Mishneh Torah [Giustiniani]

Some notes by, and some notes assembled by, Chaim Meiselman: notes This is the infamous Giustiani printing of Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, printed in Venice during 1550-1551. A brief history of this edition, taken from the National Library of Israel’s website: In 1551, Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen contacted the owner of the Guistiniani printing press with a proposal for printing Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah with a commentary he had written. The printer refused. Disappointed but still determined, the Rabbi then brought the same proposal to Alvise Bragadini, owner of the new and less-established Bragadini press, who agreed to publish it. The phenomenal success of the Mishneh Torah in its new format attracted the attention of Guistiniani, who then hurried to print an identical edition of the book. European Jewish communities declared a boycott against the pirated Guistiniani edition, but despite this, the printer refused to acknowledge his defeat, and instead appealed directly to the Pope to settle the dispute. In order to damage one another’s credibility, the rival printing press owners hurled accusations that the other had, in his edition, inserted heresy against Christianity and the Catholic Church. The Pope’s decision stunned both sides: in the summer of 1553, Pope Julius III ordered all Hebrew books – first and foremost the Talmud – to be brought to Rome’s central square, where they were burned. This decree was then carried out in other cities across Italy including Venice. Accessed November 2018. For more on the climate of competition between Giustiniani and Bomberg, Neil Weinstock Netanel writes: Marc Antonio Giustiniani established a Hebrew press in Venice in 1545. The scion of a wealthy family of Venice patricians, Giustiniani emerged as a powerful, cutthroat rival to the now aged Daniel Bomberg. Giustiniani hired away some of Bomberg’s key Jewish editors and compositors. He also repeatedly rushed out competing, low price editions of the same works printed by Bomberg. As his distinguishing printer’s mark, a mark that adorns his edition of the Mishneh Torah, Giustiniani boastfully chose a depiction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, accompanied by the Biblical verse, “The glory of this latter House shall be greater than that of the former.” Giustiniani never achieved Bomberg’s stature. But his fierce competition put the Bomberg press out of business in 1548 and for a short time Giustiniani enjoyed a de facto monopoly of Hebrew printing in Venice. When Katzenellenbogen decided to publish a new annotated edition of the Mishneh Torah, he approached Giustiniani to handle the printing, but, for whatever reason, the two did not come to terms. It was then that the Maharam of Padua joined forces with Alvise Bragadini, another Venice patrician, who had just established a new Hebrew press in Venice. The dispute over the Mishneh Torah was the beginning of a bitter rivalry between the two presses, with Bragadini ultimately gaining the upper hand. Giustiniani ceased publication in 1552, while the House of Bragadini emerged to dominate Hebrew printing in Venice until well into the eighteenth century. See: Netanel, Neil Weinstock, Maharam of Padua v. Giustiniani: The Sixteenth-Century Origins of the Jewish Law of Copyright. Houston Law Review, Vol. 44, 2007. The edition carries the commentaries of Vidal of Tolosa (Maggid Mishneh) and Shem-Tov ibn Ga’on (Migdal ’Oz), though each had been printed in earlier editions of the Mishneh Torah. Layout for the volume generally follows a flowing layout depending on the concentration of commentary and principle-text’s length. Portions cycle through a center-column of the text (Maimonides with Abraham b. David) with alternating columns of Me’ir ha-Kohen’s Hagahot Maimuniot and taller columns of Vidal’s Maggid Mishneh on the gutter-side and Shem-Tov ibn Ga’on’s Maggid Mishneh on the margin side. This scheme of alternating elements was originally brought in the first Mishneh Torah with the commentaries printing of Daniel Bomberg (Venice: 1524). references Zedner, p. 583 Friedberg, B. Bet eked sefarim, #4160 no. 8 Cowley, Cat. Bodl. Heb. books, p. 475 Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl., 6513 (6)