1. Elizabeth Eisenstein most notably advanced this thesis in her seminal two-volume work, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). Though some scholars criticized Eisenstein for ignoring the continuities between manuscript and print culture and for attributing too radical a role to the technology itself, her work also inspired a slew of studies that examine the cultural implications of print technology and its impact on the democratization of knowledge. For more on these debates see Johns, Adrian, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eisenstein, and Johns, , “AHR Forum: How Revolutionary Was the Print Revolution?,” American Historical Review 107, no. 1 (February 2002): 84–128Google Scholar. This study accepts arguments from both sides: print was not the only factor that made knowledge more accessible; changes in writing style and the increased availability of paper also contributed to the proliferation of more affordable books. Additionally, attempts to make knowledge more accessible to a wider audience predated the emergence of movable print in Europe and even after print, cultural ramifications took centuries to fully take root. Nonetheless, the technology of print and the adaptations of authors of their texts to new audiences facilitated the major transformation in knowledge production and dissemination that marks the early modern period.

2. Menahem Elon defines a code as a work that “aims to set forth the law in a definitive and organized fashion, and its conclusions are arrived at by theoretical analysis of the relevant material contained in the various literary sources of the law.” Elon, Menahem, Jewish Law: History, Sources, Principles, vol. 3, trans. Auerbach, Bernard and Sykes, Melvin J. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1994), 1138Google Scholar. Codes will be more fully defined and differentiated from other genres, such as legal summaries, later in this study.

3. “The German.”

4. Yuval based this assertion on Judah Landau's appearance as a rabbinic authority in Treviso at some point before 1460 as well as from the multiple portions of the ʾAgur in which Jacob Landau mentions the Ashkenazic minhagim (customs) he heard from his father. Yuval, Israel, Ḥakhamim be-doram: Ha-manhigut ha-ruḥanit shel yehudei Germaniah be-shelhe yeme ha-beynayim (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1998), 256–60Google Scholar. There are, however, additional instances when Landau explicitly introduced his discussion of an Ashkenazic minhag with, “I saw in Ashkenaz”: Sefer ʾagur (Naples: 1490–92), f. 20v: ואני המחבר ראיתי באשכנז עושים ההפך שהחזן קורא בקול רם והקורא קורא בלחש. This evidence seems to indicate, contrary to Yuval's opinion, that Landau had spent significant time in Ashkenaz before making his way to Italy, and thus it is possible that he saw these customs practiced in his youth. Accordingly, Moses Herschler alternatively dated Jacob Landau's emigration to the mid-fifteenth-century rabbinic migration to Padua. Sefer ha-ʾagur ha-shalem, ed. Moses Herschler (Jerusalem: Boys’ Town Jerusalem Press, 1960), 6. Landau asserted his Ashkenazic origin, but according to Joseph Colon, the Landau family was actually of French origin. See Colon, Joseph, ShUT haMaharYK ha-Ḥadashim, ed. Dov, Eliahu Pines (Jerusalem: Makhon Yerushalayim, 1984)Google Scholar, no. 46, p. 217.

5. Breuer, Mordechai, “Ha-semikhah ha-ʾAshkenazit,” Zion 33 (1968): 15–46Google Scholar; Woolf, Jeffrey, “Between Diffidence and Initiative: Ashkenazic Legal Decision-Making in the Late Middle Ages (1350–1500),” Journal of Jewish Studies 52, no. 1 (2001): 85–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dinari, Yedidya, Ḥakhme ʾAshkenaz be-shelhe yeme ha-beynayim (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1984)Google Scholar.

