The reception history of Gersonides’ writings, according to their early printing history (fifteenth–sixteenth centuries)

The printing history of Gersonides’ works in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries closely mirrors their reception history. Here I will unearth the “Republic of Letters” whose most important members were printers and magihim (roughly: editors). The latter were responsible for establishing the texts to be printed, often using several versions of the text as found in different manuscripts (usually no autograph was available); they also assumed the task of proofreading. I will first describe the Gersonidean incunabula—his commentaries on the Pentateuch, Proverbs, Job, and Daniel—and place them among other contemporary printings so as to explain Gersonides’ appeal. Then I will consider how Gersonides’ biblical commentaries came to be included in Rabbinic Bible (miqraʾot gedolot) when it emerged the sixteenth century. This will tell us something about the history of the paratexts of the canonical books (Bible, Talmud, and legal codes). I assert that a significant number of Gersonides’ commentaries survived thanks their abridgments to fit in the margins of the printed volumes of canonical texts—a phenomenon parallel to the history of glosses in the earlier manuscript period