Sefer Zebach Pesach

Isaac Abravanel (1437–1508).
Sefer Zebach Pesacḥ.
[Venice: Marco Antonio Giustiniani, 1545]. (AFW8190)

Rabbi Isaac Abravanel was an advisor at the Spanish royal court before the Jewish expulsion of 1492. He wrote this commentary on the Passover Haggadah in Italy and it was first published at Constantinople in 1506. As Venetian law did not permit Jews to own or operate printing presses, it was necessary for the financiers of this second edition to employ a Christian printer. The text of Bridwell Library’s copy was expurgated and signed by two censors who were active in Mantua during the seventeenth century, Clemente Renatto and Giovanni Domenico Carretto.