della Bibia scr itto infoglio [...J;11 and on 30th January 1556 they received from the Cardinal Librarian Roberto de' * Translated by Timothy Janz. 1 B. around 1475, d. 1559; in office from 1522 to 1558. 2 (1491/1492-1584/1585); in office from 1532 to 1553, later Bishop of Molfetta (1553-1566). 333 'Many other books in Armenian, Greek, Arabic and Hebrew: folio, quarto and octavo volumes, a total of 61 books' (Vat. lat. 3951, f. 70v). 4 '[...] the aforementioned books [...] are not a ssigned to u s as custoa ians, since they are in Hebrew and Chaldean 5 A 'handwritten, parchment Hebrew Bible in two volumes' (Arch. Bibl. 1LI, f. 22r). 6 A 'handwritten, parchment Hebrew book' (Arch. Bibl. 11, f. 27r). 7 Cardinal Librarian from 1550; elected Pope Marcellus II in 1555. 8 A 'book entitled "Isaac ben Parlij [legendum Parchi], De significationibus" [ ...] written in Hebrew.' (Arch.(Arch. Bibl. 11, f. 43r). Today this is the Vat. ebr. \77. 99 A 'Gospel of St. Matthew in Hebrew', now Vat. ebr. 101 (Arch. Bibl. 11, f. 46r; cf. Vat. lot. 3963, f. 8v, number. 214). 10 1514-1585; Custodian from 1554 to 1556. 11 A 'commentator, in Hebrew, on certain passages of the Bible, written i folio' {Arch. Bibl. 11, f. 62r).  Codices Vaticani ebraici 1-61 Vat. ebr. 1 212 columns. Parchment (gevil). Height; 630—650 mm. 51—t 3 lines. <Middle East>, 12-13th century[?]. Oriental square script. [‫ ]ספר תורה‬Torah scroll. With tagin on the letters ‫| עטנ״ז ג״ץו‬. Some luoped letters. The letter het has an angular 'roof'. Assemani recorded the manuscript as olim Palatinus. Vat. ebr. 2 218 columns (dismembered into 73 numbered sheets, each holding three columns). Parchment. Height: 730- ?50 mm. 56-59 lines. <Germany:>, 14th century. Ashke- nazic square script. [‫ ]ספר תורה‬Torah scroll. With tagin on the letters ‫עטנ״ז ג״ץש‬ Kennicott 478. Vat. ebr. 3 578 ff. (<1> + 1-402,402a—402b, 403-575; (ff. 282v, 283r, 354‫י‬/, 365r, 415r, 500v blank- ff. 574-575 flyleaves). Parchment. 380x262 (248x160) mm . Quaternions,. Two col- umns.umns. <France?>, last third of 13th century. Ashkenazic square script. [‫ ]תנ״ך][תנ״ך‬Bible. With vocalization and accents. Masorah 'Magna and Parva are supplied only for the Pentateuch, Prophets until I Kings v and the beginning of Psalms, Job and the Five Scrolls. Order of books: Pentate uch, Prophets, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ruth, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, I amentatioiis, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, and Chronicles. Some of the Masorah is displayed in decorative or zoorr Copied by Isaac, who signed his name ‫ חזק יצחק ואמץ‬at the end of m ost of the books (ff. 69r, 91r, 122r, 282r, 313v, 354r, 414r, 453r, 466r, 528v and 573v) and also singled out his name in the text several times (ff. 14r, 201', etc.). The name of the masorete, Abraham, is singled out in the Masorah (ff. 10‫י‬/, 17r, 37v and 156r). At the end of the Pentateuch and Jeremiah the letters ‫< שב״א‬ire written in a minute script. Owners: On f. 573v three partly erased records of sale. Only the words roKwa [‫ שנ[ים‬a re legible in the first record. The name Jacob and the date 506[?] = ... d'to o^n mm mv between'‫הנ‬ 1299 ‫יעקב‬and ‫הנ״ר‬1309 ‫מן‬...‫להחזיק‬ are legible ‫סלקו מעליו‬... in the‫אדם‬ second ‫שום‬... ‫מל‬.‫נ‬d‫א‬or‫יק‬ce ‫ש חפצה‬ in.. Npwa... Nin\y... IDB ‫ביה‬. In the third document, a bill of s ale dated Sivan 5 L89=1429, written in a