6. This was a long and uneven process. For more explanation see Fishman, Talya, Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. For more on the role of these demographic and cultural changes in the writing of minhagim books, see Mincer, Rachel Zohn, “The Increasing Reliance on Ritual Handbooks in Pre-Print-Era Ashkenaz,” Jewish History 31, nos. 1–2 (2017): 103–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mincer, “Liturgical Minhagim Books: The Increasing Reliance on Written Texts in Late Medieval Ashkenaz” (PhD diss., Jewish Theological Seminary, 2012). Mincer highlights the relationship between geographic mobility, textualization, and the recording of customs against an older historiography that emphasized the decline of German Jewry following the Black Plague. The older historiography held that rabbinic scholars of the period interpreted the persecutions and expulsions that befell Jews in the wake of the Black Plague as events that marked a break between their generation and the previous one, which they could not match in intellectual capacity or contradict in legal decision making. Consequently, Ashkenazic scholars of this period developed a low self-image that manifested itself in their comparatively hesitant rendering of legal judgments and reluctance to produce major legal codes or commentaries. The late medieval Ashkenazic rabbis preferred, instead, to write minhagim books that would not compete or be compared to the hallowed legacies of their predecessors. For more on this interpretation of the reason for the proliferation of minhagim books, see Woolf, “Between Diffidence and Initiative”; Dinari, Ḥakhme Ashkenaz, 9–55; Yuval, Ḥakhamim be-doram, 392–94. Another possibility that has not been advanced in the historical scholarship is the connection between the generally local nature of law in Germany and France during the period. For a sense of the non-Jewish context see Dawson, John P., ‘‘The Codification of the French Customs,’’ Michigan Law Review 38, no. 6 (1940): 768CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Jeffrey Woolf, “The Life and Responsa of Rabbi Joseph Colon b. Solomon Trabotto (Maharik)” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1991), 162; Woolf, “The Authority of Custom in the Responsa of R. J. Colon (Maharik),” Dine Israel 19 (1997–1998): 43–73. For discussions of the role of custom in Halakhah see the following and the literature cited there: Dinari, Ḥakhme Ashkenaz, 190–228; Ta-Shma, Israel, Minhag Ashkenaz ha-kadmon (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992), 16–21Google Scholar. See also Haym Soloveitchik, “‘Religious Law and Change’ Revisited,” in Collected Essays (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2013), 1:258–77.

9. Woolf, “Authority of Custom,” 49–50.

10. Rachel Mincer makes an important distinction between different types of minhagim books—liturgical manuals and “rabbi-centered” works (ritual manuals that cover the teachings of one rabbi primarily). Mincer, “Liturgical Minhagim Books,” 2–3. The ʾAgur covers the breadth of opinions typical of these “rabbi-centered” works, but importantly is not focused on the customs of one individual.

11. Judah Galinsky argues that the increased importance of piety and the success of the talmudic schools in medieval Spain prompted Spanish scholars to produce a number of important halakhic codes and compendia: “On Popular Halakhic Literature and the Jewish Reading Audience in Fourteenth-Century Spain,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 98, no. 3 (Summer 2008): 305–37. See also Galinsky, “Ashkenazim in Sefarad: The Rosh and the Tur on the Codification of Jewish Law,” Jewish Law Annual 16 (2006): 3–23; Ephraim Urbach, “The Ways of Codification: On the Tur of Jacob b. Asher” [in Hebrew], in Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research: Jubilee Volume (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1980), 1–14; Galinsky, Judah, “The Significance of Form: R. Moses of Coucy's Reading Audience and His Sefer ha-Miẓvot,” AJS Review 35, no. 2 (2011): 293–321CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Of course, Ashkenazic scholars also produced codes. In northern France in particular there was an effort to produce works more accessible to the nonelite. For more on the regional distinctions of halakhic literature of the period see the important studies by Judah Galinsky: “Rabbis, Readers and the Paris Book Trade: Understanding French Halakhic Literature in the 13th-Century,” in Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Transmission in Thirteenth-Century Jewish Cultures, ed. Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Katelyn Messler (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 73–92; “Between Ashkenaz (Germany) and Tsarfat (France): Two Approaches toward Popularizing Jewish Law,” in Jews and Christians in Thirteenth-Century France, ed. Elisheva Baumgarten and Judah Galinsky (New York: Palgrave, 2015), 77–92.

