Elena Lolli

Il presente volume fornisce il testo ebraico annotato e una versione italiana di ampie parti del Pinqas ha-niftarim o Registro dei morti della comunità ebraica di Lugo di Romagna, oggi conservato presso la Biblioteca del Jewish Theological Seminary di New York. Il prezioso manoscritto, oltre a comprendere gli atti di morte degli ebrei della comunità lughese per quasi due secoli, dal 1658 al 1825, nelle prime pagine contiene anche gli statuti e le deliberazioni emanate dalla Hevrat Gemilut Hasadim o Confraternita della Misericordia, chiamata anche Hevrah Qaddiša o Santa compagnia, l’associazione caritativa incaricata di occuparsi della sepoltura dei membri della compagine israelitica. Questo documento, sopravvissuto, grazie alla sua acquisizione dall’università americana prima della devastazione nazi-fascista che probabilmente l’avrebbe bruciato, è senza dubbio di estrema importanza e unico nel suo genere, all’interno del patrimonio archivistico ebraico. Il manoscritto sembra non avere esemplari comparabili per la ricchezza di narrazioni, di dettagli biografici e a volte bibliografici relativi all’attività di defunti illustri, rabbini, intellettuali o banchieri – e spesso anche alle loro mogli, – ai quali lo scriba dedica delle vere e proprie schede biografiche che occupano quasi un’intera pagina. Ancora colpisce la descrizione puntuale dei riti e delle preghiere, delle veglie notturne, celebrate presso l’abitazione del trapassato, la descrizione dei suoi interessi culturali, delle opere da lui scritte, del suo carattere e dei suoi meriti e la processione che l’ha accompagnato al cimitero o Bet ‘olamim, casa dell’eternità, con davanti un gruppo di ragazzi con un cero acceso in mano. Dalla lettura dei dati sulla vita dei singoli membri, donne comprese, è possibile evidenziare con certezza professioni e caratteristiche sociali, che aiutano a chiarire le dinamiche dell’integrazione di un nucleo ebraico dell’Italia settentrionale, ben radicato nel territorio dove vive e interagisce con la maggioranza cristiana di cui numericamente raggiunge il dieci per cento. La comunità ebraica di Lugo si formò, infatti, come effetto della Devoluzione del Ducato di Ferrara al Papa, avvenuta nel 1598, quando il nuovo sovrano obbligò gli ebrei a concentrarsi solo in tre città: Ferrara, Cento e Lugo. Attraverso l’analisi paleografica delle diverse mani che in due secoli hanno compilato il manoscritto e grazie alla versione italiana delle parti più significative in esso contenute, si ricostruisce la vita quotidiana di una piccola ma importante comunità ebraica della pianura padana che nell’era del ghetto, fra Sei e Settecento, fu una delle più importanti Yešivot. I suoi rabbini, maestri e intellettuali ci hanno lasciato, anche se sparsi per il mondo, da Israele, all’Europa e agli Stati Uniti, una quantità incredibile di testi ebraici manoscritti, di registri con i verbali delle sedute del Consiglio e delle confraternite di carità, da intere opere di commento al Talmud a trattati vari, da quesiti e responsi a testi e preghiere in ebraico. Arricchiscono il libro dati statistici sulla mortalità, gli indici dei nomi dei defunti in ebraico e in italiano, la ricostruzione di alberi genealogici delle più importanti famiglie della comunità e un apparato fotografico di alcune pagine del manoscritto.

This contribution endeavors to furnish an overview of a preliminary analysis carried out on an unpublished manuscript housing a loan ledger in Judeo-Italian from the early 15th century. Presently housed in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, this document stands as the oldest surviving financial record linked to a Jewish lending institution in Italy. The aim of this essay is to provide insightful reflections on the general aspects of the conducted inquiry, including a palaeographic analysis, alongside the transcription and translation of the initial pages of the manuscript.

This study presents an original manuscript of the European Genizah containing the earliest account book of a Jewish moneylender in Italy. This document, which dates back to the early fifteenth century, sheds new light on the economic history of the Jews, credit issues in north Italy, Jewish–Christian economic relations and material culture through references to pawned objects, as well as the history of accounting practices. Its paper leaves were dismembered and reused to bind a different book of Italian origin. As with thousands of other fragments found in bindings across Europe, the recycling of codices paradoxically assured their survival. The sheets of the ledger were discovered, detached and conserved when the manuscript was restored at the end of the nineteenth century.

