Apparat massorétique de la Bible Bomberg 1524-1525 — Yaakov ben Ḥayyim ibn Adoniyah

Clarification (June 2026): there is no manuscript to locate here in the proper sense. The apparatus is known through print (Bomberg, Venice 1524-1525); ibn Adoniyah's working notes are not preserved. Masoretic apparatus established by Yaakov ben Ḥayyim ibn Adoniyah (Tunis c. 1470 — Venice c. 1538) for the Second Rabbinic Bible of Bomberg (Mikra'ot Gedolot ha-Sheniyah), Venice 1524-1525, which fixed for four centuries the standard Masoretic text of the Tanakh with targums and medieval commentaries (Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Radak). Born in Tunis, trained in the yeshivot of the eastern Maghreb, ibn Adoniyah emigrated to Italy and worked in Venice for the printer Daniel Bomberg; his apparatus resulted from a systematic collation of more than a dozen manuscripts (1517-1524). Provenance: 1 Composed between Tunis (training) and Venice (editorial work for Daniel Bomberg, from 1517) 2 Preparatory witnesses: probably destroyed or scattered in the Bomberg workshop Codicological note — origin eastern Maghreb then Italy; script: Sephardic; editorial status: Critical edition available. — Source: Mémoires des Manuscrits Juifs du Moyen-Âge Maghrébin (MMJMM), https://mmjmm.org/corpus/catalogue/to-locate-ibn-adoniyah-masorah.

Sources & resources

• Editio princeps : Mikra'ot Gedolot ha-Sheniyah, Daniel Bomberg, Venise, 1524-1525.
• Penkower, J. S. Jacob ben Ḥayyim and the Rise of the Biblia Rabbinica, Hebrew University, 1982.
• Encyclopaedia Judaica, article « Jacob ben Ḥayyim ibn Adonijah ».
• Fiche MMJMM : https://mmjmm.org/corpus/catalogue/to-locate-ibn-adoniyah-masorah