12. Sefer ha-ʾagur ha-shalem, Herschler, 6.

13. Moses Shulvass, The Jews in the World of the Renaissance, trans. Elvin I. Kose (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 3–5. According to the account of Elijah Capsali, the Ashkenazic population in northern Italy outnumbered the native Italian Jewish population; but this testimony, while certainly a reflection of the size of the German Jewish population in Italy, was not necessarily reality, as Capsali tended toward hyperbole in his communal descriptions. For more on the significance of the dispersion of Ashkenaz for halakhic writing see Edward Fram, My Dear Daughter: Rabbi Benjamin Slonik and the Education of Jewish Women in Sixteenth-Century Poland (Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College Press, 2007), 22–32. For more on patterns of Jewish migration and settlement see Robert Bonfil, “Ashkenazim in Italy,” in Yiddish in Italia: Yiddish Manuscripts and Printed Books from the 15th to 17th Century, ed. Chava Turniansky and Erika Timm (Milan: Associazione Italiana Amici dell’ Universita di Gerusalleme, 2003), 219–20; Bonfil, “The History of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Italy,” in Moreshet Sepharad: The Sephardi Legacy, vol. 2, ed. Haim Beinart (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992), 217–39.

14. Daniel Carpi, “Ha-yehudim be-Padua be-tekufat ha-renesans (1369–1509)” (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 1967), 111.

15. Arguably the most important city of the Maharik's residence was Mantua, as it was there that Colon penned a large number of his rabbinic responsa and studied closely with Judah Messer Leon. Legend had it that both Colon and Messer Leon's tenures in Mantua came to an end with a dispute that apparently culminated in both of their expulsions. Heinrich Graetz originally articulated this argument, though subsequent scholars, including Robert Bonfil, Jeffrey Woolf, and Hava Tirosh-Rothschild, have doubted its veracity.

16. Woolf, “Life and Responsa of Rabbi Joseph Colon,” 46.

17. Carpi, “Ha-yehudim be-Padua,” 113; years recorded by Elijah Capsali.

18. Ibid., 112–13.

19. Ibid., 123.

20. There are certainly important medieval exceptions to this, but scholars have shown that intellectual migration began to significantly increase in the early modern period. See David Ruderman, Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 23–55.

21. Woolf, “Life and Responsa of Rabbi Joseph Colon,” 108–10.

22. Hava Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds: The Life and Thought of Rabbi David ben Judah Messer Leon (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), 27.

23. The book is 20cm wide.

24. Sefer ʾagur, f. 153r - f. 171, v. 22. Copies of the work are housed in libraries throughout the United States, Europe, and Israel, including Harvard University, Hebrew Union College, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Library of Congress, New York Public Library, British Library, Bodleian Library, Biblioteca Palatina in Parma, and National Library of Israel. There is a digital copy available on the National Library of Israel website.

25. According to Gerard Genette, paratexts—any extratextual aspect of a book, including the introduction—are “thresholds of interpretation” that help place a work within its cultural setting and provide insight into the intended meaning of a text and its overall purpose. Paratexts are thus not external to a text, but rather an internal part of it that helps readers reach greater levels of understanding. Although Genette identifies most paratextual elements as designed to entice people to buy and read a book, the introduction, or the “original preface” as Genette calls the authorial introduction, is a paratext whose most important function is to situate an author in the context of his work. The original preface, according to Genette, is thus a statement of the author's intent, which helps readers properly approach a text. Gerard Genette, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, trans. Jane E. Lewin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 221. The introduction emerged in Hebrew texts around the tenth century, and throughout the medieval and early modern periods served as a vehicle for authors to write statements of purpose and methodology. The Hebrew introduction, hakdamah, also became a literary genre unto itself, with many authors, especially those of Spanish and Italian origin, writing their works in rhyme or poetry. Praise of God and the incorporation of biblical verses to express ideas and intent are also standard features of hakdamot. See Raphael Posner and Israel Ta-Shema, eds., The Hebrew Book: An Historical Survey (Jerusalem: Keter, 1975), 174.

26. Sefer ʾagur, f. 1r. For more on the relationship of the ʾAgur to other halakhic works see Yaakov Spiegel, “ʿAl sefer ʾagur,” Yerushatenu 1 (2006): 172–95.

27. Sefer ʾagur, f. 1r. Landau specifies that this student was a physician and his time was primarily devoted to the study of philosophy and science; thus, this particular individual was hardly uneducated, but significantly, he was not well versed in Jewish legal matters.

