Do you have a set of cycles in the bookcase?
Who knows, maybe one day they will be worth a fortune ... this is what happened to the "Luzzatto Cycle", a 700-year-old prayer book, which will be sold tomorrow (Tuesday) in New York at a starting price of $ 3.2 million, and according to Sotheby's. It is expected to reach a price of about $ 6 million, which is almost NIS 20 million.
The special cycle, in which Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur prayers according to Ashkenazi custom, was created in the 13th century AD in Bavaria in southern Germany, by a Jewish writer named Avraham, who discovered his identity by embellishing the name of Avraham Avinu with feather-like illustrations on various pages of the cycle.
Apart from that, he also adorned the other 451 pages of the cycle with colorful and interesting illustrations.
Thanks to the excellent preservation condition of the cycle and the fact that it was copied and aired by a Jewish writer, experts consider the Luzzatto cycle one of the most important prayer books in the Jewish world - and it is also the oldest cycle ever put up for auction.
Auction Luzzatto candidate for auction, Photo: Sotheby's
In the Middle Ages, before the invention of the printing press, the Ashkenazi Jewish communities used to spend large sums of money and hire a scribe to write a book with the entire order of prayer in those communities; It was customary to produce two large cycle volumes - one that includes the prayers of the winter, spring, summer and days of fasting (from Hanukkah to Tisha B'Av), and the other - to the autumn holidays and days of fasting (from Rosh Hashana to Simchat Torah). Most often, these volumes were stored in the private home of one of the community members and taken to the synagogue for prayers. There the cantor would recite aloud or sing from the cycle, while the worshipers would listen or join him as a choir. The Luzzatto cycle is the second volume of books by the German Jewish community.
Over the next centuries, the cycle migrated throughout Western Europe: from Germany to the Alsace region, from there to northern Italy and finally to France.
His current name, "The Luzzatto Cycle", was given to him by the Italian Jewish poet and 19th-century biblical commentator, Shmuel David Luzzatto, who added it to his library. After Luzzatto's death, the "All Israel Friends" "(" Alliance "), which kept it for about 150 years.
Luzzatto Cycle, Photo: Sotheby's Auction House
This is not the first time that Jewish holy books have been sold at such a price.
In 2015, Shal (Babylonian Talmud) Shalem, from the edition of Daniel Bomberg (one of the greatest printers of all time), was sold for $ 9.32 million, in 2010 five Pentateuchs from 1482 (with Onkelus translation) were sold in first print for 3.86 million Dollars, and a bible from 1189 was bought for $ 3.61 million and donated to the Bible Museum.
The organization is now offering the unique and beautiful auction for sale at the Sotheby's branch in New York, and is expected to reach a price of $ 6 million.
