Shaar Hamelech (The King’s Gate), by Isaac Nunez Belmonte, Brinn (Brno), 1801 – copy of Rabbi Dov Moshe Namyot of Gateshead.

I have written previously about Rabbi Dov Moses Namyot, who was born in Zetel, was a Rabbi in Plungian for 23 years, then in Antwerp and from 1915 to his death in 1919 was Rov of Gateshead, in England.  For more details see:
Chidushe Ri”ch, by Rabbi Yehoshua Chaim Halevy Epstein, Vilna, 1890. Copy of Rabbi Namyot of Gateshead.

This is another book that was owned by Rabbi Namyot, demonstrating that he had a significant and scholarly library.

My copy has his stamps from Plungian, Antwerp and Gateshead.  It is also signed by Rabbi Namyot, then in Plungian, on the fly leaf.

The book is called Sha’ar HaMelech, a commentary on the Rambam (Maimonides), by Rabbi Yitzchak Nunez Belmonte. This is the second edition, and it is printed with the first edition of a commentary Ta’am HaMelech by Rabbi Baruch Jeitteles,  a physician of Prague.  The book was printed in Brinn (Brno) by Joseph Hoffman, and is an oversized and high quality printing on good paper.

Rabbi Yitzchak Nunez Belmonte was a very prominent Rabbi; the son of Moses Nuñez Belmonte; who lived in Smyrna at the end of the eighteenth century, and at the beginning of the nineteenth. He published this commentary upon the first and second parts of Maimonides’ Mishnah Torah under the title in Salonica  in 1771. The work is one of the most important productions of Sephardi scholarship, and was introduced into Germany and Poland by Jeiteles in this second edition).

The Ta’am HaMelech commentary has drawn criticism and opposition due to the [partial] affiliation of its author, Rabbi Baruch Jeitteles to the Enlightenment Movement in Prague and in Berlin. Among other allegations, the author was accused of stealing novellae from other books.