28. There are indications that Hebrew literacy among Italian Jews started declining in the sixteenth century. See Kenneth Stow, “Writing in Hebrew, Thinking in Italian,” in Jewish Life in Early Modern Rome: Challenge, Conversion, and Private Life (Burlington, VT: Ashgate/Variorum, 2007), 1–14. For more on literacy in general see Robert Bonfil, “Reading in the Jewish Communities of Western Europe in the Middle Ages,” in A History of Reading in the West, ed. Gugliemo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 149–78.

29. Sefer ʾagur, f. 1r.

30. I do not wish to overstate the novelty of Landau's intended audience, as there were some preprint halakhic guides intended for the nonscholar. The closest parallel to the ʾAgur is perhaps Isaac of Corbeil's thirteenth-century code, Sefer miẓvot katan (Semak), an abridgment of Moses of Coucy's Sefer miẓvot gadol (Semag), which scholars consider a handbook. Nonetheless, as this study will later discuss, it is significant that Landau not only addressed his text to a more popular audience, he organized and produced the book with the technological means that would best enable his work to reach those individuals. For more on medieval halakhic works adapted to nonscholarly audiences, see Galinsky, “The Significance of Form”; Galinsky, “On Popular Halakhic Literature”; Mincer, “Increasing Reliance on Ritual Handbooks.”

31. I chose these two works as points of comparison as they are the most significant in the development of codificatory literature in the period. There were other works that could be classified as codes that were either more limited in scope or not well executed as a final source of the law.

32. See Isadore Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah) (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980), 356–515.

33. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, ed. Joseph Kafiah (Kiryat Ono: Mekhon Mishnat ha-Rambam, 1983), 46–47.

34. Moshe Halbertal, Maimonides: Life and Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 184–89. Halbertal distinguished between two different interpretations of the purpose of Maimonides's work: (1) The moderate view argues that the Mishneh Torah is a summary of Halakhah; (2) The radical view argues that the Mishneh Torah replaces Halakhah. In the introduction, it is ambiguous what Maimonides really intended. Halbertal argues, however, that he thinks Maimonides's true intention was radical but he had to disguise it with a more moderate interpretation (194). See also Shamma Friedman, “Ha-Rambam ve-ha-Talmud,” Dine Israel 26–27 (2009–2010): 221–37.

35. On the implications of the popular bent of the Mishneh Torah see Yaakov Levinger, Darkhei ha-maḥshavah ha-hilkhatit shel ha-Rambam: Meḥkar ʻal ha-metodah shel Mishneh Torah (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1965); Binyamin Z. Benedikt, Ha-Rambam lelo stiyah min ha-Talmud (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1988).

36. For more on the Tur specifically, see Judah Galinsky, “ʾArbaʿah turim ve-ha-siferut ha-hilkhatit shel Sefarad ba-me'ah ha-14: ʾAspektim historiyim, sifrutiyim ve-hilkhatiyim” (PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, 1999).

37. The Tur is considered a code and not a legal summary because it does not include talmudic sources and dispute, though it does offer citations and a sense of halakhic discourse, unlike Maimonides's work. Judah Galinsky argues that Jacob b. Asher composed a code (an unusual genre for Ashkenazic scholars) in order to reach the Spanish rabbinic leadership, who wrote primarily in that model. According to Galinsky, the fourteenth century witnessed a particular increase in the production of codes as a result of both the success of the talmudic academies and the increase in the number of individuals capable of composing such works (higher levels of literacy and increased religious fervor). Galinsky's analysis of manuscript sources of the Tur shows that in the first fifty years following its publication its audience was limited to scholars themselves writing works on those subjects. Toward the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century, however, the work began to achieve popularity in reading communities of Spain, North Africa, Germany, and Italy. Over the course of the fifteenth century, it reached increasing popularity in those areas. Galinsky, “ʾArbaʿah turim ve-ha-siferut ha-hilkhatit shel Sefarad.” Native Italian rabbis, such as Judah and David Messer Leon, for example, adopted the Tur as the authoritative halakhic resource. See Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds.

