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細節
THE HARRISON MISCELLANY
BOOK OF POEMS AND PRAYERS FOR A WEDDING, according to the rite of Corfu. LAVISHLY DECORATED AND ILLUSTRATED HEBREW MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM.
[Corfu, c. 1700.]
144 x 97 mm. (5 3/4" x 3 7/8"), 60 leaves, collation: 6 quires of 10 leaves, text in black ink; contemporary dark brown goatskin over pasteboard, covers with single gilt roll border, smooth spine with a repeated floral gilt tool in each compartment (some minor wear to spine ends and extremities).
TEXT
Until recently this manuscript has been identified in the literature simply as Italian, probably seventeenth century. Its hymns and blessings have been characterized as following the Italian rite. A recent, closer examination of the text, however, has demonstrated beyond doubt that the manuscript is in fact from Corfu, that it contains the order of the wedding service according to the rite of Corfu, and that it preserves poems by Eliezer de Mordo, a member of an illustrious family of rabbis, physicians and poets, who played a prominent role in the history of both the Jewish and non-Jewish community of Corfu.
The Harrison miscellany contains the following texts (all references in this section are to the Hebrew foliation):
Fols. 1r-13r: poems, blessings and the wedding ceremony.
These texts are identical with the Corfu wedding ceremony found in JTSL manuscript, Mic. 4134, a booklet once owned by Gabriel de Mordo, a member of the aforementioned family. Fol. 5r of this section contains a playful poem, entitled Yotser mi-yado' in which the letters of key words are spelled out at the end of each stanza (the word shir' [song], for example, appears as shin', yod', va-resh'). Israel Davidson described the peculiarities of this poem in his article Eccentric forms of Hebrew verse', Students' Annual (New York 1914) p. 89 and 93. The first poem, Mah yafit' (fol. 1r), by Shabbethai, is apparently unpublished, as is Mi el gadol' (fol. 3r) by Menahem. Several poets by the names of Shabbethai and Menahem were active on Greece's periphery (which includes Corfu). See: J.L. Weinberger, Jewish hymnography (London 1998) p. 298ff.
Fols. 14r-16v: blessings bestowed upon the bride and groom at a festive meal to be offered on the eve of Shabbat, following the wedding.
Fols. 16v-20v: the order of service for calling the bridegroom to the Torah on the Sabbath following the wedding.
This section contains an introductory poem, mi-reshut bore kol' (fol. 16v), which is apparently unpublished (but found in JTSL manuscript, Mic. 4181, fol. 17r, a festival prayerbook according to the rite of Corfu). It is followed by the special Torah reading for the bridegroom, Genesis 24:1ff, and the Aramaic Targum of this portion.
Fols. 21r-41r: a collection of poems for various occasions, including circumcisions.
Here are included poems by the classical Spanish Hebrew poets Solomon ibn Gabirol (Shiva'ah Shechakim [fol. 25r]) and Abraham ibn Ezra (aggadelkha' [fol. 26v] and Tsame'ah nafshi [fol. 29v]). More importantly, this section includes poems by Eliezer de Mordo, rabbi and physician in Corfu (see below). Several of the poems in this section were first published on the basis of other manuscripts from Corfu by Simeon Bernstein in his Piyyutim u-fayyetanim chadashim min ha-tekufah ha-bizantinit [New poems and poets from the Byzantine period] (Jerusalem 1941). These poems are:
shokhen meromim' (fol. 21r) = Bernstein, No. 7;
shelach meherah' (fol. 27v) = Bernstein, No. 10;
asadder be-shirei' (fol. 36v) = Bernstein, No. 4;
evchar be-tov' (fol. 37v) = Bernstein, No. 5.
The last two are by Eliezer de Mordo. At the head of the poem asadder', in the source used by Bernstein, the author is identified as the famous rabbi and physician, Eliezer de Mordo.
Fols. 42r-51r: a collection of ethical sentences and prayers from the Mishnah (Avot 5: 22-23) and the Talmud (BT, Berakhot 16b-17a) and the hymn en ke-elokenu' (fol. 50v).
Fols. 52r-60v: Various poems.
