General

Title

Jerusalem (Israel), The National Library of Israel: Ms. Heb. 9789=4

Manuscript name

Great Tree

Summary

This ilan, an autograph in Isaac Coppio's hand that includes a colophon dating it to the unlikely year 5348/1588, may have been created by Coppio during his stay in Fez. It may also have served as the basis for several later ilanot, and inspired the addition of Vital's circles (V) atop the PaZW-type ilan. This rotulus opens with quotations from Moses Ibn Ẓur's Me'arat sdeh ha-makhpelah and then continues with Great Tree components Z, Pa, and W. At the end of component W, at the bottom of the rotulus, there are three additional, independent diagrams: a sefirotic tree that features holy and angelic names, acrostic sefirotic “circles,” and a hand. These, along with the odd colophon, seem intended to create the impression of antiquity.

Support material

parchment

Main language

Rabbinic Hebrew

Identifier

Ms. Heb. 9789=4

NLI identifier

990036202030205171

Repository

The National Library of Israel

Country

Israel

Settlement

Jerusalem

Colophon

"נכתב האילן הק' הזה בעיר פאס בש' שמ"ח לפ"ק [=1588]". This is not the date this ilan was written, since Moses Ibn Ẓur—a fragment of whose composition in the same handwriting is attached to the ilan—lived at least one hundred years later than the year 1588; perhaps the date refers to the ilan from which it was copied.

Research literature

J. H. Chajes, The Kabbalistic Tree: Ha-Ilan ha-Kabalai (Pennsylvania: 2022), pages 185–186, 255–259, 354, 391.

Creation time

Date

18th century