38. Jacob b. Asher, ʾArba‘ah turim (Tel Aviv: Mekhon Shirat Devora, 1993), vol. 1, introduction (pages not numbered).

39. According to Judah Galinsky, the first section, ʾOraḥ ḥayim, covering matters of daily relevance (prayers, blessings), was meant for the broadest audience, a guide for the rabbi, preacher, or layman. The second section, Yoreh de‘ah, was meant to be a code for local rabbis, to help them decide ritual matters. And the last two sections, ’Even ha-‘ezer and Ḥoshen mishpat, covering civil and marital law, were intended for judges. Galinsky, “ʾArbaʿah turim ve-ha-siferut ha-hilkhatit shel Sefarad.” A comment of Judah Minz emphasizes the popular use and elite rejection of it: מהר"י מינץ גילה לנו על רבנים מסוימים באיטליה "שאינם רוצים אפילו לקרות בטור" אורח חיים ונותנין טעם שהבעלי בתים לומדים אותו.

R. Judah Minz, she'elot u-teshuvot (Krakow: 1881), chap. 15, 30v.

40. Malachi Bet-Arié, “The Codicological Data-base of the Hebrew Paleography Project: A Tool for Localising and Dating Hebrew Medieval Manuscripts,” in Hebrew Studies Colloquium, ed. Diana R. Smith and Peter S. Salinger (London: British Library Occasional Papers, 1991), 170.

41. Ann Blair makes this argument for medieval Latin Europe: Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), 33–46. Mary Carruthers also argues that the design of medieval manuscripts was meant to aid in memory—not quick reference: The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 242. For examples of tables of contents and finding aids in medieval Hebrew manuscripts see Yaakov Spiegel, ʿAmudim be-toldot ha-sefer ha-ʻivri: Ketivah ve-haʻatakah (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2005), 523–64.

42. Blair, Too Much to Know, 53–54.

43. This division allowed the Tur to target and reach a variety of audiences, especially rabbis, preachers, and judges. See Galinsky, “ʾArbaʿah turim ve-ha-siferut ha-hilkhatit shel Sefarad.”

44. Of course, the same thing that made it appealing to some individuals drew criticism from others. For more on criticism of printed halakhic guides in a later period see Reiner, Elchanan, “The Ashkenazi Elite at the Beginning of the Modern Era: Manuscript versus Printed Book,” Polin 10 (1997): 85–98Google Scholar.

45. Mishneh Torah (Kiryat Ono: Mekhon Mishnat ha-Rambam, 1983), 868–69.

46. This opinion held that the sages of the Talmud mentioned a specific time for lighting candles because they lit them outside; after the point when people ceased to walk in the marketplace, the candles would not serve the intended purpose of publicizing the miracle. However, in the time of Tosafot and the Tur, people would light candles in their home, where the other members of their family could see them at any point in the night. Therefore, in that period, the time for lighting could extend until the morning. ʾArba‘ah turim, 4:622–24.

47. Though he did not mention the exact place where the opinions cited appear, not even when he quotes his father's opinions.

48. Sefer ʾagur, f. 1v.

49. Ibid., f. 103r. The Rosh was Jacob b. Asher's father, the default authority on whom Jacob b. Asher relied. Thus, it is not surprising that Jacob b. Asher did not actually cite his father's opinion in this discussion; it was already implicit.

50. It is important to note that Landau did not always include necessary details of the law. He sometimes referenced larger discussions in the Tur instead of summarizing them. In those instances, one would have to turn directly to the Tur for a comprehensive understanding of the law.

51. Sefer ʾagur, f. 44v.

52. For examples of Landau's reliance on minhag see Sefer ʾagur, f. 5r; 12r; 13v; 38r; 43r; 80v.

53. Or parchment. Paper was not the only written medium of the period.

54. On the basis of the extant incunables, A. K. Offenberg argues that the Bible and biblical commentaries accounted for the largest share of Hebrew printed book production; second were books of rabbinic literature; and all other types of literature, including liturgy, the Haggadah, philosophy, medicine, math, and history, made up the balance of Hebrew print production. A. K. Offenberg, A Choice of Corals: Facets of Fifteenth-Century Hebrew Printing (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1992), 89. There is debate among scholars as to which press first began operation, as the earliest printed books were not dated. Offenberg believes that the first Hebrew printing began in Rome in 1470. The first dated Hebrew work, however, appeared in 1475 in Reggio di Calabria.