The first poem in this group, by Shabbethai, was also published by Bernstein, op. cit., No. 1. The next four poems are included in the very rare printed pamphlet Leket ha-Omer (rituals and poems according to the rite of Corfu, edited by Abraham de Mordo) (Venice 1718; second edition: Venice 1780). The very last text in the manuscript is the beginning of yet another poem by Eliezer de Mordo. Its heading reads: Le-rabbi Eliezer de Mordo ner"o' (fol. 60v), the last abbreviation being the blessing traditionally used for the living. Accordingly Eliezer de Mordo still must have been alive when the manuscript was written. The full text of this poem may be found in a manuscript at JTSL (Mic. 4588, fol. 17r) that contains poems from Corfu.
There are at least two people known by the name of Eliezer de Mordo. Both were rabbis as well as physicians. The first received his medical diploma from the University of Padua in 1699, the second from the same university in 1765 (A. Modena & E. Morpurgo, Medici i Chirurghi Ebrei Dottorati e Licenziati nell'Universita di Padova dal 1617 al 1816 (Bologna, s.a.) p. 60, 99). The diploma of the first Eliezer de Mordo, with the portrait of the recipient, is preserved in the Harry Friedenwald medical collection, which is now in the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem (H. Friedenwald, Jewish luminaries in medical history (New York 1967; reprint of the 1946 edition) p. 199). Bernstein (op. cit, p. 58) and Weinberger (op. cit. p. 330-331) place Eliezer in the sixteenth century, but on the basis of the present manuscript it seems more likely that he is identical with the rabbi and physician who received his diploma in 1699. That his poems are included in the aforementioned 1718 collection of Corfiot poems Leket ha-Omer all but confirms this hypothesis.
DECORATION
This magnificent manuscript was probably produced around 1700. It contains no less than sixty illustrations from the Book of Genesis, beginning with the creation of the world and concluding with the birth of Joseph's twin sons. Each quire begins and ends with a page of text; as a consequence, the center of each quire has facing illustrations. In the case of the last quire (fols. 55v-56r) the facing scenes are directly related, showing Pharaoh dreaming at the left with his dream at the right. Of the sixty pages intended for the text, fifty-nine are enframed with floral borders (the exception being fol. 33r, which contains the ruled elements without the floral motif). The decorations and illustrations were painted with gouache. The borders and Biblical scenes were executed first, with the Hebrew inscriptions identifying the scenes and the liturgical text, which at times overlaps the painted borders, added afterward.
The sixty Biblical scenes are arranged from left to right. The first thirty illustrations include a monogram comprising the initials MCF (MC fecit). Within the inner margins of the first fourteen floral borders intended to enframe the text, (again reading from left to right) the letters MCMF appear, probably signifying MC me fecit (made me). The identity of MC is unknown. On fol. 50r the sole letter M appears. In the first three quires no accommodations were made for the identifying inscriptions, while the illustrations in the last three quires were ruled at the bottom for the inclusion of a line of text.
THE SCENES OF THE BIBLICAL CYCLE are (all references in this section are to the original foliation in Arabic numerals):
1v: the creation
2v: Adam in the Garden of Eden
3v: the creation of Eve
4v: the temptation
5v: God rebuking Adam and Eve
6r: the expulsion
7r: Adam and Eve working
8r: Cain killing Abel
9r: Lamech and Tuval Cain
10r: the animals entering Noah's ark in pairs
11v: the flood
12v: the sacrifice of Noah, with the ark on Mount Ararat and a rainbow in the background
13v: the drunkenness of Noah
14v: the Tower of Babel
15v: Abraham and the messenger with news of Lot's capture
16r: Abraham and Melchizedek
17r: Hagar and the angel
18r: Abraham and the three angels
19r: the angels in Sodom protecting Lot
20r: Lot and his daughters, with the destruction of Sodom and Lot's wife as a pillar of salt in the background
21v: Abimelech returning Sarah to Abraham
22v: the sacrifice of Isaac
23v: the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca
24v: the death of Abraham
25v: the birth of Esau and Jacob
26r: Esau selling Jacob's birthright
27r: Isaac and the Philistines
28r: Isaac blessing Jacob, with Jacob hunting in the background
29r: Jacob's dream
30r: Jacob helping Rachel water her flock at the well
31v: Laban greeting Jacob
32v: the marriage of Jacob and Rachel
33v: Jacob and his family leaving Laban
34v: Jacob confronting Laban
35v: Jacob wrestling the angel
36r: the meeting of Jacob and Esau
37r: the capture of Dinah
