Константинополь || Народ печатной книги

One simple question arose:
if they arrived in the city

following the expulsion
of Jews from Spain,

how could they so quickly, over
the course of 16-17 months,

establish a full-fledged printing house

capable of producing not a small pamphlet

but a hefty volume containing,
I think, 409 or 410 pages?

[THE PEOPLE OF THE PRINTED BOOK]

[III. Constantinople]

“Early in the morning, we
entered the Bosphorus.

A wonderland city, drenched in sunlight,

sparkled before my eyes.

The slender pikes of minarets,
sugar-white palaces, and

a tower from which unfaithful wives were
probably thrown into the Bosphorus.

Small caiques, red fezzes.

Countless red fezzes.

People dressed in white,
the sun, guttural speech.

And flags, flags, endless flags, as if

it were a parade and
everyone were celebrating.”

This is the first impression
of Istanbul recorded by

the well-known Russian chansonnier

(and, by the way, a laureate of
the Stalin Prize, second category)

Alexander Nikolaevich Vertinsky in 1920.

For some reason, it seems to me that
the city stayed pretty much the same.

I had the same impression
in the late 1990s.

And probably so did the exiles from Spain

who came to Istanbul (or Constantinople,

as they called it) by ship after 1492.

Welcome back!

As you’ve probably figured out,

today we’ll be talking about
Jewish printing in Constantinople.

What do we know for sure?

We know that Jewish printing outside
Europe originated in Turkey,

specifically in Istanbul, which, let
me say it again, Jewish printers,

despite the city changing its name,
kept calling Constantinople.

We know it has to do with
the members of the famous

Sephardic family, the
Ibn Nahmias brothers.

David and Shmuel Ibn
Nahmias were famous in

Spain but they never engaged in printing.

Nevertheless, we are sure that
they printed their first book

precisely in Constantinople, and
they became the starting point

for the history of printing.

Moreover, this first book was the
four-volume tractate Arba’ah Turim,

which we’ve already mentioned,

by Yaakov ben Asher.

It is the main halakhic work
of the time, a huge book.

At the end, it featured a
colophon stating that

they finished the book
on Friday, the 4th of Tevet,

5254, that is,

December 13, 1493.

At first glance,

everything seems clear, yet

all major bibliographers would disagree.

One simple question arose:
if they arrived in the city

following the expulsion
of Jews from Spain,

how could they so quickly, over
the course of 16-17 months,

establish a full-fledged printing
house capable of producing

not a small pamphlet but a hefty volume

containing, I think, 409 or 410 pages?

Therefore, in the past, all
bibliographers, starting with

the founder of Hebrew incunabula
studies, Giovanni de Rossi,

followed by the most famous
Jewish bibliographer of

the second half of the XIX
century – early XX century,

Moritz Steinschneider,

and the major expert on Hebrew printing,

in particular in Constantinople,

Avraham Yaari – all of them
pointed out that it didn’t add up.

They believed the book to date not to 1493

but 1503.

Thus, they didn’t include
it in incunabula lists.

Curiously, the same opinion
was shared by the owner of

an incunabula collection now housed in

St. Petersburg Institute
of Oriental Manuscripts.

His name was Moshe Aryeh-Leib Friedland.

His bibliographer, the renowned Samuel
Wiener believed the same to be true.

If we take a look at the spine
of the book stored in the institute,

we can clearly see that it says,

“Constantinople, 1503.”

I, a humble book historian,
trusted their authority and

didn’t doubt that this
was a book from 1503.

Thus, I excluded it from my
first incunabula catalog,

published in 1985.

However, I was wrong.

Today, we know for a fact that
the book was indeed printed

on the date stated in
the colophon, that is,

in 1493.

Here’s another interesting fact.

We have a precise date.

We know the day of the week, the month,

and there is even a note that
I haven’t mentioned yet that

it all took place in Constantinople

under the rule of Muslims, under
the rule of the great Sultan Bayezid,

“may he live forever.”

This is very informative.

But hear me out, you won’t believe it.

First of all, Bayezid wasn’t reelected,

there was no such tradition.

He remained a saint,
just as he was in 1481.

He ruled from 1481 to 1512,

which means that his
reign is of no help to us.

Surprisingly, the 4 of Tevet both in 5254

and 5264 happened to be a Friday.

The date seems to be so informative

and yet it doesn’t help us one bit.

By the way, the fact that
the same weekly Torah excerpt,

parashat hashavua, was
read doesn’t help either.

But here’s what does help
and it’s really interesting:

recently, the outstanding
incunabula specialist

and my colleague Adri Offenberg

conducted a thorough study of

the copies of this book
he could get his hands on.

