Mediterranean Enlightenment: Livornese Jews, Tuscan Culture, and Eighteenth-Century Reform 9780804791595

Citation preview

Mediterranean Enlightenment

Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture ed i ted by

Aron Rodrigue and Steven J. Zipperstein

Mediterranean Enlightenment Livornese Jews, Tuscan Culture, and Eighteenth-Century Reform Francesca Bregoli

stan f ord u n iversit y press stanf o rd, calif o rn ia

Stanford University Press Stanford, California ©2014 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. Portions of Chapters 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8 have been adapted with permission from: “The Port of Livorno and Its Nazione Ebrea in the Eighteenth Century: Economic Utility and Political Reforms,” Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, Journal of Fondazione CDEC, October 2, 2011, www.quest-cdecjournal.it/focus.php?id=227. “Jewish Scholarship, Science, and the Republic of Letters: Joseph Attias in Eighteenth-Century Livorno,” Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism 7 (2007): 97–181. Published by Indiana University Press. “Hebrew Printing in Eighteenth-Century Livorno: From Government Control to a Free Market,” in The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy, ed. J. R. Hacker and A. Shear, 171–95 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). “‘Two Jews Walk into a Coffeehouse’: The ‘Jewish Question,’ Utility, and Political Participation in Late Eighteenth-Century Livorno,” Jewish History 24 (2010): 309–29. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bregoli, Francesca, author. Mediterranean Enlightenment : Livornese Jews, Tuscan culture, and eighteenthcentury reform / Francesca Bregoli. pages cm--(Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8047-8650-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Jews--Cultural assimilation--Italy--Livorno--History--18th century. 2. Livorno (Italy)--Ethnic relations--History--18th century. 3. Livorno (Italy)--Intellectual life--18th century. 4. Enlightenment--Italy--Tuscany. 5. Tuscany (Italy)-History--1737-1801. I. Title. II. Series: Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture. ds135.i85l5817 2014 305.892'40455609033--dc23 2014007326 isbn 978-0-8047-9159-5 (electronic) Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10.5/14 Galliard.

For my father, Alberto Bregoli, and in memory of my mother, Oscarina Rossi

Contents

Acknowledgments Note on Spelling Introduction

ix xiii 1

1. The Nazione Ebrea and the Tuscan State: A Fruitful Symbiosis

15

2. Balancing Acts: The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

39

3. In Praise of Good Taste: Galilean Science, Critical Spirit, and Hebraic Studies

68

4. Entering the Medical Republic: Jewish Physicians and the Pursuit of the Public Good

96

5. Pious Care and Devotional Literature at the Time of Enlightenment Reform

127

6. Coffee and Gambling: Jewish Recreation and “National” Separation 

152

7. Commerce and Jewish Culture: The Business of Hebrew Publishing 

181

8. Economic Utility and Political Reforms: The “Jewish Question” in Livorno

208

Conclusion. Enlightenment and Emancipation: Privilege and Its Discontents

239

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Contents

Appendix: Bibliographic Data Notes Bibliography Index

249 253 299 331

Acknowledgments

It is a genuine pleasure to thank the individuals and institutions that have supported me at different stages of my research. Without their help, I could not have written this book. Financial assistance from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture enabled me to undertake the initial research for this project. An Albert and Rachel Lehmann Junior Research Fellowship at the Oriental Institute of the University of Oxford and the Oxford ­Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies granted me time and resources to broaden the scope of my investigation. I was very fortunate to find an academic home at Queens College of the City University of New York, where collegial support and material assistance have given me several opportunities to conduct research trips and to revise my work. Two ­PSC-CUNY Awards, jointly funded by The Professional Staff Congress and The City University of New York, provided help for archival work in Italy. The Joseph and Oro Halegua Family Foundation allowed me to pursue supplementary research, for which I thank Nathan and Pearl Halegua. I am grateful to the CUNY Faculty Fellowship Publication Program for the opportunity to workshop chapters with a supportive writing group, and to the Queens College Research Foundation for additional funding that aided the completion of the book. When I first began my study of Livornese Jews, I benefited tremendously from the guidance of great scholars and mentors. David Ruderman, in particular, taught me to always keep an eye on the big picture, and he remains an inspiring model of intellectual gen-

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erosity and academic community building. Roger Chartier, Talya ­Fishman, and B ­ enjamin Nathans shared generously of their knowledge and refined my thinking with their probing questions. I thank them all for everything I learned from them. As my work developed over several years, friends and colleagues kindly contributed their time and advice. I am grateful for many stimulating conversations with Lois Dubin and David Sorkin, who read the entire manuscript and offered incisive suggestions. For their insightful comments on various chapters at different stages of my work, I am indebted to Andrea Addobbati, Andrew Berns, Kelly Bradbury, Elisheva Carlebach, William DeJong-Lambert, Allison Deutermann, Hasia Diner, Andrea Fabrizio, Cristiana Facchini, Federica Francesconi, Gad Freudenthal, Matt Goldish, Joseph Hacker, Olivera Jokić, Adam Shear, Brij Singh, Kenneth Stow, Magda Teter, and Larry Wolff. For their perceptive feedback and answers to my queries, I thank Anne Albert, Malachi Beit-Arie, Miriam Bodian, Marina Caffiero, Berny Cooperman, Joseph Davis, Yaacob Dweck, Abigail Green, Jordan Finkin, Edward Fram, François Guesnet, Maoz Kahana, Debra Kaplan, Jonathan Karp, Menachem Kellner, Daniel Lasker, Julia Lieberman, Ian Maclean, David Rechter, John Robertson, Rehav Rubin, David Stern, Elli Stern, Francesca Trivellato, Piet van Boxel, and Joanna Weinberg. I also extend my heartfelt thanks to the conveners of academic seminars that gave me an opportunity to present portions of this work in draft form: Seminar on Modern Jewish History, Oxford; Enlightenment Workshop, Oxford; Seminar on the History of the Book, Oxford; Scholars’ Working Group on the Jewish Book, New York; Early Modern Workshop, UT Austin; NYC Seminar in Jewish History. All mistakes that remain are, of course, my sole responsibility. My research in Livorno was made all the more enjoyable by the assistance of fellow scholars. The late Paolo Castignoli, Marco Di Giovanni, Duccio Filippi, Lucia Frattarelli Fischer, Michele Luzzati, and Massimo Sanacore assisted me with precious help. From the very start, the late Carlo Mangio encouraged my work with lively conversations and astute suggestions. For many stimulating exchanges about Livornese Jews and invaluable archival tips, I am deeply thankful to Cristina Galasso. The friendship, generosity, and hospitality of Cristina and Francesca Talozzi have made my stays in Livorno a great joy.

Acknowledgments

I have received gracious assistance in many libraries and archives in Europe and Israel. I wish to express my thanks to their directors and staff, who readily answered my questions and located materials for my study: Archivio Arcivescovile, Pisa; Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede, Rome; Archivio di Stato, Firenze; Archivio di Stato, Livorno; Archivio di Stato, Pisa; Biblioteca della Soprintendenza per i Beni Artistici e Storici del Piemonte, Torino; Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena; Biblioteca Labronica, “F.D. Guerrazzi” and Villa Maria, Livorno; Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Firenze; Bodleian Library, Oxford; Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem; Leopold Muller Memorial Library, Oxford; Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem. I am particularly obliged to Gabriele Bedarida, who allowed me to browse freely through the Archivio della Comunità Ebraica in Livorno. In the United States, I have benefited tremendously from the help of Arthur Kiron, Seth Jerchower, and Judith Leifer, at the Library of the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania; Sarah Diamond, Jerry Schwartzbard, David Sclar, and David Wachtel, at the Rare Book Room of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York; Anne-Marie Belinfante, the late R ­ oberta Saltzman, and Michael Terry at the Dorot Jewish Division of the New York Public Library. The Interlibrary Loan Department at Queens College has worked tirelessly to assist me. In the past four years, the Center for Jewish History has greatly enriched my academic and social life in New York. For this, I am grateful to Judith Siegel. I am especially indebted to the generosity of Ephraim, Michael, and Shemaria Toaff, the late Renzo Toaff’s sons, who allowed me to peruse at length his microfilm copies of the deliberations of the Livornese Jewish community. I thank Aron Rodrigue and Steven Zipperstein for their kind encouragement as series editors at Stanford University Press. I am deeply appreciative of all the help from my editors. Norris Pope, who took an early interest in my book, and Stacy Wagner, who brought it to publication, have readily shared their advice and enthusiasm. Andrew Frisardi offered thoughtful copyediting suggestions. Finally, and most importantly, I wish to thank my family for their patience and all the support they have shown me throughout these years. My husband, Omri Elisha, is not only a daily source of happiness

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and laughter, but also my most trusted intellectual companion. He has generously read and discussed with me multiple incarnations of this work and contributed invaluable insights. For their unfailing encouragement and love, I am profoundly thankful to my parents. My mother, ­Oscarina, was always my strongest supporter. She left us far too soon, and I miss her. My father, Alberto, continues to inspire me with his selfless loving support and intellectual integrity. I thank him also for many thought-provoking conversations and for his help with legal sources during my research. It is with enormous gratitude that I dedicate this book to them.