38r: Simeon and Levi avenging Dinah
39r: Jacob sacrificing at Bethel
40r: the birth of Benjamin and the death of Rachel
41v: Jacob visiting Isaac before his father's death
42v: the burial of Deborah, wetnurse and maid of Rebecca
43v: Jacob returns to Canaan and divides his flock in preparation for meeting Esau
44v: Joseph's first dream
45v: Joseph's second dream
46r: Joseph meeting his brothers in Dothan
47r: Joseph in the pit
48r: the selling of Joseph to the Ishmaelites
49r: Jacob recognizing Joseph's coat and mourning his death
50r: Potiphar buying Joseph from the Ishmaelites
51v: Potiphar's wife attempting to seduce Joseph
52v: Potiphar's wife denouncing Joseph
53v: Joseph's imprisonment
54v: Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's servants' dreams
55v: Pharaoh dreaming
56r: Pharaoh's dream
57r: Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dream
58r: the rewarding of Joseph by Pharaoh
59r: Joseph's marriage
60r: the birth of Joseph's twin sons
As the illustrations are arranged in reverse order in relation to the Hebrew text (i.e. "beginning" with the Joseph cycle and "ending" with Creation), it may be that they were intended for a vernacular manuscript. This cannot be determined with certainty, however. It is also possible that the artist, who was commissioned to execute the miniatures before the scribe began his work, was not properly informed of the project and made a mistake. The reverse sequence of the cycle might not have been considered of great importance, as the manuscript was made for use in Corfu (explained above). A striking feature found in prayerbooks from Corfu is the presence of full-page Biblical scenes whose placement seems random and unrelated to the text (as seen, for example, in JTSL Mss. 8223 and 8236).
Biblical scenes in the context of a cycle are exceedingly rare in Hebrew manuscripts. The only known cycle in a post- medieval Hebrew manuscript is preserved in the Castellazzo Bible (Venice, 1521), whose scenes reflect a different iconographic tradition and whose drawings reveal a limited artistic ability.
Both Corfu and the Harrison Miscellany have notable connections with Venice. Corfu came under Venetian control in 1386. The prominent Corfiote Jewish family of de Mordo aided the Venetians in their defense against Ottoman invaders in 1537 and 1716 (See: Cecil Roth, Venice (Philadelphia, 1930) p. 323 and Leon J. Weinberger, Jewish hymnography (London, 1998) p. 330-331). Eliezer de Mordo, the noted rabbi and physician mentioned in the Harrison Miscellany, was probably the same Eliezer de Mordo who signed as a witness at two marriages in Corfu for which marriage contracts exist (Hebrew Union College, 34.10 and JTSL ketubbah no. 41). It is notable that the decorative program of both of these ketubbot corresponds to a type that was popular in the Veneto. The naive style of the figures, however, is typical of that found in Hebrew manuscripts from Corfu, both in ketubbot and codices. From a stylistic point of view the miniatures in the Harrison Miscellany are extraordinary. Painted in an elegant, delicate manner, they display a familiarity with earlier Biblical illustrations, both Italian and transalpine. The patrons seemed to have desired this manuscript to be an item of exceptional luxury, divorced from the local, pedestrian, artistic tradition. They probably sought out the work of a more finely skilled artist, possibly one trained in Venice.
It is noteworthy that this manuscript containing poems and prayers for a wedding is illustrated with a cycle of scenes from the Book of Genesis that includes several wedding scenes, among them the marriage of Joseph, which is not explicitly mentioned in Genesis. It is also striking that more than half the scenes include female figures, even when the presence of a woman is neither necessary nor expected. This outstanding manuscript may have been intended as a bridal gift. Although there is no known evidence for this tradition, this manuscript is unique for a work from Corfu, both in its decorative program and in the quality of its execution; it therefore does not need to conform to any known traditions. THE HARRISON MISCELLANY AND THE RICHNESS OF ITS MINIATURES ARE WITHOUT PARALLEL IN THE HISTORY OF THE POST-MEDIEVAL HEBREW BOOK.
PROVENANCE
Acquired by A.L. Shane at Sotheby's New York sale of 1 February 1984, from the collection of Sigmund Harrison, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who acquired it in Florence, Italy, c. 1950.
We are grateful to Prof. Menahem Schmelzer of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (New York) and to Prof. Evelyn M. Cohen of Yeshiva University's Stern College (New York) who researched the manuscript. Prof. Schmelzer identified the miscellany's texts; Prof. Cohen analyzed its iconography.
