Il Sedur de Oraciones de mes di Yom Tob Atias (Ferrara 1552)

Abstract

In 1552, in Ferrara, Yom Tob Atias published two vulgarisations of the Hebrew prayer-book. The first volume is the well-known Libro de Oracyones de todo el año, copies of which can be consulted in different libraries. The only known copy of the second prayer-book, the Sedur de Oraciones de mes, was held in an Amsterdam library (Silva Rosa gave a brief description of it). This volume was apparently lost during the Second World War, may be en route from Amsterdam to Jerusalem, and has been recently and happily recovered. The present paper offers a thorough examination of the Sedur de Oraciones de mes and its comparison with the Libro de Oracyones. Lastly, by comparing Yom Tob Atias' translation of a famous Talmudic passage with the analogous vulgarisation by Isac Cavallero, one realizes that the former is far simpler and closer to the original Hebrew text, whereas the latter is perhaps more elegant and articulated, due to the use of modern Spanish expressions.