The Manuscripts of Abraham ibn ʿEzra’s Second Commentary on Genesis in the Context of Censorship in Sixteenth-Century Italy
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Universidad de Granada
info
ISSN: 0037-0894
Year of publication: 2023
Year: 83
Issue: 2
Pages: 259-282
Type: Article
More publications in: Sefarad: Revista de Estudios Hebraicos y Sefardíes
Abstract
The Second Commentary on Genesis is an unfinished exegetical-grammatical work written in Rouen by the Andalusi scholar Abraham ibn ʿEzra. Unlike the first commentary written in Lucca, to date only six manuscripts from between the fourteenth and seventeenth century containing this work are known, three of which were censored. The codices that contain the censored text were produced in Italy during the period of the Counter-Reformation, when Hebrew literature was supervised by the Catholic Church. This paper analyses the presence of internal and external censorship in the manuscripts of Ibn ʿEzra’s Second Commentary on Genesis in the context of sixteenth-century Hebrew textual output in Italy. The paper also tries to establish a possible relationship between the contents of the lost sections and the so-called Sefer ha-Ziqquq, the most important Index Librorum Prohibitorum of Hebrew books written by the apostate rabbi Domenico Yĕrušalmi, whose signature is found in the codices.
Funding information
Funders
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Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
- PGC2018-094407-B-I00
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