Posted on 02/20/18
| News Source: MATZAV
Sotheby auctioned the earliest existing copy of an Ashkenazi siddur and Haggadah for a little over $300,000.
The siddur was a complete copy of an early siddur published at the press of Daniel Bomberg in Venice in 1519-1520.
A siddur would normally wear out from constant use, but this one was owned for much of its history by non-Jews and spent two centuries in the library of a Catholic monastery in France.
The siddur’s antiquity is reflected in many nuscha’os different from modern siddurim. Kabbolas Shabbos, which was first introduced in the 16thcentury in Tzefas, is absent.