The Cover Page of the 1560 Cremona Book of the Zohar

This page describes the cover page of the Zohar printed in Cremona, Italy in 1560 by the Christian publisher Vincenzo Conti. More about Cremona and Conti A high resolution image of this page is available here. This excellent translation was made by a friend of mine.

THE BOOK OF THE ZOHAR on the Torah, from the man of God, holy and most awesome, the Tana Rabbi Simon ben Yohai Z"L (of blessed memory), with many new features, including Sitrei Torah (Secrets of the Torah), Midrash HaNeelam (The Hidden Midrash), and Tosefta (Addenda) on some of the chapters. (These are subsections of the Zohar.) We also added the following items not found in the other (edition of the Zohar published in Mantua 1558): the entire Raya Mehemna including the portions on Genesis, the Bahir Commentary, the Midrash on Ruth (known as) the Midrash Hazita, the treatise (beginning with the Aramaic words) Ta-Chazi (come and see), (the treatise known as) the Hechalot (the Palaces), and Biblical notes (indicating the chapter and verse of the Biblical quotations). At the end of the book, can be found a table of the Biblical verses, that begin each section of the Zohar, as well as an index of all the verses that are discussed, one or more times in the Zohar. (I could not find this.) Printed with great care in CREMONA the city of the Great King (Psalms 48:2) our Lord King Filippo may his glory be exalted, Amen.   In the year "For the LORD will not FORSAKE [Heb: Yud(10)+Tet(9)+Shin(300) = 319, i.e. 5319] his people (Psalms 94:19) and completed in the year 5320 (1560), by permission of the Vicar and the Inquisitor General, as indicated at the end of the book. (see colophon)

NOTES

The picture at the top shows the Binding of Issac, or the Akedah of Genesis chapter 22. Abraham has built an altar to slay Issac. An angel stays his hand. There is a ram caught in a thicket. At the foot of the hill Abraham's two servants waits where they were left. The Biblical inscription below says "The Zohar - 'like the very heaven for clearness'" from Exodus 24:10.

The 1560 Cremona Zohar. The twisty decorations going up both sides of the rich elaborate Renaissance-style frame are perhaps supposed to suggest Solomonic Columns. Click here for a high resolution image of this cover.

Colophon of the 1560 Cremona Zohar being the approval and sanction (given in 1558) to print by the vicar and the Inquisitor General of Mantua.

Woodcut from Berashit section. See also woodcuts from The Pitts Theological Library at Emory University in Atlanta (pitts.emory.edu).
Cover page   Berashit woodcut   Vayyikra woodcut

Sefer Ha-Zohar – The Battle For Editio Princeps Jan Doktór & Magdalena Bendowska

Abstract
Sefer ha-Zohar appeared in print for the first time in Cremona in 1558, in the printing house of Christian printer Vincenzo Conti. It lacked the rabbinical approval or the introduction. The year of publication was not printed on title page, but it did appear at the end of the book, in the colophon preceding the Inquisition’s imprimatur: Friday rosh khodesh kislev of the year 5319 from the creation of the world, i.e., 21 November 1558. The Latin text of imprimatur was signed by censor Galeaz Guacius on 5 August 1558. Immediately after the publication of the “Christian” edition, as the Cremona book was referred to, it was decided to publish a “corrected” edition of Sefer ha-Zohar in the nearby Mantua, in the printing house of Tommasso Ruffinelli. The principal composition of the texts from the Cremona edition was retained, but with the omission of Midrash Ruth, Raya mehemna and some sections of Sefer ha-bahir, while Midrash neelam was moved to a different location in the book. A battle then began to determine which edition constituted editio princeps, i.e., contained the canonical text, binding for subsequent publishers. In Europe, the Cremona edition was considered the model one until the 18th century and it served as the basis for subsequent editions of the work: the 1623 Lublin edition and the 1684 Sulzbach edition. In 1715 and in 1728 the book was published twice in Amsterdam. On title page there was no mention of the Cremona, Lublin and Sulzbach editions. It was indicated that this was a repetition of the Mantua edition. This was evidence of the consensus of Jewish religious authorities, guaranteeing the editio princeps status to the Mantua edition. No-one has attempted to repeat the Cremona edition since then, it has been ignored or completely unknown. Some bibliographies do mention a Cremona edition, but only the second one, from the years 1559-60, presented as the second one after the Mantua edition. The Mantua edition retains the status of editio princeps, it is used to this day not only by religious Jews but also by historians.

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