Manuscript, Decorated Parchment Machzor – Lisbon, Portugal, 15th Century – Two Volumes – Part of the Lisbon Machzor Brought to Jerusalem with the Aleppo Codex – Unknown Manuscript.
Manuscript, decorated parchment machzor – prayers and piyyutim for the High Holidays, Three Festivals and more, according to the Sephardic rite. [Lisbon, Portugal, second half of the 15th century].
Two small-format volumes. Ink on thin parchment. Color and gilt decorations. Prayer text in neat, vocalized Sephardic semi-cursive script. Instructions in Sephardic cursive script. Initial words generally in semi-cursive script; occasionally in square script. Haftarot and Divrei HaYamim (in margins, see below) in square script.
The manuscript volumes feature artistic decorations throughout. The decorations are typical of Portuguese manuscript illumination, and especially of the Lisbon school of scribes (see below). The initial words are mostly decorated with lace or filigree-like frames, executed with delicate quill work in light purple ink, characteristic of Lisbon. The frames extend into the margins, enriched with geometric and floral motifs.
The present manuscript features over 35 illustrated initial words, including 22 large ones that span the full width of the text area. Seven of these feature gilt letters in square script at their center. Some initial words are colored green. The initial word of Keter Malchut is decorated with an octagram (Rub el Hizb).
The machzor text (prayers and piyyutim) is written in the center of the page, in a consistent 14-line format (except in several cases where the scribe enlarged the text for specific reasons). The scribe left the top and bottom margins for copying of additional texts, in a design similar to Masoretic texts in biblical manuscripts (in a fixed format of two lines at the top of the page and three lines at the bottom) and in tiny Sephardic square script. In the first volume, throughout the manuscript, the scribe copied haftarot for several parashiot, for Yom Kippur and Minchah of Yom Kippur (Book of Yonah), for the first and second days of Sukkot, Shabbat Chol HaMoed Sukkot, and the Shabbat before Rosh Chodesh, after which he began to copy Divrei HaYamim. In the second volume, the scribe continued to copy Divrei HaYamim through the entire volume. The haftarot are vocalized, and with cantillation marks.
The first volume comprises: The opening of Keter Malchut by R. Shlomo ibn Gabirol, a passage from Mi Chamocha for Purim, passages from the Passover Haggadah, Musaf for Pesach, Pirkei Avot, Azharot of R. Shlomo ibn Gabirol for Shavuot (Shemor Libi Maaneh), Sephardic-rite Kinot for Tishah B'Av, and Selichot.
The second volume comprises: Prayers for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Hoshanot for Sukkot and order of Hoshana Rabba, order of Simchat Torah, prayers for dew and rain, blessings (Birkat HaMazon, blessings for circumcision, betrothal, marriage, mourning, bedtime reading of Shema, blessings for sights and pleasures, Eruvei Chatzerot). At the end of the volume, the scribe continued the copying of Divrei HaYamim (which had been copied up to this point only in the margins) over several full pages (this copying is interrupted due to missing leaves). Next appears an abbreviated Book of Tehillim – a copying of the first verses of every chapter – written in two columns. Next appear several pages by another writer – who wrote a replacement for the missing parts of Divrei HaYamim (this replacement was also damaged over time, rendering it incomplete).
Another volume by the same scribe is Ben Zvi Institute Ms. 2048, known as "Machzor Lisbon" or "Siddur Lisbon". This manuscript, containing prayers and bakashot for Shabbat, is the same size as the present volumes, and bears the same style of writing and decoration (also with 14 lines per page). The scribe copied haftarot in the upper and lower margins, spanning from the seventh day of Pesach to Devarim (the volume is lacking at end). This is evidently the first part of the present manuscript. This manuscript was the property of the Aleppo community, and it reached Jerusalem from Aleppo in 1957, along with the Aleppo Codex, and was given as a gift to President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (along with a third manuscript known as "the small Keter"); see: Amnon Shamosh, The Keter – The Story of the Aleppo Codex, Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1987, pp. 114-115 (Hebrew).
An important article on the "Lisbon Siddur" in the Ben-Zvi Institute collection and on the group of manuscripts from Lisbon ("the Lisbon Group") is Lila Avrin’s "The Lisbon Siddur in the Ben-Zvi Institute Collection", Pe'amim 68 (Summer 1996), pp. 79-104 (Hebrew). Among the manuscripts written and decorated in Lisbon in the second half of the 15th century, Avrin specifically identifies three manuscripts that are most closely related to the "Lisbon Siddur" and to its continuation as presented here: The Duke of Sussex’s Portuguese Pentateuch (British Library, Ms. Add. 15283), the Bodleian Pentateuch (Or. 614), and the Book of Psalms from the Floersheim Collection in Zurich. It may be assumed that these manuscripts were written by the same scribe (or alternatively, by a single scribe and his students, or by several students of a single scribe).
Two volumes. Many leaves lacking in both, from middle and end. Vol. I: 1-82 leaves; Vol. II: 83-202 leaves. Thin parchment leaves. Size: 9X12.8 cm (area of text in center of page: approx. 4.5X7.4 cm). Good-fair condition. Stains and light wear. Approx. 20 leaves with tears and large open tears, affecting text and decorations (some lacking more than half of leaf; several leaves lacking majority), repaired with new parchment filling. Tears across leaf to several leaves, affecting text, repaired. Censorship expurgations in several places. New bindings, with laces for fastening. Placed in case. Minor damage to bindings and case.
Reference:
Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, Manuscrits hébreux de Lisbonne: un atelier de copistes et d'enlumineurs au XVe siècle. Paris: CNRS, 1970; Thérèse Metzger, Les manuscrits hébreux copiés et décorés à Lisbonne dans les dernières décennies du XVe siècle. Paris: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1977; Bezalel Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Isles – Spanish and Portuguese Manuscripts: A Catalogue Raisonné. Jerusalem and London, 1982.
The present manuscript was heretofore unknown and is not mentioned in the scholarly literature above.
Certified by the Art Loss Register (ALR); certificate enclosed.
