Passover Haggadah – With Many Decorations and Illustrations – Venice, 1605 – Early and Rare Haggadah – Copy of ...

Passover Haggadah – With Many Decorations and Illustrations – Venice, 1605 – Early and Rare Haggadah – Copy of Rabbi Mordechai Shmuel Ghirondi
Beautifully illustrated Passover Haggadah, with the commentary of R. Yosef of Padua. Venice: Zuan di Gara, [ca. 1605].
Each page of the Haggadah is decorated with various woodcut illustrations. Some illustrations are captioned.
The Seder steps are printed on the verso of the title page, with a brief trilingual commentary: Italian, Yiddish and Spanish, printed side by side in three columns, in Hebrew characters (leaf trimmed at top; headings missing).
The Haggadah begins with Bedikat Chametz. P. [3a] opens with the words: "KeHa Lachma Anya".
Birkat HaMazon (Ashkenazi rite) is printed in a column beside the main text on leaves [15-17].
The piyyut Allmächtiger Gott in Yiddish appears on the final page.
Copy of R. Mordechai Shmuel Ghirondi Rabbi of Padua, author of Toldot Gedolei Yisrael UGeonei Italia and other works. His signature appears on the title page: " This is my Haggadah, Mordechai son of Ben Tzion of Cittadella Ghirondi". Two (trimmed) glosses in his handwriting on the second leaf.
[20] leaves. 18.5 cm. Fair condition. Stains, including dark stains to several leaves. Open tears to many leaves, mostly marginal, affecting text, decorations and illustrations (small handwritten replacement on final leaf), repaired with paper. Minor worming. Leaves trimmed, with damage to upper part of title page border and to other leaves. Stamps. New leather binding. Slipcased.
Early, rare Haggadah. To the best of our knowledge, has never yet been offered at auction.
Otzar HaHaggadot, no. 43 (Yaari lists this Haggadah as no. 30, dating it 1603, based on information he received from Dr. Y. Sonne, of a Birkat HaMazon printed together with this Haggadah with the year 1603 on the title page. However, this actually seems to be a mistake: in the present Haggadah, Birkat HaMazon was incorporated in the Haggadah itself. The Birkat HaMazon with the special title page which Sonne saw does not belong to this Haggadah. Yudlov suggests that the present Haggadah is the one Yaari listed as 31, based on a Haggadah dated 1604, appearing in a Schwager & Fränkel catalog, yet the matter is uncertain). See: Y. Yudlov, Passover Haggadot Printed in Venice 1601, 1603-1604, Alei Sefer, XVI, 1990, pp. 140-141.
Provenance: Valmadonna Trust Library.