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Bidding Information
Lot #    5355
Auction End Date    8/12/2003 1:18:00 PM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Nefuzot Yehudah
Title (Hebrew)    נפוצות יהודה
Author    [First Ed.] R. Judah Moscato
City    Venice
Publisher    Jaun DeGara
Publication Date    1589
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    First edition. 14, 239 f, quarto, 197:145 mm., light age staining, scattered minor worming, several f. from a slightly smaller copy, stamp on fly, bound in contemporay half vellum, rubbed.
          
Detailed
Description		    Collection of sermons preached in Mantua on the major holidays, on the special Sabbaths, at weddings, and at funerals. The sermons, 52 in number, correspond to the number of weeks in a year, signifying a full cycle, even though the sermons were not delivered weekly. Moscato's sermons may be described as a revolutionary innovation in Hebrew homiletic literature. None before him and very few, if any, after him achieved such a high degree of aestheticism in the genre. His sermons clearly reveal the influence of the Renaissance on the dialectic method of Hebrew homiletics. His main purpose was not to teach or educate, but to give aesthetic pleasure to his listeners - the actual congregation sitting before him. His sermons were, therefore, not written to be published as a book; it is rather their oral delivery which is reflected at every point. It is possible that Moscato preached both in Hebrew and in Italian, for it is known that many non-Jewish scholars came to listen to his sermons. However, the sermons collected in Nefuzot Yehudah were undoubtedly delivered in Hebrew on special occasions; the fact is sometimes referred to directly, sometimes is reflected in the contents. Moscato's great achievement in the field of rhetoric and homiletics lies in the fact that even though his primary aim was to please his listeners, he also succeeded in being instructive, and in developing some ideas, original either in content or in formulation. He drew on his vast knowledge of philosophy and of the Kabbalah in order to develop ethical ideas and to interpret them in a new way so that they might be acceptable to Jewish culture in Renaissance Italy. Many of the great preachers in Italy who came after him, including R. Azariah Figo and R. Leone Modena, applied Moscato's ideas and methods of preaching, creating thus a new school in homiletics.

R. Judah Moscato (c. 1530–c. 1593), one of the most important rabbis, authors, and preachers of the Italian Jewish Renaissance. He was forced to leave his native town Osimo when the Jews were expelled from the main places in the papal states by Pope Pius V in 1569. Moscato went to Mantua, at that time one of the great centers of Jewish culture and scholarship in Italy. It seems that not long after his arrival in the city, he became the official preacher of the Mantua community, and in 1587 was nominated to the post of chief rabbi.

          
Paragraph 2    דרושים... מיד... ר' יהודה יצ"ו בכמ"ר יוסף מוסקאטו זלה"ה... וידו חלקה אותם למספר חמשים ושנים... הדפסנו לוח מאמרי חז"ל ומקראי קדש שעלימו תטוף מלת המחבר... במצות השר זואן ברגאדין על ידי נאמן ביתו אשר פורינץ... מעבר לשער דברי-הקדשה מאת המחבר לגיסו ר' שמואל ב"ר יהושע מינצי ביריטארו ושיר בשבח הספר מאת ר' שמואל.
          
Reference
Description		    CD-EPI 0147055; EJ
        
Associated Images
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Listing Classification
Period
16th Century:    Checked
  
Location
Italy:    Checked
  
Subject
Homiletics:    Checked
  
Characteristic
First Editions:    Checked
Language:    Hebrew
  
Manuscript Type
  
Kind of Judaica