This introduction lays the foundation for a collection of high-quality research papers, presenting novel findings, innovative scientific approaches, and the latest developments in the field of the history of Catholic censorship, libricide, and the preservation of Hebrew books during late medieval and early modern Italy. The primary objective of this thematic section is to investigate diverse topics, including the Catholic censorship and expurgation of Hebrew texts, books, and documents. Additionally, it explores the repurposing of these materials in book bindings and notary files, shedding light on how Digital Humanities facilitates the recovery of manuscripts or printed books that would otherwise be lost to history.

During my time at Corpus Christi College in Oxford, I got the opportunity to study the earliest ledger of a Jewish pawnshop in Italy, which is currently kept at the college library (MS. Oxford, Corpus Christi College Library 469). This document, written in Hebrew and Judeo-Italian, reveals new information on the economic history of the Jews, credit problems in northern Italy, Jewish-Christian economic interactions, material culture through references to pawned artifacts, and the history of accounting procedures. To bind another Italian-authored book, its paper leaves were cut apart and reused. The ledger pages were found, separated, and preserved during the manuscript's restoration towards the end of the nineteenth century. In particular, the paper manuscript, whose transactions span the years 1407–1411, was removed from its host book at the request of the college librarian at the time, Robert Proctor.

Codicum hebraicorum fragmenta. Nuovi frammenti di manoscritti ebraici medievali provenienti da legature nella Biblioteca del Seminario Vescovile di Asti, in «La Bibliofilia. Rivista di storia del libro e di bibliografia» 2021/1 (CXXIII) • «“Affioramenti”: novità e scoperte per il libro italiano del Quattro e Cinquecento. Prima parte», pp. 179-187

The paper presents Open Source generalized models for recognition and page segmentation, intended for use on the eScriptorium platform or kraken OCR engine, of Medieval Hebrew manuscripts in square script that arrive at a character accuracy of more than 97% on the validation set and a dataset consisting of 202 pages from almost 100 different literary manuscripts with layout annotation (regions and lines) as well as transcription. The manuscript pages are sourced from material in different script types, geographical, and chronological origins. In addition we describe the bootstrapping procedure that enabled us to create most of the dataset automatically through text-image alignment.

The Register of the Dead from the Jewish community of Lugo di Romagna is a remarkable work, encompassing the statutes and resolutions of the philanthropic organization known as Hevrat gemilut hasadim, or the Good Works or Mercy Society, along with the comprehensive death records of the community spanning from 1658 to 1825.
One noteworthy aspect is its ability to reconstruct various facets of the community's members, including women. The Register's undeniable achievement lies in its ability to vividly depict the world of women within the ghetto. It provides a captivating narrative of the daily responsibilities shouldered by women, many of which played a pivotal role in the home and family economies.

Il presente articolo concerne lo studio della vita e della cultura ebraica a Lugo di Romagna grazie all’analisi di fonti manoscritte interne dei secoli XVII-XVIII. Da un lato è stato riscoperto il Pinqas ha-nifṭarim o Registro dei morti, un manoscritto prezioso, salvato dai roghi nazi-fascisti, redatto in ebraico – con diversi aramaicismi – tra il 1658 e il 1825 e attualmente conservato nella biblioteca del Jewish Theological Seminary of America, a New York. Esso, oltre a comprendere tutti gli atti di morte degli ebrei della comunità ebraica di Lugo, contiene nelle prime pagine anche gli statuti e le deliberazioni della Ḥevrat Gemilut Ḥasadim o Confraternita delle Opere pie o della Misericordia, l’associazione caritativa incaricata di occuparsi della sepoltura dei membri della comunità. L’analisi del manoscritto ha permesso di creare un database che raccoglie tutti i nomi dei defunti – in totale sono oltre 1.500 –, delle loro relazioni parentali, di estrema importanza per l’onomastica e la ricostruzione genealogica delle principali famiglie ebraiche lughesi, quali i da Fano, del Vecchio, Jacchia, Sinigaglia e Ginesi. Ogni atto è costituito da alcune note che, oltre ad indicare il nome del defunto, la data del decesso e le relazioni parentali, descrivono più o meno dettagliatamente la celebrazione del funerale. L’incrocio dei dati degli atti di morte con quelli contenuti nei registri comunitari redatti dalla comunità ebraica lughese tra il XVII e il XIX secolo – oggi conservati ai Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People di Gerusalemme –, è stato fondamentale per la ricostruzione di un quadro sempre più completo di demografia storica e della stratificazione fra le diverse classi sociali interne alla compagine ebraica. La trascrizione e l’analisi del contenuto di queste fonti – finora in gran parte inesplorate – hanno permesso di costruire una mappa di notevole interesse sui vari aspetti della vita comunitaria lughese, nella loro complessità.