55. Manuelle de Cava and Elia Volghieri.

56. Joshua Bloch, Hebrew Printing in Naples (New York: New York Public Library, 1942); Offenberg, A Choice of Corals, 90. The scholarly consensus holds that the record of this agreement marks the first Hebrew print house in Naples and the “magister Jacob hebreo” and “magister Josep hebreo” mentioned in the notarial document are undoubtedly Jacob Landau and Joseph Gunzenhauser.

57. Bloch, Hebrew Printing in Naples, 4–9. One of the most important of Ferrante I's laws was his exemption of the book trade from taxes, a ruling seen in the privilege granted by the Regia Camera (royal court) to David Bono, a Jew from Naples, on May 10, 1491.

58. The Soncino family established a print house in Naples shortly after the Gunzenhauser press began operation. Although some scholars have supposed that there were more than two printshops in Naples in this short period of time, Offenberg determines through analysis of the different types used that there were only two: Gunzenhauser and Soncino.

59. Text and translation found in Bloch, Hebrew Printing in Naples, 15. The original text of the colophon is reproduced in G. B. De-Rossi, Annales Hebraeo-typographici, sec. XV (Parma, 1795), 48–49.

60. Of course, it did not always turn out that way. For more on correction after print see Anthony Grafton, The Culture of Correction in Renaissance Europe (London: British Library, 2011); D. F. McKenzie, “Printers of the Mind: Some Notes on Bibliographical Theories and Printing-House Practices,” in Making Meaning: “Printers of the Mind” and Other Essays, ed. Peter D. McDonald and Michael F. Suarez (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002).

61. For thorough analysis of the impact of print on halakhic literature see Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg, “The Organization of Halakhic (Jewish Legal) Knowledge in the Early Modern Period: Ashkenazic Responsa as a Case Study” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2018). I thank Tamara for reading drafts of this article and having many discussions with me on the subject.

62. There is no imprint date on the first edition of the ʾAgur. Aryeh Tauber, in Meḥkarim bibliografim (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press, 1932), 53–54, argues that the ʾAgur was not actually printed during Landau's lifetime. Tauber based this conclusion on three parts of the text that say, “I the compiler found in the words of the author.” However, these sections do not appear in the first printed edition, suggesting that the first edition was printed during Landau's lifetime and a compiler of a later edition added those portions. Yitzhak Yudlov placed the date at 1490: “Mi hu ha-ḥakham ha-posek ha-ʾitalki,” Italiah 10 (1993): 11.

63. Mark Hurvitz, “The Rabbinic Perception of Print as Depicted in Haskamot and Responsa” (rabbinic thesis, Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, 1978), 12.

64. Meir Benayahu, Haskamah u-reshut be-defusei Veneẓiah (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1971); David Werner Amram, The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy: Beginning Chapters in the History of the Hebrew Printing Press (Philadelphia: J. H. Greenstone, 1909); Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds, 268–69.

65. Though there is some dispute concerning this matter, it seems Judah Messer Leon's Nofet ẓufim was the first book printed during its author's lifetime and the ʾAgur the second. The ʾAgur was certainly the first halakhic text to be printed in its author's lifetime.

66. Classical texts did not need approbations, but a new work, written by an unknown author, may have needed outside approval in order to establish authority.

67. Gunzenhauser was both a printer and a publisher, as much of the financial backing for his projects came from his own pocket. Bloch, Hebrew Printing in Naples.

68. For more on the haskamot and these individuals see Yudlov, “Mi hu ha-ḥakham,” 9–17; Spiegel, ‘Amudim be-toldot ha-sefer ha-’ivri, 4:115–17.

69. Judah Messer Leon's son David was an important scholar in his own right who studied with his father and many other rabbinic authorities of his day.

70. Jacob Provenẓali is famous for a responsum he wrote to David ben Judah Messer Leon encouraging him to pursue his secular studies. This responsum shows Jacob Provenẓali's status as a rabbinic authority—he was sought out for answers to difficult questions—and his understanding of the cultural atmosphere of Italian Jewry in this period. Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds, 43–44.

71. Moses ben Shem Tov ibn Ḥabib was also a learned proofreader at the Gunzenhauser print shop; see Bloch, Hebrew Printing in Naples, 9–10.

