>> From the Library of Congress in Washington DC. 
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>> Mary-Jane Deeb: Good afternoon, everybody. And welcome to the African Middle Eastern Division.  I'm Mary-Jane Deeb, chief of the division and I'm delighted to see you here to attend this exciting presentation by Professor Ittai Joseph Tamari, the director of the Center Archives for Research on the History of the Jews in Germany.  Which is in Highland Burg.  A fascinating subject.  The transformation of the [inaudible] from manuscript to printed text.  Sorry, I'm paraphrasing, the title is not quite that way.  This will be followed by very special display of rare editions of the Talmud, which your program says is a unique opportunity to compare rare editions, page by page.  I only say a few things about this division before we start the program.  Many of you already know that this division is made up of three sections. The African section, which covers [inaudible] in Africa, the near East section, which covers the whole of the Arab world, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, the [inaudible] and smaller areas, even close to China.  We responsible for 78 different countries and regions in those areas and we're very active in collecting, acquiring, developing collections in the vesicular, in the languages of those regions.  We also do briefing for visitors when they come to the library.  We do symposium, workshops, we have displays, we have exhibits and our staff is one of the best staff you can possibly hope to have.  They're scholars in their own rights, they know the languages, they know the culture of the regions that they cover.  And, so, we serve our patrons in many ways.  One of which, of course, serve them with our collections.  But we also bring scholars to the library as we are doing today.  We bring scholars who can illuminate and enhance our understanding of those collections that we hold and that we treasure.  So, it's so exciting to have Professor Tamari here with us today.  And to introduce this lecture is Professor Michael Brenner, the director of the Center of Israel Studies at the American University in Washington DC.  He's also a professor of Jewish history and culture at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.  So, I think you want to hear from them now.  And, so, Professor Brenner if you would please come.
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[ Applause ]
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>> Michael Brenner:  Thank you.  It's a real pleasure to introduce my dear colleague Dr. Ittai Tamari.  Let me first thank the Jewish Studies Program at American University and also the Judaic Studies Program at George Washington University and, of course, the Library of Congress, who cooperated making this possible. Especially Ann Brener who helped us so much here.  I am very happy to see Dr. Tamari here, who was my colleague in Munich for many years until he moved to Heidelberg earlier this year to direct the center -- to direct the archives for research and study of the Jews in Germany.  The major archives for this purpose in the German speaking world.  He is best known, I think, for his many publications on Hebrew print.  The history of Hebrew print, especially in the Ashkenazi world I would say he is probably the leading expert in this field today.  Has published many books.  One very beautiful recent book came out about the Hebrew holdings of the Bavarian State Library, one of the leading libraries actually in this field.  In fact, the only completely extent medieval  Talmud manuscript is in Munich and many other manuscripts in early prints.  He has also published numerous articles on Hebrew printing and related topics in Hebrew, in German, in English has been lecturer in several universities in Germany and Israel.  Recently gave a lecture series at the National Library in Jerusalem and I am really very happy to see him here.  Please join me in welcoming Dr. Tamari, who will speak about the topic, I think you all see the front of you on your screen from manuscript to printed text, the transformation of the Talmud.  Thank you.
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[ Applause ]
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>> Ittai Joseph Tamari:  Thank you very much.  And thank you again for all the institutions that made it possible to be here in this wonderful and amazing place of where knowledge is at home, so to say.  What I'm trying to do in the coming hour or so is to give here in front of you a kind of introduction to the theme. And then I will invite you all to come with me to the room in the rare here and see very fine selection of Talmud volumes that are presented here, I think.  So, for the first time, one might say, in such a -- yeah.  Okay, let's start.  The Talmud is considered the corner stone of the Jewish oral low.  Which is traditionally comprehended as a compass that should not be transferred into written form.  The Talmud is composed of citations from the mission half, followed by the Gemara, which consists of the discussions of the sages relating at times loosely to the precursory citation. But and to what extent the Talmud was copied or written down is unknown.  Unfortunately, there are not too many manuscripts of Talmud treaties that have survived to our day, much less manuscripts that contain the whole copies of either the Yoma Shimy [assumed spelling] originated in the land of Israel, or the Bovini in Babylon.  The persecution of the Talmud by the church is another cause for the disappearance of many Talmud manuscripts and printed versions. Nevertheless, in the following minutes I will try to discuss the transformation of the text from its hand written version to its printed version. I would also like to follow some of the prevalent verbal stereotypes concerning the topic and compare them with the material reality of the vast [inaudible] of literature called the Talmud, which is the amplest and the most complicated Jewish tradition ever created.  The Talmud is also probably the first multi-layered text in a tradition that after the Renaissance and then in [inaudible] brought by its printed version, could no longer be read linearly.  Generally Jewish communities are considered learned societies, apart from dealing with a tradition of learning, traditions of learning disputing, ruminating on and transmitting various kinds of knowledge, we may as well turn our attention to the preparation, production and dissemination of printed books through which knowledge was kept and transferred. 
