This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 edition. Excerpt: ... In Rome, it was on a night in April, 1753, that, after the ghetto-gates had been closed, officials entered houses previously marked as suspicious. Outside, at stated intervals on the streets, wagons and carts were stationed under escort; as the books were taken from each house they were placed in a sack with which each searching-party had been provided, the sack was sealed in the presence of two Christian witnesses, and a tag attached with the owner's name. The books were then carried to one of the appointed places, where an official was ready to receive them; and in this way thirty-eight carts were filled from the ghetto of Rome alone. Giovanni Antonio Costanzi, the censor, had by this time compiled his third index of Hebrew books. It classified them under three heads: those permitted, those permitted with corrections, and those absolutely forbidden. Strangely enough, some placed in the first class in 1738, and in the third class in 1748, were now-again transferred to their first position.4" Twenty different titles were thus left on the list of prohibited works, including, of course, those mentioned in the general Index Librorum Prohibitorum, . g., 'En Ya '"kobh, Beth Ya' kobh, Yalkut; two editions of the prayer-book, and Joseph Albo's Ikkdrim, were added, the last because it disputed the Messiahship of Jesus. But Costanzi's-chief aim, in accordance with which he proscribed the Zohar, was-directed toward revealing the absurdities of the Cabbalah, to which he gave an equal place with the Talmud. He went further than any of the previous censors in his condemnation, and forbade works which contained merely the names of angels other than such as were mentioned in the Bible. And in the criticisms with which he supported his various...