Manuscript to Print and Print to Print: On the Transmission History of Jacob ben Asher’s Tur Orah Hayyim

Abstract This article is a case study in the transition of texts from manuscript to print. It looks at all surviving manuscripts and 15th–16th-centuries printed editions of Jacob ben Asher’s ʾArbaʿah Turim, Tur Orah Hayyim. Based on a close textual investigation of Tur Orah Hayyim, chapter 428, it identifies and dates manuscript clusters, and establishes how different imprints are linked with the manuscript tradition and with each other. The article suggests that the Soncino 1490 imprint by Solomon Soncino exerted a crucial influence on the printed text of Tur Orah Hayyim. Whereas before imprints were independent and closely associated with individual manuscripts, Soncino 1490 became the archetype for all but one subsequent 15th–16th-centuries imprints, and direct dependence on manuscripts subsided.