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During the first period of the new technology of printing with moveable letters that is in [inaudible] crafted between about 1415 until 1500, approximately 28,000 to 30,000 titles were printed, mostly in three European centers, Italy, Germany and France.  Of those some 140 were set with Hebrew letters.  Then half a percent of the 140 titles using Hebrew letters, the biggest section was biblical text and their common [inaudible], something like 38%.  Less than 5% of printed [inaudible] of this period were Talmud treaties.   But the low percentage of printed Talmud treaties does not provide binding evidence of the poor interest in this kind of literature. Rather, it speaks to the practical hardships of printers in finding appropriate manuscript copies and matching proper and suitable commentaries, as well as the elaborate and [inaudible] way parts of text were set on the printed page or better saying that they will spread.  We will see all these later in the rare room.  In 1936 Walter Benjamin wrote his essay, "The Work of Art in the Mechanical Reproduction," in it he argues, among other things, that through the act of reproduction the significance is taken from the original by taking its context. The former [inaudible] of the hand manufactured object gets lost amidst the multitude of reproductions and the deliverance of the reproduced work of art from its symbiotical dependence on ritual. Such are among the most known citation from his essay that later had the considerable influence on the [inaudible].  When considering the printed Talmud after [inaudible] most of the arguments Benjamin brought up tend to show exactly the opposite.  Through the printing of the Talmud Jewish tradition and its ritual components were restructured, strengthened and standardized.  Learning and ruminating on its knowledge became an obligatory activity, the artisanal quality of the Talmud manuscripts disappeared, but the student of the text became part of a big hard to quantify society of daily students of a modern ritual.  Volumes of the printed Talmud became, if not holy, at least venerated and took a central place on the shelves of the living room of every learned Jewish adult.  Since the 16th century the Talmud has possessed, one may say, a practical [inaudible] of essentially -- essentiality that was not feasible before.  In this way two polar opposites approach each other.  The ruminative individual struggle with the text approaches the mass learning of it in quantities never known before.  Another point of interest that may strike our attention is the vicinity of those texts to technology.  From 1520 Venice to our day with the still new translations of the whole text now, the Talmud can be read on our cellphones and tablets and so on.  Compared with text of other religions.  It is most unique. These and other peculiarities of the printed Talmud made it almost form its earliest days along for goal for printers who were in many cases during the long history of printing with Hebrew letters themselves devote scholars.  Of the some 15 known completed editions of the Talmud, as well as numerous partial publications one can assume a very active and highly professional field where they are fascinating efforts to innovate, improve and squeeze more content into the limited frames of the double spread on both letters.  The texture and the physical topographical.  Within less than a century the printed Talmud set a new standards for the Jewish tradition and modified it in an essential way.  The study of the Talmud in its new version, the printed model, gave almost every interested person the opportunity to encounter it independently and study it without a mediator.  Beyond that, since then, there has been much easy access to different bodies of information that is a [inaudible], commentaries and so on. That accompany the Talmud's main text, making the need to travel to study with learned devotees or see scarce manuscripts obsolete for most readers and users of the printed Talmud. Through the act of printing the main text lost considerable quantity of entrancing variations.  Subsequently, parts of text that did not confirm the commentaries of [inaudible] and the following [inaudible] were neglected and eventually vanished.  Further phenomenal losses of Talmud text were those of the traditional circulating in the Iberian Peninsula during the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and subsequently Portugal from 1492 to 1496.  Most of the manuscripts, as well as printed treaties form these area and region did not survive.  The [inaudible] tradition of studying the Talmud, particularly in its printed version, came to us in a diminished, incomplete form.  The first generation of printers and their printed efforts, scarcely proceeded beyond their own lifetime.  Members of the Sandino [assumed spelling] family succeeded with a printing during the 16th century.  Two descendants succeeded even longer.  But it was a Christian mention from [inaudible] that through enormous investments in money and manpower, managed to publish in Venice more than 250 titles of books printed with Hebrews letters. Among others the publications included the [inaudible] and both of the Talmud from more consecutive editions.  To start with a cliché that Talmud is referred to us as an ocean because of its monumental volume and the immense numbers of themes mentioned and discussed among other things.  Let us have a look at the means that grant that ocean its form and lay its boundaries.  The text next stage of our consideration concerns the outer form of the double spread of the Talmud.  Okay.  This is what was mentioned before.  This is the famous -- most famous complete manuscript of the Talmud, a Babylonian Talmud called, "Cod. Hebr." 95, which was written in France, 1342.  
