Geniza Lab

Non-Geniza, probably. There are six items sharing this shelfmark.97/1: Crimean. Story in Hebrew about events that took place in 1760 involving Khan Qirim Giray and Shemuel Abba. The scribe writes that he heard the story from the late Binyamin Agha b. David ha-Maskil. 97/2: Copy (18th century or later) in Hebrew script of the colophon of a Syriac Gospel manuscript from 1518 CE in Rome by the Maronite monk Elia bar Abraham, a student of the Maronite Patriarch Peter Simeon VI. It seems that Elia bar Abraham arrived in Rome in 1515 CE as an emissary from the Qannoubine monastery in Mount Lebanon to the Fifth Lateran Council. He stayed in Rome for several years, copying manuscripts and teaching students, including Teseo Ambrosio. The colophon states that Elia copied the Gospels in the home of Cardinal Bernardino (López de Carvajal y Sande) of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, across the Tiber from Castel Sant'Angelo. There are Latin glosses over nearly every word and one notation of a variant reading that appeared in the margin of the original manuscript. The original manuscript from which this was copied may still be located in the Russian National Library (Grigory Kessel's 2006 translation of N.V. Pigulevskaya's 1960 catalogue lists this as "Vostochniy fond 619, 113+1 fols., Hebrew script rashi"). Related to Yevr. IV 97/2 through Yevr. 97/6 (where a translation or paraphrase of this colophon appears, presumably by the same person responsible for the Latin glosses). 97/3: Excerpt from a work by Abraham Ibn Ezra, with Latin glosses by the same unidentified scholar as in Yevr. IV 97/2 through Yevr. 97/6.97/4: Legal formularies in Hebrew and Aramaic, with Latin glosses by the same unidentified scholar as in Yevr. IV 97/2 through Yevr. 97/6.97/5: Draft in Hebrew of an essay on the masoretic text. Probably related to Yevr. IV 97/2 through Yevr. 97/6.97/6: Notebook of 16 pages with diverse contents. Presumably pertaining to the same unidentified scholar as in Yevr. IV 97/2 through Yevr. 97/6. These seem to be his notes and annotations on a wide range of Jewish and Christian texts, including the "Palanquin" (Apiryon) that the Karaite Hakham Solomon ben Aaron composed in Vilna in the 1710s CE. These pages contain Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, and at least one other language. The Hebrew script appears to be written in two or three different hands. One page gives a translation or paraphrase in an unidentifed language (German?) of the colophon from Yevr. IV 97/2. The same page also mentions the Vulgate of Guido Fabricius (Paris 1584), i.e., Guy Lefèvre de la Boderie and his 1584 Syriac New Testament. The preceding pages include glosses in Latin on specific verses and words in the Syriac Gospels. Other pages mention the Kuzari and works by Maimonides. Information in part from Coakley, "Printing in Syriac, 1539–1985"; Brock, "Studies in the Early History of the Syrian Orthodox Baptismal Liturgy." Thanks to Dr. George Kiraz for insights on the colophon of Elia bar Abraham. ASE.