Kabbalah · R' Shimon bar Yochai (traditional attribution) · 16th c. · Mantua · Annotations · Printed Book · Zohar

ספר הזהר — מנטובה, שי״ח־ש״ך, עם הגהות קדומות

Zohar — Mantua, 1558–1560, with copious early manuscript annotations

Printed Mantua, 1558–1560 · annotated 16th–17th c. · The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary

One of the first two complete printed editions of the Zohar — produced in Mantua between 1558 and 1560 by Meir ben Ephraim of Padua and Yaakov ben Naftali HaKohen of Gazzuolo, the other being the Cremona edition of 1558 — in a copy carrying copious marginal annotations by an early reader. The notes appear throughout the volume in a contemporary hand and reflect close engagement with the text and its kabbalistic content within decades of the printing. A downloadable PDF facsimile is also available.