Sefer Tesubah [Book on Repentance]. A Ladino Compendium of Jewish Law and Ethics. A Critical Edition

1/200. 4to. XX, 283pp. on acid-free paper. Original black smyth-sewn clothbound with gold illustration on front cover and gilt lettering on spine. Includes ribbon marker and slipcase. Ninth volume in the "Sephardic Classical Library" series. The Manuscript 2015 of the University Library of Salamanca, "Suma de casos de consciencia" (or "Sefer Tesubah") published here for the first time, represents one of the very rare documents in Ladino which have survived from the Sephardic heritage preceding the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. The various texts it contains, most probably translated into Ladino at the end of the 14th or early in the 15th century, are preserved in a manuscript, which is without any doubt a copy from an older original now lost. Being a compendium of a variety of biblical, mishnaic, midrashic, and medieval rabbinical writings, adapted into Judeo-Spanish during a critical period in the history of Spanish Jewry, its aim was to present in the familiar vernacular of Castillian Jews a condensed version of religious and ethical texts otherwise not accessible to them. Stressing the idea of repentance and redemption, both individual and collective, these texts meant to revive the spirits of a community in turmoil after the devastating attacks on the juderias in 1391 and the two-year long Disputation of Tortosa [1413-1414], which were followed by mass conversions. The Salamanca manuscript offers the oldest and only medieval Ladino adaptations of "Exempla on the Ten Commandments," "The Sayings of the Fathers," and of excerpts from Yacob ben Asher's "Book of the Four Rows." The Scroll of Esther text, is independent of those found in the Jewish biblias romanceadas. The Ladino Exempla on the Ten Commandments reproduces many texts found in medieval midrashic collections and contains a number of texts not found elsewhere. List of Hebrew words at rear. Preface, Introduction, Bibliography, Appendix, Notes and Commentaries in English, Text in romanized Ladino. Binding and interior in fine condition.…