Note on Spelling

In the eighteenth century, spelling retained a degree of fluidity and was not yet standardized. When quoting from primary sources, I have retained all original spellings. Orthography variation applied to personal names too. For the sake of clarity, in the case of figures already inscribed in the historical record I have chosen to render first names with the most common English equivalent (i.e., Isaac instead of Isach or Yitzhak) and last names with the form most commonly found in other scholarly works. In the case of lesser-known figures, I have however maintained the spelling of their names as I found it in the documents I consulted.

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Mediterranean Enlightenment

The Italian states in 1750

Introduction

The Enlightenment was a project of sober, pragmatic optimism. Nurtured by critical rationalism, individual thinkers and pioneering r­ ulers embraced the idea that progress was possible, through reason and education, and that humankind could move away from ignorance and injustice and toward a happier, wiser society. For many Jews, the eighteenth century held out a prospect of greater toleration. As the Jewish condition was increasingly debated within and without Jewish circles, reformers considered how to better the lives of Jews. They called for the removal of oppressive restrictions and prescribed greater Jewish engagement with the surrounding culture. But Enlightenment ideals and reforms were not applied or taken up in the same ways for all western European Jews. This is a book about how one privileged Jewish community embraced, resisted, and adapted to the Enlightenment in an optimistic age of reform. The relationship between Jews and Enlightenment thought and the impact of enlightened absolutism on the corporate Jewish community of ancien régime societies are well-known themes in the study of Jewish history. By focusing on the Jews of Livorno in Tuscany, an Italian state known for its far-reaching reforms inspired by Enlightenment principles, I offer a new view on the engagement of Jews with outside culture and the interplay of the Jewish community with the reforming eighteenthcentury state. I scrutinize dynamics of participation, practices of distinction, and aspirations of inclusion that complicate familiar narratives about processes of transformation affecting European Jewries toward the end of the early modern period. A profound interest in the strategies of acculturation and differentiation adopted by ethnic minorities led me to Livorno. The city is a com-

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Introduction

plex case study, where old and new coexisted. A bustling free port on the Mediterranean Sea on the western coast of the Italian peninsula, it was the main commercial center of the Tuscan state and a laboratory for reformist policies. Due to its eminently commercial vocation, Livorno was a unique experiment in agrarian Tuscany. Politically, it jealously guarded its prerogatives against the interference of central authorities. Simultaneously, it was an early modern town regulated by absolutistcorporate principles and a thriving hub where diverse ethnic and religious minorities, including Jews, Greeks, ­Armenians, and Protestants, lived alongside a devout Catholic population. Its intellectual life paled in comparison with neighboring Pisa and the state capital, Florence. Still, the city was a vibrant marketplace of ideas and it emerged as a key center of distribution of printed culture. Eighteenth-century Livorno was not only home to the densest and most privileged Jewish community in Italy, but the nazione ebrea (“Jewish nation”), as it was referred to, was also the second largest Jewish enclave in western Europe after Amsterdam at mid-­century. Livornese Jewry partook of both Mediterranean-Sephardi and T ­ uscan characteristics. An early example of Jewish merchants invited by European rulers to boost the commercial potential of the state, the bulk of its original settlers were former conversos and Levantine Jews of Iberian origin, attracted by a generous charter granted by the Medici at the end of the sixteenth century (the Livornina). The nazione ebrea was linked by long-lasting bonds of familiarity and allegiance to other western and eastern Sephardi communities. At the same time, it was profoundly embedded within the Tuscan state, on which it depended for protection and with which it was in constant political dialogue. Livorno is an ideal venue to study a number of tensions that historians associate with eighteenth-century Jewish life. An exploration of the ways in which Livornese Jews related to non-Jewish cultural traditions, including Enlightenment ideals of universalism, rationalism, and progress, along with a study of individual and communal reactions to Tuscan reformist culture, have larger implications for the nature of Jewish acculturation, the history of the Jewish Enlightenment, and the interplay between state policy and organized Jewish life.

Introduction

Jewish Acculturation and Modernization Broadly understood, acculturation refers to the cultural changes experienced by minority groups as they come into continuous contact with a majority culture. While such processes are characteristic of Jewish life in the diaspora, an important historiographical tradition rooted in the studies of Azriel Shohat and Todd Endelman views instances of Jewish social and cultural integration in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as harbingers of modernization, understood today as a “constellation” of sociopolitical, intellectual, and economic changes that Jewish communities experienced between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.1 More recently, Shmuel Feiner has argued that the eighteenth century represented a break from the past, ushering in a new, eminently modern world for Jews. According to this view, the temptations of urban life and the pleasures of a secular lifestyle, to which increasing numbers of Jewish men and women in western and central Europe were attracted, were among the key factors leading European Jews to the loss of religious observance and identity typical of modern acculturation.2 The expression “modern or outward acculturation,” coined by Ivan Marcus, refers to the “blurring of individual and communal traditional Jewish identities and of religious and cultural boundaries between Jews and modern societies,” in contrast to “pre-modern or inward acculturation.”3 The crucial distinction offered by Marcus is between a kind of acculturation that leads to the loss or weakening of Jewish identity, typical of the modern period, and one that in fact reinforces Jewish identity via selective appropriation and re-elaboration of motifs, terms, institutions, or rituals of the majority, typical of premodern societies.4 The Livornese nazione ebrea complicates a linear connection between acculturation and modernization.5 Since Salo Baron formulated the notion of their early “economic and intellectual emancipation,” Italian and western Sephardi Jews have been commonly viewed as exceptionally acculturated.6 Despite Robert Bonfil’s disagreement with the “harmonistic view” of early modern Italian Jewish culture,7 this tendency has not been modified significantly.8 The Sephardi ability to combine Jewish identity and European culture, having a “foothold” in two worlds, has also been extensively investigated.9 This book illuminates the extent

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Introduction

to which profound Jewish acculturation, a fact of eighteenth-century Livorno, did not automatically lead to an unconditionally modern outlook and permanent, structural changes. Social organization in Livorno was similar to other early modern hubs. Jews participated with non-Jews in a juridically unequal society, typical of the ancien régime, composed by distinct, separate corporate groups.10 In the dynamic port, with its coffeehouses, lively publishing industry, and visitors from all over the Mediterranean, Jewish individuals were conscious of living in radically new times. They consumed and participated in outside culture. However, they did not lose their mooring in the corporate community. The nazione ebrea remained a fully traditional Jewish society, regardless of its leadership’s awareness of external cultural and political innovations. Some privileged and educated Jews, who aspired to partake in significant aspects of Enlightenment culture and embraced universalist reformist ideals, did so without rejecting Judaism and criticizing traditional Jewish mores. While the modern historian is tempted to see tension between the pursuit of Jewish culture and worldly studies, or between Jewish identity and universalist Enlightenment ideals, evidence shows that tradition and new ideas and practices are not mutually exclusive. From a Livornese perspective, appreciation and appropriation of outside culture did not promote a loss of tradition—but they did not creatively reinforce Jewish identity either. My aim is to move beyond a dichotomous understanding of acculturation, suggesting that we instead conceive of it as a potential set of multiple options and of strategies (I use these words without implying intentionality) deployed by a minority group vis-à-vis the surrounding society, depending on contexts and circumstances. Moving from this premise, it is possible to argue that acculturation may result in a variety of processes, ranging on a spectrum from assimilation, to partial integration, to separation, to rejection of the surrounding culture. Even in those cases when acculturation is expressed as openness to the surrounding society, this should be seen as only one strategy deployed at any given time by members of a minority group, who are able to express different cultural choices in different contexts. One of the guiding questions in my study is thus how Jews eager to participate in a movement characterized by ideals of universalism and humanism negotiated a balance between an increasingly ap-

Introduction

pealing outside culture, on the one hand, and communal bonds and normative expectations, on the other. What were the strategies that Livornese Jewish scholars employed, as they engaged in secular studies while they were immersed in a traditional Jewish community, or when they brought the “sciences of the gentiles” into the traditional institutions of the nazione ebrea? I follow the ambitions of members of the Livornese mercantile and intellectual class, who aspired to take part in the broader culture because of their education, refinement, or wealth. A growing compartmentalization between Torah and gentile culture characterized their pursuits. Individual and communal failures, disappointments, and fissures between ideals and reality form an unavoidable part of my story. Despite the optimism of some enlightened Livornese Jews and their contribution to general culture, the Tuscan world, by and large, continued to view them as part of a protected, often despised minority, not as individual members of the human family. This historical irony encapsulates the constant tension between inclusion and exclusion experienced more broadly by all western European Jews. In this sense, the experience of Livornese Jews at the time of the Enlightenment both anticipates and exemplifies the challenges of cultural and social integration typical of Jewish life in Europe in the modern period.