Unlike the previous scholars, he focused

on a so far overlooked
element, that is, the paper.

He found out that this
edition was printed on

paper with a watermark in
the form of a bull’s head

between the horns of which
there was a cross or flower,

typical for Italian paper

from 1491-1495.

The other books printed
by the Ibn Nahmias family

in the XVI century used different paper.

There was another confusing
thing that I forgot to mention:

they printed Arba’ah Turim in 1493,

but the next book, the Pentateuch
with aftarot and commentaries,

a thorough, high quality
and expensive edition,

was printed only 10 or 11
years later, in 1505,

maybe even in 1506.

What were they doing all this time?

How could a printing house stand idle?

This very time gap confused
scholars, since the big,

organized and functioning
production all started in 1505.

It was hard to find an explanation for it.

Nevertheless, look what
we’ve got: there is a book,

it’s large, printed on paper
typical of the 1490s.

Then, though the Ibn Nahmias brothers

were undoubtedly of Spanish origin,

the fonts they had chosen,
especially the main one,

bore no resemblance to those
used in Spain or Portugal.

Instead, they resembled the
ones used by Soncino printers

during the 1480s–1490s in Italy.

It’s also a mystery: how
did it all end up like this?

You see, for 10 years they
didn’t print anything,

the fonts aren’t Sephardic even
though they themselves are Sephardic,

there is an extended colophon.

It seems like one mystery
on top of the other,

but step by step, it has
all been figured out.

What do we know today or
how can we summarize

the lengthy study of this book?

Nowadays, we connect the Ibn
Nahmias family’s relocation

(or flight) from Spain with the family,

or I should probably word it differently,

not with the family but with the
actions of the most famous exile,

Don Isaac Abarbanel.

Don Isaac Abarbanel is the
main or the most famous exile.

He was not just a statesman,
a philosopher, a thinker,

a member of the government but

he was also a finance minister
to Ferdinand the Catholic.

He tried to bring an end to
this gerush, this expulsion.

Huge sums of money were offered.

Ferdinand had a personal
connection with him,

that we know for sure.

Moreover, he was offered to stay.

They were ready to make
an exception for him

and let him refrain from baptism.

He essentially fought against
Tomas de Torquemada, the famous

inquisitor who insisted on total
expulsion, but lost the battle.

However, he was allowed
to arrange a large ship,

this we also know, for him
and many wealthy exiles

to leave Spain and go to Naples.

In Naples they were welcomed
with open arms, especially him.

However, then they were faced
with an unexpected disaster.

Whether it was connected to
the arrival of these refugees...

I would hope it wasn’t.

Anyway, a plague epidemic broke
out around the time they arrived.

Many people died.

And fleeing from the plague,
or from the possibility of

being torn apart by the mob, these exiles,

or many of them (we know this much
as well) continued their journey

and went from Naples to Constantinople.

Now, why do we think
the Ibn Nahmias family

and Abarbanel were connected?

Precisely because they were
the first in his lifetime after

arriving in Constantinople
to publish his works –

his commentaries on the Passover Haggadah,

on Pirkei Avot, his writings in general.

So, they certainly knew him personally,

and it’s highly likely they fled together.

If it’s true, then it also
explains the fonts.

They arrived in Naples when
the Soncino and Gunzenhauser

printing houses were operating there,
and they got hold of the fonts

that were identical to Italian ones,

the Italian semi-cursive Sephardic font.

What’s also very interesting, and
it also serves as proof for us,

is that the first edition of Arba’ah
Turim doesn’t have any decorative

elements that later appeared in
many Ibn Nahmias publications

in the early XVI century.

And we know these decorative elements

from Portuguese incunabula.

For example, here’s the
famous Sefer Abudarham

we’ve already talked about.

Look at this frame.

It appears later in Ibn Nahmias books –

both in Abarbanel’s commentaries and
later, for example, in Mishneh Torah.

There is no doubt it’s
one and the same frame.

By the way, another interesting point.

This frame is quite well-known,

it was used by Christian
printers as well.

We always thought, at least
I did, that they borrowed

this frame to print Hebrew
books in Portugal.

But judging by the fact that this
frame later came up in Turkey,

and not just it – also
initials, headpieces,

and many other decorative elements –

it becomes clear they
simply purchased them

instead of renting them for printing.

So here’s what we’ve got.

We have a colophon with a complete
date that nobody initially trusted,

but today we’re sure the date is right.

Moreover, it’s very important that

this date is written
out in full, in words.

It’s quite rare, since

dates were usually indicated
with Hebrew letters.

