Catálogo de Manuscritos Hebreos de la Comunidad de Madrid. Vol. 1 (review)

Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 365 Reviews CATÁLOGO DE MANUSCRITOS HEBREOS DE LA COMUNIDAD DE MADRID. VOL. 1. By Francisco Javier del Barco del Barco. Estudios introductorios por M. Teresa Ortega Monasterio, M. Josefa de Azcárraga Servet y Luis Vegas Montaner. Serie A: Literatura Hispano-Hebrea, 5. Pp. 271 + CD-Rom. Madrid: CSIC, 2003. Paper, € 31.19. The present volume is part of a larger project aimed at cataloguing all the Hebrew manuscripts in Madrid collections. Although a variety of lists, descriptions , and catalogues have been available for a long time—the earliest dating from the sixteenth century—a compilation of all the extant material under a unified, systematic format was more than desirable. Sixty-four items are included in this first volume: Bibles, medieval biblical commentaries, grammatical works, and dictionaries. The manuscripts belong to libraries housed by the Royal Palace, the Universidad Complutense, and the Monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial. The authors promise the future publication of two additional volumes comprising the remaining material. Three studies by prominent Spanish scholars introduce the catalogue. In the first, María Teresa Ortega Monasterio (“Las bibliotecas y sus manuscritos hebreos” [The libraries and their Hebrew manuscripts]) surveys the provenance of the manuscripts and the history of the relevant collections. It would be a shame if her erudite, yet accessible and clear narrative, were limited to an audience of bibliophiles; it is worthwhile reading for anyone interested in the intellectual history of pre-modern and modern Spain. Those without formal training in biblical or Hebrew literature will find the second study by María Josefa de Azcárraga Servert (“Acerca de los manuscritos” [About the manuscripts ]) very useful; it simplifies the technical problems that the librarian— and by extension the general reader—might encounter in using the catalogue. In the final study, Luis Vegas Montaner (“El catálogo informatizado” [The electronic catalogue]) gives a detailed account of the cataloguing method employed and introduces the user to the CD-ROM that accompanies the book edition. As for the catalogue itself, it has truly brought the material up-to-date. F. Javier del Barco has carefully collected and compiled a mass of old and new information about the manuscripts. The entries are rigorous in their analysis, and include full descriptions of language, script, title, provenance, authorship, date, illumination, binding, foliation, colophons, and other codicological data. In addition, the catalogue corrects some errors from previous catalogues. A topographic index and three name indices (in Latin and Hebrew scripts, as well as a list of name transcriptions) further simplify access to the contents. The volume closes beautifully with reproductions of the paper watermarks and twenty-eight plates of the manuscripts, many published for the first time. Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 366 Reviews With one exception, all the manuscripts included in the catalogue are Sephardic. Many are elegant, exquisite codices copied before 1492. The fact that so very few Hebrew manuscripts are found in the Peninsula makes these surviving volumes especially precious. Beyond the bibliographic data on the manuscripts this catalogue provides, it also opens a door to the lives of those who wrote, copied, and exchanged the codices. Very prominent among them was the convert Alfonso de Zamora, whose divided life between Christianity and Judaism is best expressed in his Spanish translation of David K . imhi’s Commentary on Isaiah (cat. no. 38, plate p. 268) and his contemporary, Cardinal Cisneros, whose efforts resulted in the acquisition and preservation of many of the manuscripts included in the catalogue. Esperanza Alfonso University of Wisconsin—Madison Madison, WI 53706 mealfonso@facstaff.wisc.edu SPEAKING HEBREW: STUDIES IN THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE AND IN LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN ISRAEL. [HEBREW]. Edited by Shlomo Izre√el and Margalit Mendelson. Tefiuda 18. Pp. xvi + 477 + 55*. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2002. Cloth, $50.00. Ever since I heard Shlomo Izre√el, Tel Aviv University faculty member and project director of The Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew (CoSIH), give a presentation about this new project at the 2000 meeting of the North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics, I have been eagerly awaiting the appearance of this volume. CoSIH aspires to be nothing less than “the compilation of a comprehensive corpus of Israeli...