Jewish Printing in the Incunable Period

00:01 I was asked to give several short lectures about the history of the Jewish book starting some five hundred and fifty years ago about, around the year of Reish Lamed, fourteen seventy. The earliest thirty years of Jewish print since Reish Lamed till Reish Samekh, since fourteen seventy till fifteen hundred, are called incunabula, which means the diaper period of the Jewish printed book. The earliest books that was published in the years between Reish Lamed and Reish Lamed He, fourteen seventy and fourteen seventy-five, the earliest five years of the printed Jewish book didn't have a date on the book when it was published. The fact that we know when it was published, it's only assumption or from outside sources. The first sefer was ever published with a date is the Rashi Al HaTorah, a separate volume of the Rashi Al HaTorah that was published in Reish Lamed He, seven-- fourteen seventy-five, in Reggio di Calabria. Reggio is a city in the area of Calabria that we know of the Sregim. It's a very rare sefer. There is only one copy that we know of this sefer in the library of Parma. In this library, we have two pages of this Rashi Al HaTorah. The reason why we have sometimes several pages of a book as describing now and the future several short lectures is because in those days, the binders, it was not necessarily Jewish, and when they had to make a hardcover binding, they didn't have then cardboards like we have today to make out of it

02:43 a, a hard, um, so a hardcover binding. What they did is they took some scrap paper or pages from the Shamas that people didn't need anymore. They took several pages and they paste it together with glue. It should become like a cardboard. And then they bound the sefer with it, covered with parchment, gave it the look of a hardcover binding. When in the libraries they see the old book that was published like four hundred and fifty or five hundred years ago and the cover is somewhat soft, it's easy to understand that probably over there we have pages from earlier prints that in like fifty years later, they didn't need that anymore and they put it to the Shamas. So the binder would take that and make se- every several pages a cover for a sefer. And that's how we get many of the real, real old printed seforim. Rashi Al HaTorah was the first dated printed Jewish book. But several years later, they published the Tanakh with, uh, with the Rashi around it. So they didn't need anymore the separate volume of Rashi Al HaTorah. So they put it in the Shamas, and then the binder took it from there and made out of it hardcover binding. So therefore, it comes out that sometimes we have only a few pages, and in this case, we have two pages of this very rare old print. Interesting to note that we know that we have a Rashi script. Rashi script has nothing to do with Rashi himself

05:04 because Rashi script that we know of is the script that Rabbonim used to write their seforim in Spain and the Sephardic countries. The regular script is Sefardis and Rommotes, Ksav Ashuri. The script that they would write letters is a fast script that they used to use in the Sephardic countries. Then there is a what is called Chatzi Kulmus, half script, because this Rashi that we have, Ksav, is a little similar to the printed one and a little similar to the script of writing. So this is called the Rabbinic script. Rashi didn't write this script. He lived in France, which is Ashkenazic country, not a Sephardic country. They used there another script. The reason why we call this Rashi script is because the first time it, this Sefer was published with this script is Rashi al HaTorah. And then several s- years, several years later, when they published the Chumash with Rashi in the bottom, the Chumash was printed letters, Eses Norbois, Kesava Shuri, and the Rashi in the bottom was in this script, so they call it Rashi script. Several years after the Rashi that we are speaking about was published, they started printing in Spain a Talmud. A Talmud which is, has the Talmud in the center and Rashi on the margin. In that print, they did not publi- print the Tosefta yet. It was only Gemara and Rashi. The Talmud itself was Kesava Shuri, Eses Norbois. Rashi was with this script, and therefore, for all these reasons that the Rashi in the early

07:38 generation of Jewish print was published always with this script, they call it the Rashi script, the script that Rashi is printed with. We have mentioned that several years later, after Beis Lamid Hei, they started printing a Shas, a Talmud in Spain, where the center of the page is the Gemara and on the margin is Rashi. We'll discuss this in the future short lecture.