MANUSCRIPT - KABBALAH - HAYIM VITAL - Lot 52

MANUSCRIPT - KABBALAH - HAYIM VITAL Hayim Vital (b. Joseph) (1542-1620), Shaar ha-Haqdamot שער ההקדמות (2nd section of Sefer Ets Hayyim), followed by Sefer ha-Derushim ספר הדרושים (ms. incomplete from end), paper; 146 folios (Hebrew foliotation); 220x155mm(170-175×120-125mm). Sephardic cursive script (Ottoman Empire, Syria or Palestine, mid-17th c.). Mostly 8-folio notebooks, slightly corrosive ink; advertisements at the end of each page; 30 lines written. Worm damage to text. Bound in vellum, lower cover of binding missing. Diagrams (fols. 15, 21v,23v). This elegant copy can be dated between 1620 and c. 1678 (after the death of Hayyim Vital and during the lifetime of his son Samuel). The paper is not European, but Oriental (primed and smoothed), and most likely Ottoman (3-crescent watermark, no countermark). There is no material criterion for deciding between Constantinople, Safed or Damascus, but literary history would suggest the latter, where Samuel controlled the copying and distribution of his father's work for several aeons.) This copy contains Samuel's preface and a foreword by the author himself. The order of the sections is due to Samuel (hence, in our copy, Shaar ha-Haqdamot as the first section), who cuts out the first section of the Lurianic writings and scatters them throughout the rest of the work, and splits the third section, thus retaining the number of sections (Shemonah she'arim) of the original Sefer Ets Hayyim. This version was widely circulated from the 1660s onwards, and is considered the most authentic by kabbalists in Palestine.