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In systemizing the whole text, students of the Talmud could study the text more easily and profoundly then they ever could in its handwritten version.  As long as the Talmud was handwritten, the different parts of its contents, the [speaking foreign language] were not always set clearly apart.  Nor were there always written separately from other text, let alone written on the same surface.  The fact that those texts were sometimes interweaved has to do with those who read or prepared the manuscripts already being acquainted with the full length text and therefore preparing the new version to function as a commemoration.  Another development one may find in the later 12th century in the same three European centers of printing, was manuscripts or so called multi-layered books that gifted craftsmen created using varying page layouts in different forms of diverse text clusters.    Let us have a short look at it.  Here you see a manuscript which was written in Segovia, Spain, containing the -- one of the books of the Bible.  And you can see that the copies played with various layers of text of commentaries and so on.  They are not functional, these layers, but you can see it was a known tradition.  Another sample coming from Vienna.  
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Since the 13th century, the catholic respondents in Italy have used a multi-layered double spread design for printing the [inaudible] of the church log. Here you have one of the famous -- oh, I'm sorry, it's got a bit lower.  It's a very known manuscript of the catholic law, which gives you an impression how catholic law texts were written down in the 14th century.  A similar multi-layered design of the printed page was later used in Spain to print the complutense polyglot bible.  Here you have it.  It was printed 3 years -- in 3 years and you may see the -- yeah.  Hebrew, Latin, you have it here, the Aramaic translation.  There was some of the conditions before the first printed -- these were the conditions before the printed -- the first printed Talmud treaties.  The first attempts to print the Talmud treaties tried to structure the reading surface. This effort is neither new, nor appears primarily in the Jewish tradition.  It is rather one of the intrinsic qualities of printing text.  The appearance of fully functional multi-text themes is in Jewish text, like the Talmud, or the Bible, the lord is a genuine innovation. Here one can read the main text, on the same page, compare it with other text in the old tense, thus commemorating the oral tradition in which the Talmud was brought up and evolved.  The printed Talmud is a cultural phenomenon, it's one of the rarest idiosyncrasies.  Its main textural components are still unconsolidated, whereas its format, the layout, even the exact positioning of the wording are already fixed.  This is a page of the Sandino [assumed spelling] it is believed to be the first dated treaty of the Talmud, a treaty [inaudible] was printed in Sandino 1484 and then again in Bomberg.  And this is our June, the Bomberg printing.  
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The Sandino's were the first to use the known [inaudible] layout of the double spread, called the Talmud, but various obstacles, above all finances, hindered them from fulfilling their father's wish, mainly printing the whole Talmud.  The treaty, [inaudible], regarding the menstruating woman is considered the first dated Talmud treaties.  It was first printed 1484 in Sandino and for the second time and for the second time in 1509 in [inaudible] served as the prototype for the later Bomberg Talmud.  Daniel Bomberg a cloth and art merchant was a religious Calvinist, who was sent by his family to Antwerp to in Antwerp to Venice in 1516.  His friend, the appestat Felix [inaudible] taught him Hebrew and advised him to open a printing shop for books in Hebrew.  Bomberg did not hesitate to invest immense sums of money and man power, previously unknown in the Jewish world and open in Venice a big printing shop that functioned as an editorial office for his future publishing plan.  In this shop he employed dozens of Jewish scholars from all over North Africa, Germany, France and Italy, who otherwise were not alone to stay in the lagoon city.  Two or maybe three of them converted to Christianity.  Nevertheless, after four editions of the Talmud and more than 20 -- 250 titles, he abruptly left Venice and returned Antwerp, leaving the printing shop to be distributed among other printers.  Mark Antonia Degala [phonetic spelling], Mark Antonio Justinyani [phonetic spelling], and [inaudible].  Although, his editions consisted of presumably 500 to 1500 copies each. His publishing activities could not be considered a financial success. Yet, in the Jewish tradition, he's praised as a great minister of the Jews.  Therefore, our family, this is the copy that the estate library in Bavaria has.  It's a complete set and it's in a very fresh situation.  This is the so called Gustiononi copy.  
