Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

New Homes for Rare Maimonides Manuscript

A rare handwritten copy of the Mishneh Torah by Maimonides has been jointly acquired by the Israel Museum, Jerusalem and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The manuscript was purchased from the collection of Judy and Michael Steinhardt, according to a statement put out by both parties.

Image by Courtesy of The Israel Museum

“The Mishneh Torah is a rare treasure that unites Jewish literary heritage with some of the finest illuminations from the Italian Renaissance,” said James S. Snyder, Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum. “On loan for display in our galleries in recent years, the manuscript now becomes a seminal addition to our extensive holdings in illuminated Hebrew manuscripts.”

The manuscript is a perfect example of the rich history of religious art from the Middle Ages, with “six large painted panels decorated in precious pigments and gold leaf, as well as forty-one smaller illustrations with gold lettering adorning the opening words of each chapter.”

Drawn up in Northern Italy around 1497, the Hebrew manuscript includes the final eight books of the first systematic codification of Jewish law. Originally conceived as two volumes, it has a tumultuous history.

Books I-V (volume one) were purchased by Italian collector Giovanni Francesco De’ Rossi, before making their way into the Vatican Library. Books VII-XIV (volume two), referred to as the “Frankfurt Mishneh Torah,” arrived in Germany in the 19th century, as part of the collection of Avraham Merzbacher. They were later donated to the Frankfurt Municipal Library. In 1950, a Frankfurt Jewish Family traded property around the city to reclaim the manuscript, along with seven others. They held the text until Judy and Michael Steinhardt purchased it in 2007.

The document was completely restored at the Paper Conservation Laboratory at the Israel Museum, where it has been on loan since 2007, and available for public viewing since 2010.

The Israel Museum acquisition was made possible by donations from René and Susanne Braginsky, Zurich; Renee and Lester Crown, Chicago; Lynn Schusterman, Tulsa; and Judy and Michael Steinhardt, New York, and an anonymous donor. The Metropolitan Museum has yet to release its sources of funding.

“In recent years, through stellar loans provided by a number of institutions, the Metropolitan Museum has exhibited several major illustrated Hebrew manuscripts in rotation. The Mishneh Torah, a document of great historical and literary importance, and a masterpiece of illumination, will be a major addition to the Museum’s permanent and encyclopedic collection, and will provide audiences in New York and Jerusalem with a vastly rewarding viewing experience for generations to come,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The manuscript will be on view in both museums on a rotating basis.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.