A 500-year-old edition of Moses ben Maimon (also known as Maimonides or by his Hebrew acronym Rambam)’s “Guide for the Perplexed” is going to be auctioned at a starting price of $1 million on Tuesday.

The “Guide for the Perplexed” is one of the fundamental works by Maimonides, who lived in the 12th century between Spain, Morocco, and Egypt, and is considered one of the greatest Torah scholars of all time.

The book was originally written in Judeo-Arabic and translated into Hebrew shortly after. Addressing the gap between Torah study and Aristotelian philosophy, the work was highly influential among non-Jewish thinkers.

The volume, which will be auctioned by the Jerusalem-based Kedem Auction House, combines parts from two incunables, a term used for the very first books printed after the invention of the printing press, prior to 1500.

Experts believe that the two copies were printed in Rome around 1473-1475, marking the very first printed edition of the work.

“Incunables printed in Hebrew characters are very rare,” Kedem CEO Angelo Piattelli, a book and Judaica expert, told The Times of Israel over the telephone. “We only know about 120-130 Hebrew incunables in the world, some of which are unique copies or fragments.”

Piattelli explained that many Hebrew incunables were printed in Italy, and they were at times quite rudimentary compared to later printed books, often........

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