72. This is Netanel Trabot (Levi is of Jerusalem, not Netanel, a member of a French rabbinic family). See Gross, Henri, Gallia Judaica: Dictionnaire géographique de la France d'après les sources rabbiniques (Amsterdam: Philo, 1969), 219–21Google Scholar.

73. For more on the legal rulings of David and Judah Messer Leon, see Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds. The absence of scholars of Ashkenazic origin can be explained in a few possible ways. First, Landau might have thought that the praise of authorities outside of his Ashkenazic circle would help in garnering appeal for his book from a wider range of Jews, including the Sephardic community, as the ʾAgur primarily contains Ashkenazic customs and would naturally appeal to that audience even without a confirmatory approval by its rabbis. It is also possible that at the time there were no prominent Ashkenazic scholars in Naples from whom to seek approbation. This theory is somewhat unlikely, as we know there was a sizable community of German Jews in Naples in the late fifteenth century. Abulafia, David, “The Role of the Jews in the Cultural Life of the Aragonese Kingdom of Naples,” in Gli ebrei in Sicilia: Dal tardoantico al Medioevo, ed. Bucaria, Nicolò (Palermo: Flaccovio, 1998), 35–53Google Scholar. Most likely, the approbations of David and Judah Messer Leon provided enough confirmatory approval for Ashkenazic audiences.

74. Sefer ʾagur, f. 185r.

75. Ibid., f. 181r.

76. Ibid.

77. Ibid.

78. Ibid.

79. This is an expansion of something that began with the Rosh and the Tur, works written by Ashkenazim that became accepted by many Sephardim. As Galinsky has shown, this is the main reason for the Tur's publishing success at the beginning of the print era. See Galinsky, “'And This Sage Merited More than Any Other, for All Studied His Books': On the Distribution of Jacob b. Asher's “Arba'ah Turim” from the Time of Its Writing until the End of the Fifteenth Century,” Sidra: A Journal for the Study of Rabbinic Literature (2004): 25–45.

80. Sefer ʾagur, f. 181v.

81. See Bloch, Hebrew Printing in Naples, 9–10.

82. Such standardization and ease of access was later met with opposition. See Reiner, “Ashkenazi Elite.”

83. As mentioned previously, the ʾAgur was printed in quarto form. Most early printed editions of the Mishneh Torah and the Tur were printed in folio form.

84. For more on discontinuous reading in manuscript and print culture see Stallybrass, Peter, “Books and Scrolls: Navigating the Bible,” in Books and Readers in Early Modern England: Material Studies, ed. Andersen, Jennifer and Sauer, Elizabeth (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 42–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Saenger, Paul, Silent Reading: Its Impact on Late Medieval Script and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982)Google Scholar.

85. It is important to note here that the language of the text—Hebrew—meant that one needed at least some rabbinic education to access its contents. Only a vernacular book would have been accessible to the uneducated and the Jewish public at large.

86. The ʾAgur and Sefer ḥazon were only printed together in the first and second editions; later they were each published as separate books.

87. See for example Sefer ʾagur, f. 6v: .ואני המחבר מצאתי בספר הזוהר בפ פנחס מאמר דרשב"י דאין לברך על שניהם אלא ברכה אחת

88. Though this was a standard feature of early printed books.

89. I thank Ted Fram for this insight.

90. Raz-Krakotzkin, Amnon, “From Safed to Venice: The Shulḥan ʿArukh and the Censor,” in Tradition, Heterodoxy and Religious Culture: Judaism and Christianity in the Early Modern Period, ed. Goodblatt, Chanita and Kreisel, Howard (Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2006), 91–115Google Scholar.

91. A survey of bibliography of the Hebrew book and various library collections yielded these figures.

92. Barukhson, Shifrah, Sefarim ve-korim: Tarbut ha-keriʾah shel yehude Italiah be-shelhe ha-renesans (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1993), 129–32Google Scholar.

93. Twersky, Isadore, “Shulhan Arukh: Enduring Code of Jewish Law,” in The Jewish Expression, ed. Goldin, Judah (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976), 322–43Google Scholar. Twersky notes that Karo treated the ʾAgur pejoratively (323). I am not entirely convinced this is the case, but even if it is, it is still significant that Karo cited Landau with such frequency.