BOOK OF POEMS AND PRAYERS FOR A WEDDING, according to the rite of Corfu. LAVISHLY DECORATED AND ILLUSTRATED HEBREW MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM.
[Corfu, c. 1700.]
144 x 97 mm. (5 3/4" x 3 7/8"), 60 leaves, collation: 6 quires of 10 leaves, text in black ink; contemporary dark brown goatskin over pasteboard, covers with single gilt roll border, smooth spine with a repeated floral gilt tool in each compartment (some minor wear to spine ends and extremities).
TEXT
Until recently this manuscript has been identified in the literature simply as Italian, probably seventeenth century. Its hymns and blessings have been characterized as following the Italian rite. A recent, closer examination of the text, however, has demonstrated beyond doubt that the manuscript is in fact from Corfu, that it contains the order of the wedding service according to the rite of Corfu, and that it preserves poems by Eliezer de Mordo, a member of an illustrious family of rabbis, physicians and poets, who played a prominent role in the history of both the Jewish and non-Jewish community of Corfu.
The Harrison miscellany contains the following texts (all references in this section are to the Hebrew foliation):
Fols. 1r-13r: poems, blessings and the wedding ceremony.
These texts are identical with the Corfu wedding ceremony found in JTSL manuscript, Mic. 4134, a booklet once owned by Gabriel de Mordo, a member of the aforementioned family. Fol. 5r of this section contains a playful poem, entitled Yotser mi-yado' in which the letters of key words are spelled out at the end of each stanza (the word shir' [song], for example, appears as shin', yod', va-resh'). Israel Davidson described the peculiarities of this poem in his article Eccentric forms of Hebrew verse', Students' Annual (New York 1914) p. 89 and 93. The first poem, Mah yafit' (fol. 1r), by Shabbethai, is apparently unpublished, as is Mi el gadol' (fol. 3r) by Menahem. Several poets by the names of Shabbethai and Menahem were active on Greece's periphery (which includes Corfu). See: J.L. Weinberger, Jewish hymnography (London 1998) p. 298ff.
Fols. 14r-16v: blessings bestowed upon the bride and groom at a festive meal to be offered on the eve of Shabbat, following the wedding.
Fols. 16v-20v: the order of service for calling the bridegroom to the Torah on the Sabbath following the wedding.
This section contains an introductory poem, mi-reshut bore kol' (fol. 16v), which is apparently unpublished (but found in JTSL manuscript, Mic. 4181, fol. 17r, a festival prayerbook according to the rite of Corfu). It is followed by the special Torah reading for the bridegroom, Genesis 24:1ff, and the Aramaic Targum of this portion.
Fols. 21r-41r: a collection of poems for various occasions, including circumcisions.
Here are included poems by the classical Spanish Hebrew poets Solomon ibn Gabirol (Shiva'ah Shechakim [fol. 25r]) and Abraham ibn Ezra (aggadelkha' [fol. 26v] and Tsame'ah nafshi [fol. 29v]). More importantly, this section includes poems by Eliezer de Mordo, rabbi and physician in Corfu (see below). Several of the poems in this section were first published on the basis of other manuscripts from Corfu by Simeon Bernstein in his Piyyutim u-fayyetanim chadashim min ha-tekufah ha-bizantinit [New poems and poets from the Byzantine period] (Jerusalem 1941). These poems are:
shokhen meromim' (fol. 21r) = Bernstein, No. 7;
shelach meherah' (fol. 27v) = Bernstein, No. 10;
asadder be-shirei' (fol. 36v) = Bernstein, No. 4;
evchar be-tov' (fol. 37v) = Bernstein, No. 5.
The last two are by Eliezer de Mordo. At the head of the poem asadder', in the source used by Bernstein, the author is identified as the famous rabbi and physician, Eliezer de Mordo.
Fols. 42r-51r: a collection of ethical sentences and prayers from the Mishnah (Avot 5: 22-23) and the Talmud (BT, Berakhot 16b-17a) and the hymn en ke-elokenu' (fol. 50v).
Fols. 52r-60v: Various poems.