The Good Works Society of the Jewish community of Lugo is the subject of this article. This organization oversaw each member of the community's burial, and its activities specifically included caring for the bereaved family members, preparing the body for burial, organizing the funeral procession and ceremony, maintaining the cemetery, assisting mourners, saying ritual prayers, and giving out food and medicine to the ill. The statutes' wording offers some very intriguing insights on the Lugo Jews' religious and humanitarian practices. Here, sections from some of the most prominent members' death records (such as those of the rabbis Mika'el Avraham Dawid and Shelomoh Yayah) are presented.

Genealogical research, combined with the onomastic and prosopographical ones, allow us to investigate and reconstruct the lives of eminent members of the Jewish bourgeoisie in Italy, such as rabbis, leaders and cabbalists, through manuscripts and historical sources. The Register of deaths of the Jews of Lugo di Romagna – a source of great importance compiled entirely in Hebrew between 1658 and 1825 and currently stored in the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York – contains information on almost two centuries of the community’s history, with descriptions of Jewish funerary culture. This set of documents will enable to shed new light on influential personalities memoirs. Such an investigation was essential for the partial reconstruction of a branch of the family tree of the illustrious family da Fano, who lived between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries in Ferrara and Lugo, which boasts of the presence of the distinguished Rabbi and Talmudist, Emanuele Menahem Azaria Fano, said Rama, who was probably born in Lugo in 1548.

Among the archival materials on the Jews of Lugo, one can consult the book of the dead for the years 1658-1825, written entirely in Hebrew and held by the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. This manuscript is a rich source containing historical, genealogical, and biographical information related to the deceased, their family relations, as well as a description of rites and ceremonies that accompany the event of death. The most detailed records allow us to identify important personalities, such as rabbis and wealthy members of the bourgeoisie – representatives of the main Jewish families of major rabbis in Lugo and the rest of Italy for centuries. An interesting example is a record (here translated in full), from which we learn about the tragic death of two rabbis and important members of the Jewish community of Lugo: Shlomo da Fano and the Kabbalist Hayyim Yosef Avraham Yahyah, who was buried near his master, the Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Berekyah da Fano.

The aim of this work is to analyze the phenomenon of the implementation of forced sermons in the Jewish community of Lugo during the 18th century. A study conducted on several microfilms of miscellaneous documents related to the ancient archives of the Jewish community of Lugo, now preserved at The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem, allows us to update the state of research and reveal interesting aspects about forced preaching to the Jews of Lugo in the 18th century. The author presents six documents dating from September 5, 1766, to May 10, 1778.

This study sheds new light on the history of the Jewish community of Lugo di Romagna, thanks to a new survey conducted on an original source: the book of minutes drawn up by the community leaders during the years 1670-1759. These registers were written by the official scribe of the Jewish Community of Lugo, usually its Rabbi, and allow us to discover the rich variety of customs and traditions of the community. The minutes contain a record of the deliberations adopted and promulgated on the occasion of more than 300 meetings of the community held over a period of almost 90 years. During these meetings, various issues related to the organization and administration of its affairs were discussed, such as taxation of people, planning budgets for the expenses of the school, the Rabbi, and the management of all aspects of community life.

The workshop will seek to investigate the context and particular impact of Catholic Censorship and the other forms of dismemberment of Hebrew printed or manuscript works that occurred in Italy over the centuries. A range of topics will be covered, such as Catholic Censorship and Expurgation of Hebrew Texts, Hebrew books and documents recovered from book bindings and notarial files, Jewish-Christian relations and Digital Humanities.
The conference is sponsored by the Italian Association for Jewish Studies (AISG), Books within Books: Hebrew Fragments in European Libraries, and the Department of History and Cultures (DISCI), University of Bologna.