Introduction

THE HEBREW MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION IN THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AT LEIDEN.

"Si horum codicum numerum consideras, Bibliotheca Leydensis quidem aliis multis, quorum Catalogi typis exscripti sunt, est inferior; Codicum vero antiquissimorum, gravissimorum et rarissimorum praestantia et varietate a nulla alia superatur". The knowledge that these words were written by no less an authority than Moritz Steinschneider gratifies all those who consider themselves in any way connected with the Hebrew manuscript collection of Leiden University Library. He expressed this opinion of the collection in the 1850’s, when he described it in his excellent and inimitable Catalogus Codicum Hebraeorum Bibliothecae Academiae Lugduno-Batavae (1858). Even today, 120 years later, it is vital to realise the import of these words although much has happened in the meantime to change the course of Hebrew and Jewish studies. Steinschneider remains the unsurpassed master of Hebrew bibliography and codi- cology. His prodigious knowledge enabled him to present the manuscripts he catalo gued in the most effective manner for further research and most of what he passed on to posterity in the course of a long life has yet to be used. The persevering scholar willingly forgives the fact that the material he brought to light still bears all the cha racteristics of the rough diamond, uncut and unpolished. The catalogue of the Hebrew manuscripts at Leiden is one of the many highlights of Steinschneider’s oeuvre. The collection which, up to that point, had been only super ficially catalogued, made a strong impression on him and, notwithstanding his resolution to restrict himself, the result of his study of the 112 manuscripts was a catalogue containing 424 densely written pages, even though, for the most general information, he quite consistently referred to the Bibliotheca Hebraica by his 18th cen tury predecessor, Joh. Chr. Wolf and to his own more or less contemporary books, Jewish Literature from the 8th to the 18th Century (London 1857, a translation and revision of his contributions to Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopaedia) and his monu mental Catalogus librorum Hebraorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana (Berlin 1852-60). Steinschneider was, however, quite aware that it was not altogether possible to separate the essential from the more general information and fortunately provided extensive quotations from and references to other manuscripts and printed texts, which elicited the following characteristic remark in his Prcefatio : “Quae cum ita