Sefer Over la-Soher — A Commercial Arithmetic Book in Hebrew Printed in Venice at the Beginning of the 17th Century

In 1627, an arithmetic book in Hebrew was published in Venice. The name of the book was Sefer Over la-Soher [Money current among merchants], and it was printed by one of the students of the mathematician-astronomer Menahem Zion (Emanuel) Port (Porto) Kohen Rappa. Printing books in Hebrew in northern Italy, and particularly in Venice, was not unusual at that time. Beginning in the mid-15th c., many Hebrew printing houses were established in Italy in various places, and even Christian-owned printing houses printed books in Hebrew. However, the number of Hebrew books dealing with mathematics was minimal (a few percent). Menachem Zion’s book is the first arithmetic book printed in Italy and the second overall. It was preceded only by Eliyahu Mizrahi’s books, which were printed in Constantinople and Basel at the beginning of the 16th c. Currently, this is the only known arithmetic book printed in northern Italy during the 16th and 17th c., making it a rare piece of evidence of the Jewish community ‘s interest in this subject in the region. Consequently, research on this topic is essential. This paper will present the author’s goals for writing the book, its mathematical content, its sources, and comparisons with other texts on the same subject in Hebrew and other languages. Moreover, it will attempt to answer why Hebrew arithmetic books were so rare in this period while describing the cultural environment of the Jews of Northern Italy.