Enlightenment and Haskalah Along with acculturation, the Haskalah—a programmatic movement rooted in an ideology of reform, which aimed to modernize Ashkenazi Jews—remains a powerful historiographical factor to contend with for historians working on the eighteenth century, even if recent scholarship has started probing its chronological limits and protagonists, and its broad significance for Jewish modernization has been considerably challenged and nuanced.11 A confrontation with the Haskalah has also informed Italian Jewish scholarship. Lois Dubin, for instance, argues that the Jewish community of Trieste, a Hapsburg port in northeast Italy, was open to the Haskalah’s message in the 1780s, although its cultural receptivity was not an instance of Haskalah per se. In Trieste, there was no need for an ideology, because of prior Jewish acculturation

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Introduction

and local ongoing socioeconomic realities.12 These conclusions are doubly important because, thanks to their geographical location, Trieste and neighboring centers were indeed part of the Haskalah orbit. Most Italian areas, however, were not—as the case of Livorno demonstrates. The world of the nazione ebrea was geographically and conceptually distant from the Haskalah. The languages of cultural expression for the lay elite were Italian, French, and Spanish (Hebrew was the idiom of the liturgy and the rabbinic class). Even after the state passed under Hapsburg rule, Tuscany remained receptive to Italian, French, and English culture, while German culture had relatively little impact, unlike other Hapsburg Italian areas such as Lombardy and Trieste. This renders the experience of Livornese Jews different from that of the northern Italian communities of Mantua and Trieste, which were affected directly by the outcome of Josephinian toleration in the 1780s. Even when they were offered an opportunity to interact directly with the Haskalah, the Livornese intellectual elites proved unresponsive. The most egregious example of their lack of engagement revolves around the Italian campaign in support of the Haskalah manifesto Divre shalom ve-emet (Words of Peace and Truth), by the maskil (“Jewish enlightener”) Naftali Herz Wessely. Between May and June 1782, Wessely sent letters to the leaders of the Jewish community of Trieste, asking them to promote his pamphlet in other Italian Jewish communities. Wessely hoped that the acculturated Italian Jews would more readily agree with his reformist project than traditionalist rabbinic leaders in central and eastern Europe. An Italian campaign on behalf of Wessely and the Haskalah was quickly set in motion. Elia Morpurgo, a Jewish leader and an enthusiastic supporter of Wessely, dispatched letters to Ferrara, Venice, Reggio, Ancona, Mantua, and Livorno. Seven rabbis wrote pesakim (decisions; sing. pesak) endorsing Divre shalom ve-emet. No response came from Livorno.13 This lack of reaction is curious. Morpurgo himself had lived in this Tuscan port and had written to his teacher in the city, Abraham Isaac Castelli, to solicit approval for Wessely’s work. Castelli’s silence is intriguing considering that this man, one of Livorno’s most prominent rabbinic figures, was no obscurantist but “gladly read Voltaire and other French authors.”14 Yet, no pesak on the subject is known from

Introduction

him. Not only did Castelli not endorse Divre shalom ve-emet; there is no evidence that any other Livornese rabbinic or lay authority said a word about Wessely and his maskilic program. It would appear that, should Livornese Jews have heard any echoes of the Haskalah that crossed the Alps in the 1780s, they did not engage with them. Was it a principled rejection, or one generated by indifference because the issues were deemed irrelevant to Livornese Jewish society? Whatever the case, the lack of response illuminates a broader issue. The Haskalah was a conscious ideology of reform and a critical reaction to Jewish tradition, aiming at individual and communal improvement in order to promote greater Jewish cultural integration in the larger society. The fact that a movement of Jewish reform and integration did not develop in Livorno is not entirely surprising. Livornese Jews, like other Jews living in Italy, did not need to become maskilim to appreciate the importance of general knowledge. The Italian and Sephardi Jewish educational tradition did not view the pursuit of “external sciences” as being in opposition to the study of Torah. For the early modern Italian rabbinate, Jews could devote themselves to “the sciences of the gentiles,” because Jewish tradition subsumed all knowledge; within such a conceptual framework, Torah remained all-­ encompassing and always superior.15 Still, although the Jews of Livorno did not embrace the Haskalah, a form of Enlightenment culture did develop within certain layers of the community—and for its protagonists, one of the most significant aspects of this experience was the growing separation between Jewish and non-Jewish spheres of knowledge and activity. Eighteenth-century Tuscany was at the forefront of the production and distribution of French and Italian Enlightenment thought in Europe. The city of Livorno itself, thanks to its printing presses and distribution networks, played a key role in its circulation at home and abroad. It was the Italian and French voices of the Enlightenment, at once pragmatic and utopian, that some educated Livornese Jews absorbed. And despite the well-known ambivalence of the Enlightenment toward Judaism,16 these scholars yearned to participate in broader knowledge production as peers, well before their actual legal and political emancipation, and as educated Tuscans—not as “Jews”—using Italian rather than Hebrew or Spanish as their language of expression.

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Introduction

This sort of encounter was different not only from the Haskalah, but also from the Anglo-Jewish Enlightenment examined by David Ruderman.17 While Jews did not need the Haskalah to become familiar with Enlightenment and liberal ideas, as the English case demonstrates, a shared goal of Prussian maskilim and Anglo-Jewish thinkers was to bring Judaism in line with modern thought.18 But Livornese scholars did not yearn to creatively revisit Jewish culture in light of European ideas; their encounter with the Enlightenment took place on a plane largely distinct from their involvement with Judaism and the community. As a result, a critique of the Jewish past and apologetic tendencies did not develop in Tuscany. Livornese Jews did not think of themselves as being in need of reform or improvement; they did not appropriate Enlightenment values to cure or change Jewish society, as some Ashkenazi Jews did in the 1770s and 1780s. Rather than decrying their condition, they emphasized their contributions to the public good. The alternative model offered by Livorno has larger implications for a Jewish history of the Enlightenment. The Jewish encounter with the Enlightenment, as Dubin and Ruderman have made clear, did not need to pass through the Haskalah. The Livornese case not only corroborates this notion, but it shows that such an encounter did not automatically challenge its protagonists to reorient their relation to Judaism, as long as the traditional, protected structures of Jewish existence remained unchanged. Modern thought and Jewishness were not necessarily seen as frameworks in need of reconciliation. The educated, optimistic members of the nazione ebrea believed they could partake of both, expressing different cultural choices in different contexts, along the acculturation spectrum delineated above. Although most of the content of their intellectual output was not strictly “Jewish,” but universal in its scientific aspirations, one of the aims of this book is to show that this material can and should be reclaimed and studied as part of Jewish history. The question remains as to whether individual Jewish engagement with Enlightenment practices, discourse, and values, through European languages and in Tuscan cultural sites, created a “Jewish Enlightenment.” To be sure, the approach shared by different generations of Livornese Jewish ­scholars—a strategy of distinction between Jewish and non-

Introduction

Jewish spheres and a muting of Jewishness while engaged in “secular ­studies”—foreshadows a widespread attitude among modern Jewish intellectuals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Enlightened Absolutism and the Path Toward Emancipation An examination of Livornese life further contributes to our understanding of the complex Jewish paths toward political inclusion and legal emancipation. While the tendency in earlier historiography was to highlight a specific moment as a turning point in European Jewish history and to apply it to diverse Jewish experiences as a single model (be it the intellectual change fostered by the Haskalah, for Heinrich Graetz and Jacob Katz, or the political transformations brought about by the French Revolution, for Simon Dubnow),19 since the 1990s scholars have increasingly emphasized regional contexts and chronologies of Jewish encounters with pre-emancipatory trends.20 Recent studies have underscored the differences between Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities in western and eastern Europe.21 The development of the model of “port Jew” by David Sorkin and Lois Dubin has additionally problematized the narrative of emancipation for Jewish merchant enclaves. According to this view, socially integrated Jews of Sephardi or Italian origin, who thrived in commerce-oriented cities, are assumed to have undergone processes of inclusion that were radically different from those of Ashkenazi Jews.22 Through a study of the relationship between the state and the corporate Jewish community, I scrutinize economic and legal transformations in Jewish institutional life, many of which predate the push toward greater Jewish inclusion that characterized the 1780s in western and central Europe. Enlightened absolutist states, such as the Hapsburg Empire under Joseph II, Prussia under Frederick II, and Russia under Catherine II, embarked on wide-ranging reforms in the second half of the eighteenth century. Tuscany was another important example of the ways in which state-sponsored enlightened policies affected individuals and communities. By approaching this subject within its regional context, my book affirms the specificity and significance of the Tuscan enlightened absolutist experiment.23 At the same time, due to

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Introduction

the nazione ebrea’s centrality within the Mediterranean world, its experience illuminates larger trends in Sephardi and Italian Jewish history. Between 1737 and 1790, Grand Dukes Francis Stephen of Lorraine and his son Peter Leopold of Hapsburg-Lorraine attempted to transform state administration, relations between state and Church, and economic life in Tuscany. This effort, which reached its culmination under Peter Leopold, a ruler personally inspired by Enlightenment ideals, made Tuscany into a unique example of reforming absolutism at work. By investigating the ways in which Jewish communal representatives and individual actors interacted with the state during this period, I ask to what extent Livornese Jews appropriated or rejected the Tuscan culture of reforms. Most scholarship on eighteenth-century Italy emphasizes ecclesiastical and governmental attitudes toward the Jewish minority.24 I offer a different perspective by considering Jewish reactions through a study of developments in the sphere of education, health care, recreation, commerce, and municipal politics. My research shows that the Jewish community and its members were not passive recipients of state and municipal policies, but active interlocutors able to negotiate and selectively adapt to change. In areas pertaining to the community’s economic interests, despite some religious qualms, the nazione ebrea proved responsive, enacting policies that mirrored trends in the broader Tuscan sphere. When it came to educational and charitable efforts, conversely, the community asserted sole control over spiritual matters and resisted secularizing trends. Individual Jews, for their part, continued to rely on older modes of political intercession, trying to defend their corporatist and individual interests against the reformist will of the Tuscan government. From the 1750s, the relation between Jewish communities and European states transformed profoundly as reformist rulers and their ministers moved away from older mercantilist notions toward new economic doctrines, such as physiocracy, liberalism, and cameralism. While historians have primarily explored the effects of such policy changes on the Ashkenazi world through Prussian, Austrian, and French examples, the Tuscan case offers an alternative perspective relevant for Sephardi and Italian communities. The Jewish presence in Livorno had been justified on mercantilist grounds since 1591. As it adopted free-market policies and started attacking corporatist interests, the reforming Tuscan

