Igeres Shmuel. Commentary on Megillas Rus
First Edition. Kuru Chesme, 1597
Printing press of Donna Reyna Nasi
Very rare sefer!
Commentary on Megillas Rus by the kabbalist Rabbi Shmuel de Uçeda, disciple of the Arizal. Includes the text of the megillah and Rashi’s commentary.
Donna Reyna Nasi was the only daughter of Donna Gracia, a scion of a family of Sephardic anusim and one of the wealthiest women in Europe.
In 1554, she married her cousin Don Yoseph Nasi, who later became the Foreign Minister of the Turkish Sultan and wielded enormous influence throughout the Turkish Empire, then the greatest power in Europe.
After Don Yoseph’s death, the Sultan took all his wealth and left Donna Reyna only the palace in Belvedere and her ketubah money amounting to ninety thousand dinars.
With this sum she established a printing press in her home in Belvedere in 1593 and in 1597 she established a printing press in her home in the village of Kuru Çeşme, a suburb of Constantinople.
Thus she became the first woman to establish a Jewish printing house.
In this rare printing house she printed only eight seforim between 1597-1598.
Sefer Igeres Shmuel is the first sefer printed in Kuru Çeşme.
The kabbalist
Rabbi Shmuel de Uçeda (circa 1545-1604), author of ‘Midrash Shmuel’ on Pirkei Avos and Rosh Yeshivah in Tzfas, was among the famous disciples of the Arizal. In 1597, he journeyed to Constantinople to raise money for his yeshivah, taking along with him the manuscript of this present work to print in the village of Kuru Chesme. Shivchei Ha’Ari (Ch.19) recounts that Rabbi Shmuel de Uceda once entered the Arizal’s room, and the Arizal rose in his honor! Rabbi Chaim Vital also quotes him as a source of the Arizal’s teachings (Shaar Ruach Hakodesh 12a).
Kuru Chesme, 1597. First edition. Page Count: [84] leaves.
Page size: 20 cm.
Condition: Good; minor professional restorations to margins. Water stains on few leaves. Bound in new leather binding. Owners’ signatures.
Walmedona-Luntzer collection
Bibliography: Yaari, Hadfus Ha’Ivri B’Kushta, Preface p. 32 / Yaari, Nashim Bemeleches Hakodesh, Mechkarei Sefer p. 260 .
Important owners’ signatures:
“The inheritance of my father to me, the youth Yaakov Alfandri”. This is likely the author of ‘Mutzal Me’eish’, who was one of the great sages of Constantinople and a contemporary of the author of ‘Mishneh Lamelech’ and ‘Machaneh Efraim’.
Beneath this appears another signature, which is slightly cropped: “This sefer ‘Igeres Shmuel’ is mine, the youth Yitzchak Al[fandri]". This was most likely his brother Rabbi Yitzchak Refael Alfandri, author of Aish Das and Derech Hakodesh. (The signature matches his manuscript.)
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