[Avodah] achronim and rishonim

[Eli Turkel]

My question is what achronim (until very recently) knew about the various
rishonim like chidushei ramban,rashba,ritva etc.

I saw recently a reference to Chiddushei R. Chaim Halevi Rambam:Edut:3:4
Who based on a Schach 30:6 explains a disagreement between Rambam and Ramban.
Unfortunately the Schach has a misprint and instead of Ramban it
should be Raavan.

The obvious conclusion is that R. Chaim had no access to Chidushei
Ramban to see the
original. I also recall hearing from RYBS that he first saw many of
these chiddushim
when he came to Berlin.

Nevertheless the Schach (1621-1662) quotes the Chiddushei Ramban many times
and so seems to have known it.

More generally I have an article by Ta Shma on the Pnei Yehoshua
(1680-1756) where he claims
that the Pnei Yehoshua was the first to extensively use the various
chiddishim. This is part of
the reason that the Pnei Yehoshua is the most quoted of achronim
chiddushim in the century
that follows. Chiddushei Ramban on Baba Batra and Chiddushei Rashba to
Berachot, Gittin
and Chullin were first printed in the early 1700s. From 1760 and for
the next 50 years
the vast majority of the rishonim we now know where printed. (TaShma
quotes a previous article
of his with more details in Kiryat Sefer tat-Shin_Lamed_vav - which I
dont have) based
om manuscripts from the East. Until then achronim knew of the contents
of the chiddushim
only from secondary sources like Teshuvot Rashba, Ran on Rif, Rosh and
others who quoted
portions of the teshuvot.

Any ideas why Schach seems to be one of the few quoting Chiddushei Ramban until
the printing of the seforim. Even after the printing and the Pnei
Yehoshua it seems that
many achronim even in yeshivot like Volozhin did not have access to
these seforimץ
The kzot hachoshen (1745-1812) also seems to have had limited access to many
of these chiddushim

-- 
Eli Turkel