Introduction

state began viewing mercantilism with suspicion. What were the effects of liberal economic and political doctrines on a corporate Jewish community whose existence had been upheld on the basis of commercial utility over the course of almost two hundred years? Finally, the history of the nazione ebrea shows that the process toward emancipation in merchant enclaves was neither linear nor simple. Although Livornese Jews can be technically included in the category of “port Jews,” this books argues that their specific circumstances did not allow them to experience a direct transition from civil inclusion to full emancipation predicated on Dubin’s and Sorkin’s model. While the discourse of Jewish regeneration prevalent among Ashkenazi communities was absent in eighteenth-century Livorno, the exceptional nature and economic system of the port, rooted in the Livornina charter, contributed to the preservation of traditional structures and norms that prevented the full application of equalizing policies championed by the Tuscan government. Instead of furthering political inclusion, the deeply engrained Livornese “discourse of Jewish utility” encouraged the permanence of a view of the Jews as a semiautonomous collectivity protected by the continued benevolence of the sovereign. By showing that, in the long run, the generous privileges enjoyed by Livornese Jews had conservative rather than liberalizing effects, I offer a critique of the oft-repeated claim that Jewish economic utility fostered smooth processes of integration.

A New Approach to Livornese Jewry The port of Livorno and its Jewish community have elicited significant interest among scholars. Literature on the nazione ebrea has primarily concentrated on its first century of existence,25 and on the commercial activities pursued by its most influential merchants in relation to the Levant, North Africa, and, most recently, Portugal and India.26 In comparison, little has been written on the cultural life of Livornese Jews during the eighteenth century. A history of Jewish culture in Livorno is beyond the scope of this book. Nonetheless, it is my hope that my attempt to combine cultural analysis with a study of economic policies and political developments, and to integrate lines of inquiry informed

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Introduction

by Italian and Jewish historiography, will provide a fresh perspective. Unlike most examples of Italian Jewish history, my work draws on sources both internal and external to the community: Jewish and Tuscan judicial documents, private and governmental correspondence, minutes of Jewish communal meetings, municipal records, inquisitorial documents, rabbinic approbations, and literary works. The chapters unfold thematically and chronologically, beginning from the final two decades of Medicean rule over Tuscany to the departure of Grand Duke Peter Leopold for Vienna in 1790. From its inception, it was the lay, mercantile element of the ­nazione ebrea that determined the community’s success and the direction of its development. Informed by this fact, I address practices and manifestations of the culture produced and consumed by members of Livornese Jewry’s lay class by focusing on several key sites where Jews and ­non-Jews interacted or where the Tuscan authorities attempted to regulate Jewish subjects, including the private library, the university, the printing press, and the coffeehouse. The main actors in the book are members of the Sephardi mercantile oligarchy, exponents of the intellectual elite, such as physicians, and small businessmen, such as printers and coffeehouse managers. This does not mean that religious thought is ignored; while I do not concentrate on rabbinic studies per se, I consider various expressions of Jewish piety. Moreover, because of the nature of the subject and the available sources, the attitudes of the vast Jewish lower classes, and those of women, appear only occasionally in my account, with a few exceptions. With its paradoxes and contradictions, the nazione ebrea illuminates the striking combination of old and new that characterized Jewish life in the eighteenth century. Following an introduction on the community’s relation with the Tuscan state (Chapter One), the first three chapters trace the participation in Tuscan culture, awareness of Enlightenment thought, and scientific reformist aspirations on the part of a number of Livornese Jewish scholars. I show that the study of the natural sciences, animated by Galilean and Muratorian principles of empiricism, as well as university study and medical research, provided ideal milieus in which educated members of the nazione ebrea could engage with values typical of the Italian Enlightenment, such as intellectual and social advancement for the sake of the public good. A re-

Introduction

construction of the activities and contributions of four figures—Joseph Attias, Angelo de Soria, Joseph Vita Castelli, and Graziadio Bondì—is central to my argument. Chapters Two and Three focus on Attias, a Livornese Jewish savant who acted as an intellectual intermediary in the Republic of Letters in the 1720s and 1730s. While Attias moved comfortably between two spheres—one defined by his Jewish identity within the nazione ebrea, the other pertaining to his scientific pursuits outside of it and defined solely by his scholarly identity—he carefully avoided mixing them. This highlights a tendency of compartmentalization by which Livornese Jewish scholars responded to the universalist demands of the early Enlightenment. This strategy of cultural separation becomes even more evident in the following generations who engaged in scientific pursuits, represented by a group of three younger Livornese Jews educated at the University of Pisa—de Soria, Castelli, and Bondì—explored in Chapter Four. University attendance strengthened these Jewish physicians’ ties to the Tuscan state, while their courses of study and relationships with gentile mentors shaped their aspirations to progress, human happiness, and the public good. Chapter Five bridges the study of individual interactions with outside culture with that of communal responses to Tuscan reform, by investigating the continued importance of piety for educated Jews immersed in the outside world. The chapter concentrates on Jewish assistance to the sick and the poor through an exploration of the Bikur Holim society, showing that changes in Tuscan public health did not diminish the spiritual concerns of benevolent confraternities. I additionally evaluate the ways in which traditionally learned Jewish physicians, members of the Bikur Holim society, introduced secular themes into devotional settings. The three final chapters concentrate on Jewish reactions to Tuscan reformist efforts that affected the economic and political life of the nazione ebrea, as well as cultural production and consumption more generally. I show that the Jewish leadership responded actively and selectively, influenced by a privilege-based mindset typical of ancien régime societies. Among the mercantile class, ambivalent individual responses to the state’s endeavors were informed by the pursuit of utili-

13

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Introduction

tarian interests that had little to do with Jewish allegiances, and that were frequently bolstered through a direct appeal to the ruler, bypassing the Jewish authorities. Chapter Six explores eighteenth-century Jewish and Tuscan governmental attempts to regulate social behavior by focusing on Jewish coffeehouses and the laws on gambling within those premises. I show that in the sphere of leisure time, developments in the nazione ebrea paralleled and mirrored reformist endeavors championed by the Tuscan authorities. The chapter additionally assesses the tension between the normative expectations of separation between Jews and gentiles in spaces of recreation and the more fluid reality of the port, and it tests scholarly assumptions about the coffeehouse as a public venue of association. Chapter Seven continues the study of the impact of economic reforms over the nazione ebrea, by scrutinizing the rebirth of Livornese Hebrew printing in the 1740s after a long hiatus. It probes the issue of governmental control over Hebrew publishing and the effects of state policies on the production of Jewish culture, while also discussing the responses of Jewish printers to the transformation of the Hebrew press from a monopolistic to a competitive business, carried out by Grand Duke Peter Leopold. Chapter Eight takes a comparative look at processes of Jewish inclusion in the 1780s, suggesting that the Livornese example provides an alternative to the better-known Prussian and French cases, as well as a corrective to the model of “port Jews.” I argue that, while both Jewish and non-Jewish observers did not consider the nazione ebrea in need of improvement or further integration into society, the very notion of commercial utility justifying the existence of the Livornese Jewish community bolstered its corporatist understanding and it hindered the political emancipation of its individual members.

O n e  The Nazione Ebrea and the Tuscan State A Fruitful Symbiosis

In February 1770, Livornese high society was treated to a sumptuous event: the weeklong festivities in honor of the wedding between the “most rich Jewish merchant,” Jacob Aghib, and his fiancée, Anna Aghib. The governor of the city of Livorno, its officials and notables, and the most esteemed merchants, all flocked to Aghib’s mansion, adorned with “pictures and furniture in the latest fashion,” each of its halls lit up with crystal and silver chandeliers. The Aghibs had arranged every detail with great care, intent on showcasing their generosity no less than their opulence and refinement. An orchestra entertained the merry crowd of Jews and gentiles, who feasted on sorbets and fruit preserves until a lavish dinner was served. On the last day of the festivities, the Aghibs delighted their guests with a “musical academy.” Renowned musicians and singers, one of whom was at the service of the Grand Duke in Florence, performed during the first part of the evening. The bride too, an amateur singer, “showed her good disposition for music.” The celebration was capped off with a ball, all the more pleasurable as liqueurs, fruit preserves, and sorbets were served all night long to the guests.1 Less than a month later, notice of another bountiful feast caught the attention of Livornese chronicler Pietro Bernardo Prato, who had reported on the festivities at the Aghib mansion. This time the host was Maria Elisabetta, widow of Captain Santo Anton Mattei. The guest of honor was Ventura Velletri, a Jewish woman, “previously wife of Joseph Ancona,” who on that day celebrated her conversion to Catholicism under the new name of Maria Elisabetta Fortunata, after her godmother.2