The first poem in this group, by Shabbethai, was also published by Bernstein, op. cit., No. 1. The next four poems are included in the very rare printed pamphlet Leket ha-Omer (rituals and poems according to the rite of Corfu, edited by Abraham de Mordo) (Venice 1718; second edition: Venice 1780). The very last text in the manuscript is the beginning of yet another poem by Eliezer de Mordo. Its heading reads: Le-rabbi Eliezer de Mordo ner"o' (fol. 60v), the last abbreviation being the blessing traditionally used for the living. Accordingly Eliezer de Mordo still must have been alive when the manuscript was written. The full text of this poem may be found in a manuscript at JTSL (Mic. 4588, fol. 17r) that contains poems from Corfu.
There are at least two people known by the name of Eliezer de Mordo. Both were rabbis as well as physicians. The first received his medical diploma from the University of Padua in 1699, the second from the same university in 1765 (A. Modena & E. Morpurgo, Medici i Chirurghi Ebrei Dottorati e Licenziati nell'Universita di Padova dal 1617 al 1816 (Bologna, s.a.) p. 60, 99). The diploma of the first Eliezer de Mordo, with the portrait of the recipient, is preserved in the Harry Friedenwald medical collection, which is now in the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem (H. Friedenwald, Jewish luminaries in medical history (New York 1967; reprint of the 1946 edition) p. 199). Bernstein (op. cit, p. 58) and Weinberger (op. cit. p. 330-331) place Eliezer in the sixteenth century, but on the basis of the present manuscript it seems more likely that he is identical with the rabbi and physician who received his diploma in 1699. That his poems are included in the aforementioned 1718 collection of Corfiot poems Leket ha-Omer all but confirms this hypothesis.
DECORATION
This magnificent manuscript was probably produced around 1700. It contains no less than sixty illustrations from the Book of Genesis, beginning with the creation of the world and concluding with the birth of Joseph's twin sons. Each quire begins and ends with a page of text; as a consequence, the center of each quire has facing illustrations. In the case of the last quire (fols. 55v-56r) the facing scenes are directly related, showing Pharaoh dreaming at the left with his dream at the right. Of the sixty pages intended for the text, fifty-nine are enframed with floral borders (the exception being fol. 33r, which contains the ruled elements without the floral motif). The decorations and illustrations were painted with gouache. The borders and Biblical scenes were executed first, with the Hebrew inscriptions identifying the scenes and the liturgical text, which at times overlaps the painted borders, added afterward.
The sixty Biblical scenes are arranged from left to right. The first thirty illustrations include a monogram comprising the initials MCF (MC fecit). Within the inner margins of the first fourteen floral borders intended to enframe the text, (again reading from left to right) the letters MCMF appear, probably signifying MC me fecit (made me). The identity of MC is unknown. On fol. 50r the sole letter M appears. In the first three quires no accommodations were made for the identifying inscriptions, while the illustrations in the last three quires were ruled at the bottom for the inclusion of a line of text.
THE SCENES OF THE BIBLICAL CYCLE are (all references in this section are to the original foliation in Arabic numerals):
1v: the creation
2v: Adam in the Garden of Eden
3v: the creation of Eve
4v: the temptation
5v: God rebuking Adam and Eve
6r: the expulsion
7r: Adam and Eve working
8r: Cain killing Abel
9r: Lamech and Tuval Cain
10r: the animals entering Noah's ark in pairs
11v: the flood
12v: the sacrifice of Noah, with the ark on Mount Ararat and a rainbow in the background
13v: the drunkenness of Noah
14v: the Tower of Babel
15v: Abraham and the messenger with news of Lot's capture
16r: Abraham and Melchizedek
17r: Hagar and the angel
18r: Abraham and the three angels
19r: the angels in Sodom protecting Lot
20r: Lot and his daughters, with the destruction of Sodom and Lot's wife as a pillar of salt in the background
21v: Abimelech returning Sarah to Abraham
22v: the sacrifice of Isaac
23v: the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca
24v: the death of Abraham
25v: the birth of Esau and Jacob
26r: Esau selling Jacob's birthright
27r: Isaac and the Philistines
28r: Isaac blessing Jacob, with Jacob hunting in the background
29r: Jacob's dream
30r: Jacob helping Rachel water her flock at the well
31v: Laban greeting Jacob
32v: the marriage of Jacob and Rachel
33v: Jacob and his family leaving Laban
34v: Jacob confronting Laban
35v: Jacob wrestling the angel
36r: the meeting of Jacob and Esau
37r: the capture of Dinah
