Meshal Ha-Kadmoni : Rare Hebrew fable book

(from Oxford Digital Library)
Rare Hebrew fable book by the 13th century Hebrew poet, scholar and cabbalist, Isaac ben Solomon Abi Sahula (born 1244). His fables were originally written in 1281 with the intention to replace the light foreign literature with an original Hebrew literary work. The fables came from India, from the 'Pantscha Tantra', very popular among Jews in the Middle Ages. Sahula imitated in his translation the structure and presentation of the original 'Pantscha Tantra' or 'Bidpai' fables, but inserted a large amount of popular and scientific knowledge into the fables. In the present series of satirical debates between cynics and moralists, put into the mouths of animals, the moralist always triumphs. The debates on subjects such as time, the soul, medicine, astronomy and astrology, largely reflect human foibles, political compromise and court intrigues. The fables provide a most unusual introduction into the intellectual and social universe of the Sephardic Jewish world of 13th-century Spain.
גם ספרי חול עבריים נדפסו בתקופה זו באיטליה, ואף הם נחשבים אינקונבלות . ובהם "ספר המחברות" של עמנואל הרומי, הידועות כ"מחברות עמנואל", נדפס לראשונה בשנת 1492.
וכן ספר "משל הקדמוני" המכיל סיפורים משעשעים בחרוזים, שנכתב על ידי הפילוסוף, הרופא והמקובל רבי יצחק בן שלמה אבן סהולה, הספר נכתב בשנת 1281 והודפס לראשונה בשנת 1491 בעיר ברישא באיטליה והיה הספר העברי הראשון שהכיל ציורים

"The wondrous fables of Ibn Sahula in Meshal haqadmoni, presented here in English for the first time, provide a most unusual introduction to the intellectual and social universe of the Sephardi Jewish world of thirteenth-century Spain. Ibn Sahula wrote his fables in rhymed prose, here rendered into English as rhymed couplets. They comprise a series of satirical debates between a cynic and a moralist, put into the mouths of animals; the moralist always triumphs. The debates, which touch on such subjects as time, the soul, the physical sciences and medicine, astronomy, and astrology, amply reflect human foibles, political compromise, and court intrigue. They are suffused throughout with traditional Jewish law and lore, a flavour reinforced by the profusion of biblical quotations reapplied."