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These two episodes, separated by only a few weeks, capture some of the complex and contradictory aspects of Livornese life in the eighteenth century. On the one hand, one of the city’s wealthiest trading families could liberally display their grandeur for seven days before fellow Jewish merchants as well as Christian authorities and notables. The Aghibs’ sophistication showed that little difference existed between Livornese Jews and non-Jews when it came to matters of art, music, furniture, or food. Christian guests shared the same dance floor as the port’s Jewish notables; they ate the same fruit preserves; they attended a musical performance by young Mrs. Aghib. On the other hand, an otherwise unknown Jewish woman, alone after the end of her marriage, made it to the local chronicle because of her decision to convert to Catholicism in the very city where Jews enjoyed liberties unparalleled elsewhere in Italy.3 The tension between integration and separation, toleration and prejudice was at the core of early modern Livornese Jewish life. Livorno, one of the most animated and dynamic mercantile centers in western Europe, offered unprecedented opportunities for religious and ethnic minorities in Catholic Europe, above all Jews. Literary descriptions of the city never failed to mention its peculiar assortment of different national groups, emphasizing its large Jewish population, with its ostensible control over the port’s trade. By the end of the century, Ann Radcliffe immortalized Livorno’s atmosphere as a carnevalesque masquerade of “persons in the dresses of all nations,” in her gothic romance Mysteries of Udolpho (1794).4 Exaggerated figures, circulated by French, German, and English authors without firsthand knowledge of the city’s demography, estimated that its Jewish inhabitants ranged from twenty-two thousand to ten thousand individuals, out of a total population of approximately forty-five thousand.5 The actual numbers were much lower, in fact, and the port’s Jewish residents did not surpass forty-five hundred souls.6 Despite its reputation as a beacon of toleration for all minorities, Livorno was a town with a deeply devout Catholic population, whose hostility to the visible Jewish enclave could flare up during Christian festivals or in moments of economic crisis. While the Papal Inquisition had limited reach in eighteenth-century Livorno in contrast to Rome or Mantua, Jews had to comply with its requirements in several

A Fruitful Symbiosis

matters. Christian wet nurses had to petition for a special ecclesiastic dispensation in order to work for a Jewish household, as in Mantua or Modena.7 So did Christian patients wishing to rely on Jewish doctors.8 Anti-Jewish incidents were relatively rare compared to other European contexts, but angry mobs attacked the Jewish neighborhood in 1722 and 1751.9 Political instability and the economic downturn that accompanied the revolutionary periods of the end of the century resulted in large-scale riots against Livornese Jews in 1790 and 1800.10 These grave episodes notwithstanding, Livornese Jews generally found sympathetic protectors in the Tuscan administration, willing to safeguard Jewish legal prerogatives and to actively defend the lives and homes of Livornese Jews. Complexities and contradictions extended to the fabric of Jewish life itself. The Livornese community included widely diverse social components. It was home to the very rich and the very poor; to  rabbis and doctors, to criminals and prostitutes; to merchants who gathered in one of the coffeehouses of the port before heading to the theater; to porters who worked in the docks; and to saintly kabbalists who spent their ascetic days in prayer and study.11 A high level of mobility characterized Livornese Jewish society. Itinerant religious figures and merchants passed through Livorno on their way to the Ottoman Empire, North Africa, or northern Europe. Levantine Jews wearing turbans and caftans mingled in the busy streets of the port with clean-shaven Western Sephardim in breeches and ­powdered wigs.12 Jewish observance defined family and communal life, yet some rabbis accused Livornese Jews of impiety because of their acculturation and economic prosperity.13 Social tensions within the nazione ebrea ran deep, although class differences did not engender radical ruptures in the communal fabric until the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. Through an examination of the nazione ebrea within both the Se­ phardi and the Tuscan contexts, this chapter investigates the tensions between Tuscan acculturation and Jewish specificities and the close utilitarian bonds that connected Livornese Jews with the Tuscan state. The exceptional status of Livornese Jewry explains its far-reaching integration and its simultaneous segregation.

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Livornese Jewish Integration: Ideal or Reality? The Jews of Livorno live together in peace and safety in fine homes among the nobles of the land. Their houses are made of stone; most of its people are merchants and notables. Most of them shave their beards and style their hair, and there is no difference between their clothes and those of the rest of the people. They speak the common language correctly and fluently. . . . They dwell peacefully and quiet­ly, and pursue every occupation and business they desire. My heart ­gladdens and I am proud to see my brothers living securely in the midst of their [gentile] neighbors, without enemy or troublemaker.14

With these words Isaac Euchel (1758–1804), one of the leaders of the Prussian Haskalah, described the Jews of Livorno in a fictional travelogue published in the journal Ha-Measef in 1790. In Euchel’s depiction, Livorno was above all a place of freedom and opportunities, where Jews and gentiles coexisted peacefully as Livornese Jewry fulfilled its social potential in the pursuit of useful occupations. In the 1780s and 1790s, Livornese Jews, portrayed as the peak of Jewish social, economic, and cultural prosperity in Europe, turned into a model of the twin ideals of acculturation and retention of Jewish specificity promoted by the Haskalah. For Prussian maskilim like Euchel, the vision of Livorno provided a symbolic inspiration.15 Euchel’s perspective was not unique. Among non-European Jews, too, Livorno came to epitomize Western civilization, either desired or decried. For Sephardi modernizers like the Sarajevo-born, Livorno-based David Attias, thanks to their ability to embrace secular European culture the integrated Livornese compared favorably against Levantine Jews, whom he accused of backward ignorance and traditionalism.16 The Italian Jewish elite known as Francos, primarily of Livornese origin, was indeed instrumental in introducing Western values into Ottoman Sephardi society.17 In Tunisia, the flourishing mercantile community of expatriate Livornese Jews (known as Grana, from the Arabic name of Livorno), who retained a keen distinction from the indigenous Jews (Twansa), to the contrary earned a reputation for impiety and freemasonry among devout Tunisian Jews.18 Since the early seventeenth century, non-Jewish travelers too had marveled at the freedom of the Jewish inhabitants of the port. An

A Fruitful Symbiosis

early eighteenth-century French visitor called the city “paradise of the Jews.”19 Edward Gibbon described Livorno as “a veritable land of ­Canaan for the Jews,” while the Encyclopédie stated that “the Jews . . . regard Livorno as a new promised land.”20 Similarly to Jewish observers, the integration of Livornese Jews assumed different meanings, depending on the ideological leanings of non-Jewish authors, who were skeptical or supportive of such exceptional liberties but seldom indifferent to them. By the late eighteenth century, a local commentator remarked half-jokingly that it would be less risky to beat the Grand Duke of Tuscany than a Jew in Livorno.21 French and English writers noticed Jewish material success with surprise, fascination, and at times aversion.22 Still, for Giuseppe Gorani (1740–1819), a champion of Jewish integration, the freedom of Livornese Jews, who “enjoyed the same prerogative rights enjoyed by the other citizens,” turned them into “highly regarded” members of society, “distinguished by all the virtues pertaining to universal morality.”23 By the end of the eighteenth century, the nazione ebrea of Livorno had come to embody a story of effective Jewish integration into European society for both Jewish and gentile critics. Even more than early modern English or Dutch Jews, who enjoyed equally generous social and economic privileges, it was the community of Livorno— a thriving hub, but no London or Amsterdam—who epitomized the successful Jewish appropriation of values and behaviors associated with European civilization: social usefulness, morality, rationality. In the Mediterranean region, among the Sephardi communities of North Africa and the Balkans, Livornese Jews were perceived as truly “European” up to the early twentieth century. Even Italian historian Attilio Milano presented Livorno, in his monumental history of the Jews in Italy, as the sole oasis of Jewish toleration during the Counter-Reformation.24 Was this ideal of integration grounded in concrete facts? How many of these accounts were depictions exaggerated by foreign observers or distorted by ideological goals, and how much were they an accurate representation of Livornese reality? The origins, nature, and development of this community explain the role it came to play in Jewish imagination.