38r: Simeon and Levi avenging Dinah
39r: Jacob sacrificing at Bethel
40r: the birth of Benjamin and the death of Rachel
41v: Jacob visiting Isaac before his father's death
42v: the burial of Deborah, wetnurse and maid of Rebecca
43v: Jacob returns to Canaan and divides his flock in preparation for meeting Esau
44v: Joseph's first dream
45v: Joseph's second dream
46r: Joseph meeting his brothers in Dothan
47r: Joseph in the pit
48r: the selling of Joseph to the Ishmaelites
49r: Jacob recognizing Joseph's coat and mourning his death
50r: Potiphar buying Joseph from the Ishmaelites
51v: Potiphar's wife attempting to seduce Joseph
52v: Potiphar's wife denouncing Joseph
53v: Joseph's imprisonment
54v: Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's servants' dreams
55v: Pharaoh dreaming
56r: Pharaoh's dream
57r: Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dream
58r: the rewarding of Joseph by Pharaoh
59r: Joseph's marriage
60r: the birth of Joseph's twin sons
As the illustrations are arranged in reverse order in relation to the Hebrew text (i.e. "beginning" with the Joseph cycle and "ending" with Creation), it may be that they were intended for a vernacular manuscript. This cannot be determined with certainty, however. It is also possible that the artist, who was commissioned to execute the miniatures before the scribe began his work, was not properly informed of the project and made a mistake. The reverse sequence of the cycle might not have been considered of great importance, as the manuscript was made for use in Corfu (explained above). A striking feature found in prayerbooks from Corfu is the presence of full-page Biblical scenes whose placement seems random and unrelated to the text (as seen, for example, in JTSL Mss. 8223 and 8236).
Biblical scenes in the context of a cycle are exceedingly rare in Hebrew manuscripts. The only known cycle in a post- medieval Hebrew manuscript is preserved in the Castellazzo Bible (Venice, 1521), whose scenes reflect a different iconographic tradition and whose drawings reveal a limited artistic ability.
Both Corfu and the Harrison Miscellany have notable connections with Venice. Corfu came under Venetian control in 1386. The prominent Corfiote Jewish family of de Mordo aided the Venetians in their defense against Ottoman invaders in 1537 and 1716 (See: Cecil Roth, Venice (Philadelphia, 1930) p. 323 and Leon J. Weinberger, Jewish hymnography (London, 1998) p. 330-331). Eliezer de Mordo, the noted rabbi and physician mentioned in the Harrison Miscellany, was probably the same Eliezer de Mordo who signed as a witness at two marriages in Corfu for which marriage contracts exist (Hebrew Union College, 34.10 and JTSL ketubbah no. 41). It is notable that the decorative program of both of these ketubbot corresponds to a type that was popular in the Veneto. The naive style of the figures, however, is typical of that found in Hebrew manuscripts from Corfu, both in ketubbot and codices. From a stylistic point of view the miniatures in the Harrison Miscellany are extraordinary. Painted in an elegant, delicate manner, they display a familiarity with earlier Biblical illustrations, both Italian and transalpine. The patrons seemed to have desired this manuscript to be an item of exceptional luxury, divorced from the local, pedestrian, artistic tradition. They probably sought out the work of a more finely skilled artist, possibly one trained in Venice.
It is noteworthy that this manuscript containing poems and prayers for a wedding is illustrated with a cycle of scenes from the Book of Genesis that includes several wedding scenes, among them the marriage of Joseph, which is not explicitly mentioned in Genesis. It is also striking that more than half the scenes include female figures, even when the presence of a woman is neither necessary nor expected. This outstanding manuscript may have been intended as a bridal gift. Although there is no known evidence for this tradition, this manuscript is unique for a work from Corfu, both in its decorative program and in the quality of its execution; it therefore does not need to conform to any known traditions. THE HARRISON MISCELLANY AND THE RICHNESS OF ITS MINIATURES ARE WITHOUT PARALLEL IN THE HISTORY OF THE POST-MEDIEVAL HEBREW BOOK.
PROVENANCE
Acquired by A.L. Shane at Sotheby's New York sale of 1 February 1984, from the collection of Sigmund Harrison, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who acquired it in Florence, Italy, c. 1950.
We are grateful to Prof. Menahem Schmelzer of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (New York) and to Prof. Evelyn M. Cohen of Yeshiva University's Stern College (New York) who researched the manuscript. Prof. Schmelzer identified the miscellany's texts; Prof. Cohen analyzed its iconography.