Sefer Bnei Moshe ve'hu Sheelot U'tshuvot.

£950 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books · No longer available

A Responsa work by Rabbi Moshe Shilton, one of the greatest Jewish scholars of 17th-century Constantinople. The work was brought to print by the Rabbi's nephew at the printing press of Yonah ben Yaakov Ashkenazi. Yonah ben Yaakov Ashkenazi of Zaliztsi (or Zilozitz, a small town not far from Lviv, in modern day Ukraine), came to Constantinople most likely towards the end of the 17th or the beginning of the 18th century. He received the moniker Ashkenazi only in Constantinople, a reference to his Eastern-European heritage. It was he who revived Hebrew printing in Constantinople, which by that time had been in decline for about two decades, following the death of the printer Abraham Franco in the last quarter of the 17th century. Ashkenazi made Constantinolpe the centre of Hebrew printing in the mid-18th century. His firm was the longest lasting of all the Hebrew printers of Constantinople, managed for 33 years by Ashkenazi himself and for a further 36 years by his sons following his death, publishing no less than 188 books between 1710 and 1778. More about the life and work of Yona Ashkenazi can be found in Yaari's 'Hebrew Printing at Constantinople' (1967). First edition; large 4to (29.7 x 20.5 cm); contemporary-style modern half-calf, gilt Hebrew title and ornaments to spine; browning and spotting throughout, occasional worming; last ten leaves closely shaved with no loss of text; occasional marginal notes in old ink; [2], 126, 8, [3] ll. Vinograd, (Const.) 381; Yaari 278, p.

• Binding: Hardcover

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