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Jewish Freedoms in Livorno: The Livornina Undoubtedly, the privileges enjoyed by Livornese Jews were extraordinary. These unique freedoms resulted from the transformations of early modern Tuscany and the growth of its Mediterranean maritime trade. It was the perceived commercial usefulness of Jewish traders that led the Medici government to invite them to settle in Livorno at the end of the sixteenth century, in the hope that their presence would boost the port’s economy.25 As other states, Tuscany recognized the global importance of Sephardi economic networks, ranging from the Ottoman Empire to northern Africa, and from northern Europe to the colonial world. Sephardi Jews and Iberian New Christians (the descendants of Jews who had been baptized in the Iberian Peninsula, also known as conversos) were respected as accomplished merchants endowed with large capital and part of a well-established trading diaspora.26 The establishment of a Jewish community in Livorno was a specific instance of a phenomenon evolving on a much grander scale, influenced by mercantilism, the prevalent economic doctrine during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. Attracted by authorities that sought to control foreign trade and emphasized the economic interest of the state over the theological and legal qualms that had shaped Jewish policies in earlier periods, Jews of Iberian descent established new communities in port cities such as Livorno, Hamburg, Amsterdam, London, Recife, and New Amsterdam, a phenomenon which in turn drew New Christians wishing to revert back to the religion of their ancestors. Over the course of a hundred years, roughly between 1530 and 1650, this process brought about the successful settlement of Sephardi Jews in most of western Europe, as well as their arrival in the New World.27 Like other European aristocrats, the Medici family ruling over Tuscany promoted the establishment of a Jewish community in Livorno as an integral part of the state’s strategy of Mediterranean expansion, and it vied, particularly with the Republic of Venice and papal Ancona, to attract Sephardi Jews with extensive economic and religious privileges. Tuscany had already invited Portuguese New Christians and Jews to settle in Pisa and Florence in 1548 and 1551. The founding document of the productive synergy between Livornese Jewry and early modern

A Fruitful Symbiosis

Tuscany was a charter promulgated by Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinand I (r. 1587–1609), in 1591, which granted extensive concessions to foreign merchants who settled in the port.28 The edict, later known as Livornina, was reissued with slight changes in 1593 and routinely confirmed, retaining its validity almost uninterruptedly until 1861.29 Formally directed to “merchants of any nation, Levantine, Ponentine, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, German and Italian, Jewish, Turkish, Moorish, Armenian, Persian and others,”30 this charter in fact intended to attract primarily Spanish and Portuguese New Christians and Jews of Iberian and Levantine origin.31 Other Italian principalities granted privileges to Iberian and Otto­man Jews and New Christians before the Tuscan state did. Papal Ancona offered charters to Jews in 1534, Ferrara attracted Jews and conversos in 1538, Savoy welcomed Jews to settle in the port of Nice in 1572 (this edict was short-lived), and Venice extended generous charters to Ottoman Jews and Iberian New Christians in 1589.32 Clearly, the Medici were not alone in competing for the attention of Sephardi merchants.33 Still, thanks to the generosity of the Livornina and the subsequent flourishing and demographic growth of the community, the Tuscan port became an exceptional center for Jewish life in Europe. Among other privileges, the edict offered former conversos relative protection from the Holy Office, at a time when the Roman and ­Venetian inquisitions were actively pursuing Judaizers (New Christians accused of maintaining some Jewish practices in secret).34 Jewish children under the age of thirteen, often victims of the conversionary zeal of pious Christian servants and wet nurses, were legally protected from baptism and kidnapping by devout Christians.35 In Counter-­ Reformation Italy, this practice of “forced conversion” directed to the most vulnerable members of the Jewish community was commonplace in the Papal States, and it routinely occurred in other principalities. Children “stolen” after being surreptitiously baptized and taken to a house of neophytes outside of the ghetto were almost never returned, despite their families’ vocal protestations.36 Unlike Rome or Turin, when Livornese Jewish children were baptized in secret their parents had a chance of getting them back.37 The charter ensured security to Jews in additional ways at a time of great political uncertainty and religious unrest. Jews who formally

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The Nazione Ebrea and the Tuscan State

settled in Livorno gained the status of Tuscan subjects, which led to enhanced protection also when they traded outside the Tuscan state, in North Africa or the Ottoman Empire. The Livornina provided Jewish merchants with economic incentives and gave them the same freedoms as Christian traders, including the ability to pursue whatever profession they chose (except for stracceria, the retail of secondhand clothes that was traditionally associated with poor Jews in the Roman ghetto).38 Setting once again the nazione ebrea apart from the rest of Italian communities, the Livornina also granted its leaders significant jurisdictional autonomy. Robert Bonfil has shown that early modern Italian communities were unable to establish proper rabbinic courts.39 While in Rome and Venice the Jewish religious and lay leaders were able to discipline members of the community and adjudicate internal cases through voluntary arbitration, their legal power never replaced the jurisdiction of the state authorities over Jewish inhabitants.40 In Livorno, the lay leaders of the community were invested by the Grand Duke with the power to settle civil disputes and to adjudicate lower-level charges in criminal cases among Jews in an ad hoc court (­tribunale dei massari ). Sentences issued by the Jewish authorities could be appealed before the municipal court of Livorno, which oversaw all cases involving Jews and non-Jews.41 The Livornina offered further exceptional privileges, exempting Jews from wearing distinguishing signs, which were the norm in Rome, Venice, and Mantua, and allowing them to buy real estate.42 Livornese Jews were never legally confined to a ghetto, unlike those living in the rest of Italy.43 Although most members of the nazione ebrea resided within a small quarter located behind the cathedral, which was far away from the main square (Piazza Grande) and Via Ferdinanda, the city’s principal artery, exponents of the Jewish commercial elite purchased properties in more central and fashionable areas, as well as villas and vineyards in the countryside surrounding the port.44 In the middle of the seventeenth century, only 137 out of 207 family units lived in the primarily Jewish neighborhood.45 By 1749, the area had increased in size to include 145 houses, mostly owned by Jews. Jewish landlords were allowed to rent out apartments to Christian tenants, and vice versa. It was not unusual for Jews and Christians to live in the same building, despite the authorities’ anxieties about social and physical in-

A Fruitful Symbiosis

teractions in domestic spaces.46 In 1708 the Tuscan government forbade Christians from living on the same streets as Jews. That the edict was repeated in 1764 is evidence of the limited success of these efforts.47 At the center of the Jewish neighborhood was a magnificently decorated synagogue, visited by Christian rulers on their official sojourns in the city (along with the flourishing, Jewish-owned coral factories in the port), as a way to demonstrate their approval and favor.48 The synagogue of Livorno stood as an architectural monument to the community’s prosperity and prerogatives, a public display of Livornese Jewry’s “national pride.”49 By serving the entire nazione ebrea, it functioned as a symbol of its unity, despite the community’s ethnic diversity due to waves of immigration from other Italian regions and North Africa, which intensified from the 1730s.50 First established in a private home in 1595, the synagogue was replaced with a new building in 1607 and completely remodeled in 1642 along the lines of the grand Amsterdam synagogue of 1639. The building underwent further renovations and embellishments in the following century. These included the 1742 addition of a lavish marble Torah ark created by the renowned sculptor Isidoro Baratta of Carrara (1670–1747), who also designed the altar of Livorno’s cathedral, and, in 1745, a new tevah (pulpit), designed by David Nunes.51 Severely damaged during World War II, it was only amid great controversy that the Livornese Jewish community decided to tear the ancient synagogue down and replace it with a modern building in 1962.

The Port of Livorno Between Tuscany and the Mediterranean While Jewish residential and occupational opportunities were restricted in much of Italy and the rest of Christian Europe, this was not the case in Livorno. This uniqueness ought to be studied in conjunction with the refashioning of the port itself.52 If the unprecedented liberties that the Livornina provided to Jews and former conversos rendered the port of Livorno a remarkable center of toleration in western Europe, the city’s exceptionality had not started in 1591. Since its very inception, Livorno’s urban structure and model of governance were radically new in comparison with the rest of the Grand Duchy of

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The Nazione Ebrea and the Tuscan State

Tuscany.53 Livorno’s commercial activity also clearly separated it from the rest of the Tuscan state, which based its livelihood on manufacture and agriculture. This originally small and insalubrious fortified village, known as Porto Pisano, had served as Pisa’s harbor up to 1421, when the Florentine republic absorbed it. Pope Pius V’s 1569 conferral of the title of “Grand Duke” on the Medici bolstered Tuscan ambitions of expansion,54 and in 1575 Grand Duke Francesco I entrusted architect ­Bernardo Buontalenti with a revolutionary project to design an entirely new city over the grounds of the original port, according to an efficient, though somewhat artificial, urban plan.55 Its strategic position on the Tyrrhenian Sea put Livorno at an advantage vis-à-vis centers on the Adriatic, such as Venice and Ancona, because it was more convenient for ships coming into the Mediterranean from Atlantic ports to sail to the Tuscan coast rather than to circumnavigate the entire Italian peninsula.56 The Medici were determined to take advantage of this geographical opportunity. For this reason, unlike ancient and medieval towns, the Tuscan government first planned the urban unit of Livorno and only later shaped its social texture by promoting specific economic and social policies that would attract a work force and international traders.57 Because Livorno did not have a glorious past as an independent comune (city-state), as did other towns acquired by the Tuscan state in the early modern period, it was more easily molded into an emblem of the power and aspirations of the Medici administration.58 The Livornina stemmed from the same governmental will to confer a privileged status on this Tuscan city, in order to increase the state’s economic potential by creating a maritime trade center. The declaration in 1646 of the port’s neutrality and the edict in 1676 that turned Livorno into a free port reflected a similar impulse.59 The uniqueness of the port determined the city’s exceptional demo­ graphic composition and institutional structures. Unlike the rest of Tuscany, Livorno’s population was mostly made up of immigrants, including members of religious minorities that were unwelcome in the rest of Catholic Europe, alongside debtors, outlaws with a criminal past, and hopeful youth looking for brighter economic prospects. Initially, the bulk of the immigration comprised petty merchants

