Judah Moscato’s Sources and Hebrew Printing in the Sixteenth Century:

Abstract

Northern Italy was the center of Hebrew printing from the late fifteenth through the early seventeenth centuries and, by the middle of the sixteenth century, print was the preferred, indeed even assumed, medium of publication for Italian Jews, and numerous editions of medieval and classical Hebrew texts had been issued. It is important to note that works that Moscato quoted frequently and across many sections of the Kuzari tend to appear on Baruchsons lists as printed editions and as found in many libraries. The latest trends in the study of Midrash tends to de-emphasize the search for an original text of particular works. The author suggests that Judah Moscato and his intended readership stand, in the second half of the sixteenth century, at a transitional moment in the passage from a culture dominated by manuscripts to a culture dominated by print. Keywords: Hebrew printing; Italian Jews; Judah Moscato; Kuzari; Midrash Tehillim