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And this is [inaudible], it is the best copy that was printed in this time.  before our family printers active in [inaudible] and later in Amsterdam, Pisa, Venice and Torino, printed in 1553 in Sabbionetta [assumed spelling]  in an enhanced edition of the Talmud treaties, which is called [speaking foreign language] or marriage ceremony.  Edited by the renown scholar Joshua [inaudible].  With a Cornelio Adelton [assumed spelling] that worked before with Bomberg as the head of the printing shop.  Unfortunately, no further treaties of that kind was printed in Sabbionetta.  Daniel Bomberg significant achievements is the printing of the Talmud, which later became the text [inaudible].  It was produced in four consecutive editions.  Only the first was complete edition containing 44 message thought or treaties.  The other three were as follows.  The second was contained only 40 treaties.  The third eight. And the fourth 33.  The wonderful letters in [inaudible] style were cut by the famous letter cutter Geome Lebardafirst [assumed spelling].  Some of his original punches are kept nowadays in the  Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp.  The year 1520 when the Bomberg Talmud was first printed could be seen as the amoos meelabilous [phonetic spelling] for in this year not only the [speaking foreign language] of Prague, [speaking foreign language] was born, but also this my [inaudible] Talmud edition made its appearance.  10 years later another important student of Jewish knowledge was born in Prague and namely [speaking foreign language]. Who substituted for [inaudible] in Prague.  He would later consider the publishing of the printed Talmud, [inaudible], which is called "The Set Table," compiled Roberreso Caro [assumed spelling], a trend of leaving the old tradition of learning overly and studying out of books.  Later he would gain his own renown and compose his famous [speaking foreign language] meaning "Garments of the Kingdom" to assist those who will still depend on old Ashkenoshic [assumed spelling] tradition.  This new way of printing the Talmud was not accepted without opposition.  Centuries later there are still printing, Ashkenosic and Sephotic [assumed spelling] alike, who object to the Bomberg layout.  Nevertheless, they will indicate in their Talmud editions their parallel passage in the Bomberg edition, which has already become the standard.  Over the course of the 17th century, all the Talmud edition adopted the Bomberg double spread style and that was eventually the multifaceted situation that was known to be to [inaudible] scholar [speaking foreign language], when he prepared the last monumental Talmud enterprise in recent centuries.  The Rome, or better known as [inaudible].  Let us have a few pictures to see.  This is the [inaudible] edition of the Talmud, made in Basil by Ambrosio Froben.  But the men behind it, [inaudible] came from Italy and brought with him letters and then you -- and new stanza edition.  This Basil edition, which is known as the Stanza edition, was printed many editions through Europe.  Here we come to the [inaudible] tradition and you can see from the outside that this is another tradition that we do not know so much.  The letters look much other than we had before.  And as you can see here in the [inaudible], these are editions that were made for students, young students, so they can read the main text in the main column and older [inaudible], older commentaries were set in a shorter form.  This is another version of the Talmud that was made in Poland.  It used a very small letter in order to let the original text of Bomberg inside, but nevertheless it didn't manage to have the whole commentaries behind.  
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We will see it in the room later.  It's a very moving story about this Talmud that was printed in 15 copies, 500 of them were given to poor students of the Talmud in order that they could read the Talmud and study it in their homes without having to pay for this. This is another edition for students, for young students in order to read the Talmud in its basic version.  And here we come to the modern era, where the known letter code, Amsterdam, makes its appearance, which -- of which we have to our days.  This is what happened as the late emperor of Habsburg didn't let printed books from other places in Europe come inside his reign.  Christian printers started to print the Talmud with letters that they could buy in Amsterdam and other places.  One of them was [inaudible].  A very nice example.  And this is the last, as I said before, the last enterprise that was done printing the Talmud Villa, which is the new Bomber, so to say.  I would like you now to come with me to the room and have a look at the volumes that we have.  And, yes.
>>Ann Brener: Okay, on behalf of the Hebraic Section I'd like to thank Dr. Tamari for a wonderful talk.
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[ Applause ]
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And we do want to invite you back.  I hope everyone has a checklist.  As you will see our display is divided into five groups.  Each group is open up to the same page, but in different editions.  Now, usually when we have a display I'll let you all walk around in peace and quiet and enjoy everything. This time I suggest that we treat this as a master class and -- because this is such a wonderful opportunity to have such a scholar, to walk around with us and to point out to us the differences in the different editions.  So, again, warmest thanks to Dr. Tamari and please use the side doors and come on into the display room.  Thank you.
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>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.
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