Recueil composite Cansino — piyyutim, lettres rabbiniques maghrébines, kabbale italienne

A composite collection of 482 pieces, exceptional for the density of its Maghrebi rabbinic content. Part I (fol. 1-88): nearly 180 piyyutim and seliḥot, completed in 1756, with acrostics of Abraham ibn Ezra, Yehuda Halevi, etc. Part II (fol. 94 ff.): the Maghrebi heart — letters and poems from nine members of the Cansino family of Oran; a letter dated Galilee 1604, another from Hebron 1615; death of Yiṣḥaq Cansino noted 1654. The letters come from Palestine, Algiers, Oran, Tlemcen, and Fès — a cartography of the post-1492 Sephardic rabbinic network. Part III (fol. 182): Shemen la-ma’or, a kabbalistic commentary by Aharon Berakhya of Modena († 1639). Provenance: 1 Maghrebi materials (Cansino of Oran, correspondents in Tlemcen, Algiers, Fès), compiled after 1654 2 Part I copied in 1756 3 Heimann Joseph Michael collection (1792-1846), Hamburg 4 Bodleian Library, 1848 Codicological notice — origin Oran (Cansino materials) + Italy (compilation), Algeria; script: Sephardic; leaves: 277 folios; dimensions: quarto; old catalogues: Neubauer Catalogue 1886 · 1189; editorial status: Unpublished. — Source: Mémoires des Manuscrits Juifs du Moyen-Âge Maghrébin (MMJMM), https://mmjmm.org/corpus/catalogue/bodleian-mich-234; manuscript held at the Bodleian Library (Oxford).

Sources & resources

• Neubauer, Adolf. Catalogue, Oxford, 1886, vol. I, n° 1189.
• Kerem Hemed, vol. IV, p. 35 — poèmes Cansino publiés par S. D. Luzzatto.
• Fiche MMJMM : https://mmjmm.org/corpus/catalogue/bodleian-mich-234