Acknowledgements
The research that has resulted in this book began in 2008, over the course of a stay at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, funded by two Skirball Visiting Fellowships granted to the authors. In the Spring semester 2013, Esperanza Alfonso also obtained a Salman Ruben Fellowship from the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania, and was able to discuss with other fellows there some of the content that makes up this book. In the fall semester of 2017, she did a two-month stay at the University of Tel Aviv, and wishes to thank Camilla Adang and Meira Polliack for their warm and friendly welcome there. From November 2014 to February 2015, Javier del Barco, for his part, was granted a research stay at the Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas y Crítica Textual del Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He would like to express his gratitude to its director, Leonardo Funes, and to the entire staff of the Institute.
From 2008 to the present, the authors have received help and support from a number of institutions and associates and would like to express their gratitude to them here.
The Bodleian Library provided every facility for consulting its collections, and gave permission to use images of the manuscript edited in this book, waiving the fees for their use. The authors are especially indebted to César Merchán-Hamann, the Hebrew and Judaica Curator, for his expert advice and friendship. To the staff of the Biblioteca Tomás Navarro Tomás of the CCHS-CSIC, in Madrid, and to the libraries of the institutions where they have carried out their research, the authors are likewise indebted for the inestimable help they have always been shown when consulting those collections.
They are also indebted to the following colleagues and associates, to whom they have directed questions on more than one occasion, or who were asked to read drafts of one or more chapters: David Arbesú, Andrés Enrique-Arias, Federico Corriente, Rachid El Hour, Maayan Eitan, Aitor García Moreno, Francisco J. Hernández, Elisabeth Hollender, Judith Kogel, Moshe Florentin, Luis M. Girón-Negrón, Eleazar Gutwirth, Eric Lawee, F. Javier Pueyo Mena, Sara Japhet, Elvira Martín Contreras, Aharon Maman, Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, María Teresa Ortega Monasterio, Arturo Prats, Aldina Quintana, Javier Rodríguez Molina, Mariano Quirós, Eveline van Staalduine-Sulman, Jan Thiele, María Jesús Torrens, and Ángeles Vicente.
Mary Deirdre Casey translated successive versions of the book and has worked in close collaboration with the authors throughout the various stages of its creation. Wendy Widder Huisken revised one of the chapters, and Donald Murphy proofread a final version for publication. The authors are deeply grateful to all three.
Lastly, the authors owe a very special debt to the two anonymous reviewers whose suggestions and corrections were found to be extremely useful. They also thank Ricardo Muñoz Solla for the interest he has shown in this project from the very beginning. Both he and Tessa Schild have provided much appreciated guidance and support throughout the long process of evaluation and publication.