In that case, one could suppose
that instead of the letters

resh, nun, dalet, which would mean 254,

someone wrote resh, samekh, dalet –

a careless typesetter’s mistake, and

that would sound convincing.

But when there’s a full date
written, it’s hard to believe that

the word khamishim could
be confused with shishim.

And whose mistake would it be?

It would mean it was the
author of this colophon,

who we are well familiar with.

People like him are called “bookmen.”

His name was Eliyahu ha-Levi,
and he wasn’t just an editor

or proofreader, he explained

how thoroughly he was reviewing texts.

We also know he was
a student of the famous

Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi and
later became the head of

the entire Romaniote Jewish
community in Constantinople.

That is, he was an
educated man, a bookman,

and there is no way he could
have made such a mistake.

That seems to make sense,
but one question remains:

what were they actually
doing for 10 years?

How is it possible that they
didn’t print anything for 10 years?

Adri Offenberg, in my opinion,
offers a very accurate explanation.

The fact is that all paper
used for printing books

in Turkey was of Italian origin,
it was imported from Venice.

Venice and the Sublime
Porte were waging a war.

I believe it was called
the Third Great War.

This war began in the late XV
century and lasted until 1503

or until 1505, as some scholars argue.

That is, during the war,
paper wasn’t imported,

trade was halted, so they
simply had nothing to print on.

Once the war was over,
paper was brought in,

printing houses were opened up again,

if they had been temporarily shut down,

and printing was resumed.

I believe that was exactly the case.

And indeed, around 1505,

they started printing again,
and, as I mentioned earlier,

their and their fonts’
emergence there is linked to

Don Isaac Abarbanel (or Abravanel).

There is another interesting point.

I didn’t know that, but when I
was preparing for this lecture,

I was surprised to read that the
family of Boris Leonidovich Pasternak,

particularly his father, the outstanding
artist Leonid Osipovich Pasternak,

believed they were
descendants of Abarbanel.

In the correspondence
with Hayim Nahman Bialik,

Leonid Osipovich mentions
that their family were also

Sephardim originating from there.

I didn’t know that.

I admire Pasternak’s poetry
and for me this is a curious,

perhaps minor but still
fascinating element

of their perception of the lineage.

So, then the printing house
appeared that operated

very actively until 1530.

First, two brothers were involved in it,

then one of them passed away
to be replaced by his son

bearing the same name, and so on.

That was the Ibn Nahmias family,
and, according to our estimates,

they published about 100 books by 1530.

Beyond the fact that these
were remarkable editions

with elaborate fonts, they printed
wonderful books on Halacha,

exquisite editions of
the Bible and the Talmud.

They introduced an entirely unusual,

previously unknown and
later unparalleled tradition

of selling books in installments.

They came up with a system where,

imagine this, in synagogues on
Saturdays, when people came to pray,

they would distribute printed
booklets from large volumes,

mainly Talmudic tractates.

And they would say, “You can
bring the money later, pay later.”

This way, they kind of hooked readers:

after buying one, two, or three booklets,

you’d naturally keep buying more
until you assembled the full volume,

while paying in small installments.

This allowed them to secure funds to

continue publishing, and it wasn’t
too burdensome for the buyers.

And, can you imagine, this
system lasted for 300 years.

Take, for example, a
famous book from 1500.

I don’t remember the
exact year, 1583 I think,

an edition of the tractate Berachot,
where another outstanding printer

Yosef Yartz, directly
describes this tradition.

He writes,

u-midey shabat shabato notsi
lahem kuntresim me-a-talmud

nekhalek lo…

He writes, you are going to pay
in installments, gradually,

be-ofen she-yikal alav
a-inyan ve-lo yihbad alav…

meaning, it wouldn’t be a
heavy burden on the person

to gradually collect
the entire Talmud.

So, we are talking about
the late XVI century.

Later, this tradition
was still going strong,

and we don’t know of any other places

where it survived so consistently.

This is a brief summary of
the Sephardic contribution

to the emergence of printing in
Turkey, or in general outside Europe.

But this contribution wasn’t unique.

Let’s return to Italy.

The outstanding Italian
printer Gershom Soncino

(we’ve mentioned him, if you remember)

was the third generation of
printers, the only one who worked

in both the XV and XVI centuries.

In 1526, he realized there
was no place for him

in Christian Italy any more.

I mentioned that Christian printers
were actively publishing Jewish books.

The production was obviously running

smoothly, they had an easier
time obtaining printing rights.

So, for various reasons,
Soncino, already an old man,

left Italy with his son Eliezer,

stopping briefly in Thessaloniki
before settling in Constantinople.