A Fruitful Symbiosis

and craftsmen from central Italian regions and the Tyrrhenian basin (Genoa, Corsica, and Provence). When the activity of the port took off in the course of the seventeenth century, increasing numbers of international traders from the Levant and northwestern Europe settled in the city, contributing to its diverse character.60 Foreign groups known as nazioni (lit. “nations,” a term used in its medieval meaning to refer to colonies of international merchants) handled international and internal commerce in Livorno.61 Greek, French, Flemish, British, and Armenian traders settled in the port starting from the early 1570s. These foreign groups were organized along corporate lines, although the Tuscan government did not regard them as proper political bodies. They enjoyed consular representation and, for the non-Catholics, religious toleration, and were allowed to elect their own deputies and to tax their members for the purpose of communal administration and welfare. Alongside yet separate from these foreign corporate groups, as we will see below, was the nazione ebrea, which soon became the largest and most influential ethnic-religious minority in town. Livorno’s very uniqueness was also bound to create conflicts between the city and the rest of the Grand Duchy. With the decline of Tuscany’s general economy over the course of the seventeenth century, tensions arose between the centrifugal, local forces of the port and the centralizing authority of the ruler. Given the circumstances of the city’s establishment and the state’s focused endeavors to promote its growth, the Grand Duke actively intervened in civic and economic matters when petitioned by his Livornese subjects.62 Yet, despite governmental regulations, Livorno’s economic activity partly escaped the ruler’s control. As foreign merchants forged transregional and trans­ national bonds that could bypass the state’s laws and boundaries, a flourishing contraband trade developed between the Mediterranean port and the Tuscan inland.63 The bustling nature of the free port and the vast commercial networks that converged there fostered the development of an open city and determined the transient character of Livornese society. Its colorful atmosphere struck travelers visiting Tuscany as well as authors fantasizing about it. In Montesquieu’s fictional travelogue Lettres persanes (1721), Usbek described Livorno as a “testimony to the genius of the

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The Nazione Ebrea and the Tuscan State

Grand Dukes of Tuscany, who transformed a swampy village into the most flourishing Italian city.”64 Literary accounts of Livorno’s diversity and prosperity consecrated it as a modern city in an early modern state.65 As the Medici had hoped, Jewish merchants were crucial in ensuring the port’s commercial success. By the middle of the seventeenth century, at the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), Livorno had emerged as the chief Dutch and English commercial hub in the Mediterranean and one of the most important centers for the distribution of wares from northern Europe and the American colonies to the Maghreb and the Ottoman Empire, and from the Levant to Amster­dam or London.66 Sephardi merchants based in the port acted as the chief agents of the resale of these goods in North Africa and the Levant.67 Despite the increasing prominence of Atlantic trade for world markets in the course of the eighteenth century, a high proportion of Dutch and English Mediterranean commerce continued to pass through Livorno. Moreover, the Mediterranean region never lost global relevance for the exchange of Tyrrhenian coral and Indian diamonds. Livornese Jewish firms dominated the commerce of these luxury goods, which led them to create trade networks with both Jews and non-Jews in the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, and as far away as the Indian subcontinent.68 Commerce at all levels featured prominently among the activities pursued by Livornese Jews. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, about 42 percent of the active Jewish population worked in professions related to aspects of international and local trade. This included not only actual traders, cashiers, financial intermediaries, and interpreters, but also a Jewish working class employed as storage, packing, and shipping professionals, and as porters.69 Although the vast majority of Livornese Jewry were earning low wages or living in poverty, as was the case in any sizable early modern Jewish community, the small but visible group of prosperous international merchants came to represent the commercial success of the entire community. Early nineteenth-century data also show the key role played by the Jewish community in offering a framework for productive activities, guaranteeing the welfare of its members, and providing necessary resources. About 23 percent of active Jews supplied services to the community, as petty merchants, grocers, tailors, printers, or secondhand

A Fruitful Symbiosis

clothes retailers. Another 6 percent of Livornese Jews depended directly on the community itself, from which they received a salary. This latest group included rabbis, preachers, teachers, and public health care professionals.70 Similarly to any other sizable Jewish community in Europe, a number of benevolent societies (sing. hevrah, pl. hevrot) provided Livornese Jews with social services essential for the functioning of communal life. Jewish confraternities in Livorno, as in Amsterdam, were modeled after those of the Venetian community. Among them were the confraternities known as Baale Teshuvah (Penitents), whose members took care of burial needs,71 and Malbish Arumim (Clothing the Naked), which supervised the distribution of clothes and shoes to the poor.72 The aim of the Hebra de Cazar Orfas e Donzelas (Society for Marrying Orphan Girls and Maidens), also known as Mohar ha-­ Betulot (Dowry for the Maidens), was to provide a dowry for needy girls of marriageable age.73 The community ran a public school (“Talmud Torah”), which all boys up to fourteen were required to attend lest their parents be excommunicated.74 Along with it, private studies and oratories formed the backbone of the religious life of the nazione ebrea. The communal system of collective taxation, combined with the presence of wealthy donors from the trading elite who supported academies, confraternities, and individual scholars, turned Livorno into a lively center of both Talmudic and kabbalistic studies.75 Livornese rabbis were known for their participation in European legal controversies. Among the most illustrious representatives who flourished in the Tuscan port during the eighteenth century was Joseph Ergas (1685–1730), active popularizer of kabbalistic doctrines and one of the protagonists of the anti-Sabbatean movement in the early eighteenth century.76 His disciple Malachi ha-Cohen (1700–1771), author of numerous halakhic opinions and a kabbalist in his own right, was dubbed by Heinrich Graetz, with some exaggeration, “the last rabbinic authority in Italy.”77 The art of preaching was formally cultivated in the advanced grades of the city’s Talmud Torah. Abraham Isaac Castelli (1726–89), who rose to fame for his cantorial abilities and became one of the principal preachers and rabbis of the Livornese community, obtained renown for his Spanish sermons.78 Castelli is also emblematic of the multifaceted and multilingual nature of Jewish culture in Livorno—he not only spoke Spanish and Italian, but read French, Latin, and Arabic—and of the

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interest in the broader domain on the part of Jewish scholars, to which we will return. A pious Jew, he was known as an admirer of Voltaire and the French philosophes.79 He is likely to have conversed with German playwright Lessing during the latter’s 1775 stay in Livorno, and is reputed by some to have been the original inspiration for Nathan the Wise.80 Lessing’s companion, the Prince Maximilian von B ­ raunschweig, described him as “greater than Mendelssohn,” and “of far purer metaphysics.”81 Castelli’s dual knowledge of Torah and Voltaire hints at shifts and tensions in the intellectual sensibilities of educated Livornese Jews as Enlightenment texts made their way into Tuscany.

A Sephardi Community in a Tuscan Key Livornese Jews were not considered foreigners. Unlike any of the other nazioni that resided in Livorno, the Tuscan authorities legally recognized the nazione ebrea as a “subject nation” because of its economic merits, a status that granted it semi-independent jurisdiction. Under this definition, Livornese Jews were officially recognized as Tuscan subjects, and the community enjoyed the right to organize itself as a political body, autonomous yet dependent on the government of the city.82 Because of such a configuration, the nazione ebrea’s relationship with the Tuscan state was particularly strong.83 This connection lies at the heart of the political and institutional development of Livornese Jewry and sets it apart from other early modern Sephardi communities. Whereas Livornese Jewry had initially depended on the nearby Portuguese community of Pisa for administrative purposes, by 1597 the Grand Duke granted a small oligarchy of twelve Sephardi merchant families (known as the “Government of the Twelve”) the right to select five lay leaders (parnasim, or massari) from their midst. The massari were to be accountable directly to the governor of Livorno, who was the Grand Duke’s representative in the port city, and to the Grand Duke himself.84 Over time, the Jewish community’s governing structures were integrated into the bureaucratic machinery of the Grand Duchy and the lay council (governo) supervising Jewish communal administration turned into an instrument of control in the broader administrative plans of the Tuscan state.

A Fruitful Symbiosis

Such tight interconnection between the governance structures of the nazione ebrea and the Tuscan administration distinguishes Livorno from contemporary Sephardi centers. In both Amsterdam and London, the Jewish community was considered a voluntary religious association, not a semiautonomous political body. No comprehensive edict similar to the Livornina was issued in early modern Holland and England, where a set of laws pertaining to the Jews as a distinct legal category never developed. In the Dutch capital, Jewish communal autonomy was restricted to the administration of internal affairs and religious discipline. Dutch Jews abided by the laws of the States of Holland and the city of Amsterdam, which legislated on issues pertaining to them on an ad hoc basis applying a “mixture of explicit restrictions and implicit freedoms,” in the words of Daniel Swetschinski, in response to pragmatic demands.85 In England, Jewish residence was not sanctioned with an official edict of readmission either. The early modern community grew organically out of informal guarantees given by Oliver Cromwell to Sephardi merchants and it was based on piecemeal judicial rulings. Jewish legal status was particularly ill defined in England until the nineteenth century.86 Together with its semiautonomous status, the extensive juridical self-sufficiency of the nazione ebrea further set Livorno apart from comparable Sephardi communities.87 The Livornese massari held both judicial and representative roles. As judges, they were to adjudicate in accord with merchant law, common law, or Jewish law, depending on the case.88 Rabbis only acted as “legal consultants” and religious guides in Livorno; the right to excommunicate individuals from the community (herem) was also in the hands of the lay leaders.89 As representatives of the nazione ebrea, the massari maintained contact with the Tuscan authorities and carried out negotiations with the governor of Livorno, the Grand Duke, and his ministers, on behalf of the community.90 In comparison, the Amsterdam Jewish lay leaders did not hold autonomous juridical powers, although they were responsible for the conduct of the community’s members before the municipal and central governments. They too held the power of excommunication, which they used (more frequently than the Livornese massari) to ensure communal “orthodoxy.”91 The English situation was even more radically different from that of Livorno, since Jews were not required

