❧ Description
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Sephardic; leaves: 277 folios; dimensions: quarto; old catalogues: Neubauer Catalogue 1886 · 1189; editorial status: Unpublished.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 / Collectif GMPL), https://mmjmm.org/corpus/catalogue/bodleian-mich-234; manuscript held at the Bodleian Library (Oxford).