So, they established a new
printing house in Constantinople.

It was Italian in spirit, in
terms of operational principles

and the range of books they published.

He was very old at that
time and worked there for

only four years before
passing away in 1530,

after which the printing house was
taken over entirely by his son.

But what’s particularly interesting
and distinctive in a way is that

he both began and concluded
his work in Constantinople

by publishing the same work:

an edition of Rabbi David
Kimchi’s “Grammar.”

His first attempt was titled
Khelek ha-dikduk le-Radak,

meaning he started with
the grammar, a small work,

and concluded with the complete Mikhlol,

or “Book of Completeness,”
which included grammar,

a dictionary, and more.

In this very book, Sefer Ha-Mikhlol,

sensing his days were numbered,

he briefly recounted his family’s history.

Essentially, it is from his account that

we know how his family came to Italy.

He summarized the family’s history,

and I find it very moving
that he wrote at the end

that despite everything that had
happened to him, it was very difficult

(I know it from my own experience
and surely it was even harder for him)

to find oneself in a
foreign land at an old age.

He even quotes a biblical phrase,
saying he “became like a dying beast,”

nimshalti ke-behemot nidmu.

Well, it’s all rather sad.

Yet, he writes these
remarkably beautiful words,

“And as long as breath remains within me,

I will not cease to refine
(or improve, letaken) books,

to ease the burden on those studying
them and clarify obscure passages.

For the hand of the Lord has favored me.

Though my days draw to an
end and I’ve found myself

in a foreign land where I
became like a dying beast,

the Lord has helped me and
provided sustenance in my old age.

And may I be rewarded in
kind for having supported

the Marranos (anusim) from Spain,
and especially from Portugal

(he writes, u-vi-frad Portugal).

I devoted myself entirely to
rescuing them from the hands

of persecutors and returning them

to the shelter of the
Almighty (be-tsel Shadday).”

To me, these aren’t just fine words.

This is a truly remarkable approach
of an outstanding educator,

a man devoted to saving
souls, not just to books.

I can picture how, from time to time,

these rescued souls might
have reached Turkey,

and how he helped them
regain their strength

and return to the embrace of their people.

His son, Soncino, continued his work,

publishing many fine books.

It means a lot to me
personally that he published

the second edition of
Immanuel of Rome’s Mahbarot.

This was no simple book.

As I mentioned, it was a
collection of courtly tales,

a kind of Jewish Boccaccio.

Moreover, after its second edition,

the book was banned by the Shulkhan Aruh.

It was forbidden to read,
copy, and especially reprint it.

And until the late XVIII century,
no one dared publish it again.

Yet Soncino did, and that,
to me, is deeply gratifying.

Also, it was in this very book that

he includes both a title
page and a colophon.

It’s interesting, it’s such
a transitional period.

In the XV century, there
were no title pages at all.

By the XVI century, they appeared and
acquired such a full-fledged form,

yet colophons were still used.

If you read both the title page
and the colophon carefully,

you’ll see that this book was published

from the 17th of Adar to the 23rd of Elul,

that is, from February 21 to August 23,

1535.

Almost a full year, in fact.

Now, let’s summarize briefly.

What have we learned?

We’ve learned that the first
book appeared in Turkey,

in Istanbul (Constantinople), in 1493.

I would like to emphasize this
again because, unfortunately,

all general literature on
the history of books always

attributes the beginning of
printing in Turkey to 1729,

that is, when the first book
in Turkish was published.

Jewish books are somehow overlooked.

This is, first of all,
incredibly frustrating

and secondly, historically wrong.

And thirdly, just look at the
staggering gap of 236 years!

It’s mind-boggling – we are
not talking about 5 or 10 years.

We are talking about 236 years

during which Hebrew printing
flourished, not just existed.

Let’s move on.

It’s crucial to emphasize
that they came up with

this unique system of selling
large folios in installments,

allowing people to buy books gradually.

There are two thesauruses
that attempted to tally

the total number of books
printed in Constantinople.

The first one is the famous
bibliography by Avraham Yaari,

titled Ha-Defus ha-Ivri be-Kushta.

The second is the general bibliography

Otzar Ha’Sefer Ha’Ivri
by Yeshayahu Vinograd.

I think Vinograd simply took
the information from Yaari,

but both bibliographies
state that by 1863,

758 editions had been
printed in Constantinople.

That’s quite a significant
number of books.

Thank you very much.

In our next lecture, we’ll
continue to explore

how the exiles from Spain and
Portugal went on to develop

printing in other places.

Thank you very much.

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