Isaac Lampronti - The "Pachad Yitzchak"

The "Pachad Yitzchak"

Lampronti's life-work was his rabbinical encyclopedia Pachad Yitzchak (name derived from Gen. xxxi. 42), the material for which he had begun to collect as early as his student days at Mantua, and on which he worked during his whole life. When he decided in his old age to publish this great work, he traveled together with his pupil Jacob Saraval, as the latter says in the preface of the correctors (Saraval and Simchah Calimani), through the Italian cities in order to secure the approbations (haskamot) of the rabbinical authorities of Italy for the work.

The collection of these approbations, which were given in 1749 and 1750, is a curious monument of the Jewish scholars of northern Italy in the eighteenth century; it includes sonnets and poems in other forms in honor of Lampronti. The following cities are represented by their yeshibahs or rabbis: Venice, Leghorn, Reggio, Verona, Ancona, Padua, Mantua, Casale Monferrato, Modena, Turin, Florence, Alessandria della Paglia, Pesaro, Finale, Lugo, Rovigo. In the second volume are added the approbations of R. Malachi ben Jacob Kohn of Livorno, author of the "Yad Mal'achi," and of three Palestinian scholars stopping at Ferrara.

The work was planned to fill six volumes, as recorded in the printing permit of the Jewish communal directorate of Venice. But only the first volume and the first half of the second volume appeared during the author's lifetime. Vol. i. (1750) contains in two specially paged sections (of 124 and 76 folios respectively) the letter א; the first part of vol. ii. (1753) contains the letters ב (fol. 1-75) and ו (fol. 76-105). The second part of vol. ii. appeared forty years after the author's death (1796); it contains the letters ח (fol. 1-49), ו (fol. 50-60), ן (fol. 67-77), ח, beginning (78-110). Vol. iii. appeared in the same year; it contains: ח, end (fol. 1-61), ט (fol. 63-93). These volumes were printed at the press of Isaac Foa (formerly Bragadini) at Venice. Two other volumes appeared in 1813 (vol. iv., Reggio) and 1840 (vol. v., Leghorn); vol. iv. contains the letters י (fol. 1-41a.), ב (fol. 41a-108); ל (specially paged, 1-26); vol. v. contains the letter מ (241 fols.). This last-named volume contains additions to the text by Abraham Baruch Piperno, under the title "Zechor le-Abraham."

In 1845 the autograph manuscript of the entire work was acquired by the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, in 120 volumes, 68 of which corresponded with the parts that had so far appeared. The Paris manuscript also contains the author's Italian correspondence, which was not included in the edition (see Cat. Hebr. MSS. Bibliothèque Nationale. p. 61. Nos. 458-577). The society Mekitze Nirdamim, on its foundation, took as one of its first tasks the publication of those portions of Lampronti's work which had not yet been printed. The first to appear (in octavo instead of folio, the size of the previous volumes) were the letters נ (1864; 100 fols.), ס (1866; 196 fols.), ע (1868; 173 fols.), פ (1871; 74 fols.), and צ and first half of ק (1874; 200 fols.). The work was continued ten years later by the reorganized society Mekitze Nirdamim; during 1885-87 the remainder of the letter ק was published and the letters ר (148 fols.), ש (318 fols.), and ח (183 fols.). Thus the publication of the work was completed 127 years after the printing of the first volume.