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to belong to a communal organization and Jewish leaders lacked any means of coercion and discipline.92 In 1614, the Livornese massari acquired another key function, when the Tuscan government invested them with the authority to vote foreign Jews into the community and to grant Jewish immigrants legal recognition as Tuscan subjects. This process, known as ballottazione, was necessary to be admitted to the privileges of the Livornina.93 As a result of the ballottazione system, the Jewish population of the Tuscan port increased exponentially in the first half of the seventeenth century, growing from 134 individuals in 1601 to 1,250 in 1645.94 Thanks to its continuous growth, by the mid-eighteenth century Livorno became the second largest Jewish community in western Europe, after Amsterdam, numbering almost forty-five hundred souls by the Napoleonic period.95 The port counted a percentage of Jewish inhabitants (9–12 percent of the entire population) perhaps unequaled in any other urban center in western Europe throughout the early modern period. To appreciate this data, it is sufficient to consider that the percentage of Jews living in New York City at the start of the twenty-first century was approximately 13 percent of the entire population in the five boroughs.96 Undergoing ballottazione was also necessary to become eligible for any public office within the lay Jewish council. The number of families admitted into the leadership of the Jewish community increased slowly, but significantly. From the initial twelve family heads, the assembly grew to sixty members in 1693 (this was known as “Government of the Sixty”).97 Initially composed of Iberian and Levantine Sephardim, over time the community absorbed a steady flow of immigrants from other Italian centers, as well as from North Africa. However, despite this influx of Italian and North African Jews, an oligarchy of traders of ­Iberian descent continued to rule the community. Italian Jews were not admitted to the nazione ebrea’s public offices until Grand Duke Cosimo III de’ Medici (r. 1670–1723) radically reformed the community’s administration in 1715; even after this date their access to communal positions remained minimal.98 Through his reform of 1715, Cosimo III advocated for himself the right to select the lay leaders of the Jewish community, as well as other governing figures, from a list of designated names submitted by the

A Fruitful Symbiosis

Jewish council. Twice a year, the names of the proposed massari, drawn at random from a bag filled with the names of eligible candidates, were submitted to the Grand Duke, who confirmed two or three.99 The reform greatly consolidated the power and security of the Government of the Sixty by turning the office of Jewish governor into a hereditary position that was valid for three generations and subject to renewal by the Grand Duke. This move further tied the government of the nazione ebrea to the figure of the Grand Duke and to Tuscan politics, strengthening the interconnection between Tuscan and Jewish administration. The decision, stemming from the hope that stable Jewish governance would foster the commercial potential of the port, benefited the Sephardi oligarchy and ensured a protracted status quo, which laid the foundation for a convergence of political goals shared by both the Grand Duchy and the Sephardi ruling class.100 The demographic composition of the Livornese Jewish community shifted more dramatically in the course of the eighteenth century. By the early nineteenth century, waves of Jewish emigration to North Africa and the Levant, and of immigration by North African and Italian Jews, had transformed the originally Spanish and Portuguese community into a “pluralistic” group, with an Italian majority (38 percent of the families), a slightly smaller Iberian subgroup (35 percent), and a North African presence (11 percent), which despite its small size was quite extraordinary in Italy.101 Ashkenazim and other Jews of unidentified descent made up for approximately 16 percent of the community. By 1790, the composition of Livornese Jewry had grown similar to that of Rome and Venice, which were characterized by their distinct Ashkenazi, Italian, and Sephardi groups. Unlike Rome and Venice, the Se­ phardi enclave retained political preeminence in Livorno, as well as firm control over the rituals carried out in the sole synagogue of the port and over the languages of preaching,102 teaching, and legislation.103 The official deliberations of the governo, together with the records of the tribunale dei massari, were kept in a mix of Spanish and Portuguese. This Iberian hybrid was the linguistic signature of the Livornese Sephardi oligarchy. Only in 1787 did the Tuscan state order that the records and pronouncements of the Jewish court be kept in Italian. Still, the persistence of Iberian languages in communal documents and devotional literature constituted only one side the multifaceted

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culture of eighteenth-century Livornese Jews. Hebrew was the language of synagogue ritual and legal erudition, mastered by rabbis and cantors, but less common among the mercantile classes and the masses. Both the Jewish elites and the lower classes spoke Italian vernaculars on a daily basis, while educated Livornese Jews were at home in high Italian and French culture. The complex demographic composition of Livornese Jewry, and the relative similarity between Spanish and Italian, certainly contributed to the multilingualism and cultural heterogeneity of the nazione ebrea. In this respect, the upper echelons of the Livornese community appear more similar to English than to Dutch Jews. While elites in all Sephardi societies aspired to emulate the habits of the local nobility, different communities expressed this ideal in distinct ways. In seventeenth-century Amsterdam, Sephardi Jews kept separate from the Calvinist Dutch elites by cultivating elements of hidalguìsmo (Spanish gentility) and consciously perpetuating Iberian social and intellectual traditions.104 Castilian was the literary language among Amsterdam Jews, while Portuguese continued to be the language of everyday life.105 The London Sephardim, conversely, aspired to blend in with English aristocracy, not only by acquiring the trappings of gentility, but also by erasing evident ethnic markers such as linguistic distinction. In eighteenth-century Livorno (where a patrician class never developed), prosperous Jews like the Aghibs showed themselves to be refined Tuscans by embracing the latest Italian, rather than Iberian, cultural fashions. The presence of Italian literary and artistic influences became stronger from the 1730s. The savant Joseph Attias, to whom we will turn in the next two chapters, praised classical Italian literary forms, while criticizing the literature of the Spanish Golden Age.106 Around the middle of the eighteenth century, synagogue epigraphs began to be written in Latin, following the custom on Livornese Christian monuments, rather than in Spanish.107 In their ephemeral Hebrew poems and riddles, composed on the occasion of friends’ and colleagues’ weddings and other life-cycle celebrations, Livornese Jewish authors drew from the pastoral tropes rendered famous by the Arcadia, a literary movement, opposed to Baroque redundancy, that aimed to return Italian poetry to pure, classical beauty. Lavish volumes of Jewish epithalamia included not only Hebrew but also Italian compositions adhering to the same

A Fruitful Symbiosis

conventions.108 The death of Grand Duke Francis Stephen of Lorraine was eulogized by Jewish poets with homages in Hebrew and Italian.109 This familiarity with Italian was not limited to the elites. All segments of the nazione ebrea attended Italian comedies in the theaters of Livorno. Criminal records reveal that Jews spoke Italian with non-Jews on the street, in taverns, and in the domestic realm. The Jewish lower classes, whose members often originated from the neighboring Papal States, must have used Tuscan and other central-Italian dialects in their daily interactions with gentiles.110 Despite the differences outlined above, the Livornese community shared important traits of development with other Western Sephardi centers. Similarly to Portuguese Jews who settled on the Atlantic seaboard, Livornese Jews maintained vibrant avenues of exchange with other Sephardi communities. Although members of the nazione ebrea lived most of the time in the Tuscan port city, they were linked to transnational networks that traversed a variety of geopolitical and cultural lines.111 Because of its Mediterranean location, moreover, Livornese Jewry was connected through diasporic networks to both the Western and the Eastern Sephardi world. The relations between Livornese Jews and Sephardi Amsterdam, as with Jewish centers in North Africa such as Tunis and Algiers, and with Ottoman communities, were not purely commercial.112 These hubs were linked through growing systems of cultural exchange, embodied in the circulation of people—such as itinerant rabbis, educators, and fundraisers for the Jewish settlements and academies in Palestine—and of ideas, in the form of correspondence and printed matter.113 Livornese scholars exemplify the peripatetic life that many Sephardi rabbis led during this time. Raphael Meldola (1685–1748), author of the collection of legal responsa Mayim rabim (Amsterdam, 1737), moved from Livorno to Pisa, then to Bayonne, and finally back to his hometown. Another itinerant rabbi who elected Livorno as his home was Hayim Joseph David Azulai (1724–1806), as famous for his fund-raising travels in the Jewish diaspora as for his bibliophile interests that took him to the Royal Library in Paris.114 Throughout the eighteenth century, Livornese Jews continued to affirm complex bonds of allegiance with other Sephardi centers, all the while jealously preserving their status as privileged members of a Tuscan corporate minority. Although the community retained a strong

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“cosmopolitan” vocation, Tuscan elements informed Jewish political and cultural life, thanks to the tight bond between the state and the nazione ebrea. Such tension between rootedness and diasporic ties was a key feature of the Livornese Jewish experience.

Tuscan Reforms and Enlightenment Culture As Francesca Trivellato has remarked, the generous privileges enjoyed by early modern Livornese Jews did not overturn the principles that shaped interactions between Jews and gentiles, which resembled those of other Catholic countries where Jews resided.115 Livornese society, however, was not static. True, existing boundaries between national communities ensured the relatively peaceful cohabitation of the different ethnic groups settled in Livorno, and created the stable conditions necessary for the productive success of many Livornese Jews.116 Yet, while state and local authorities, as well as the leaders of ethnicreligious minorities, closely watched and maintained such boundaries, men and women from diverse social classes routinely crossed them. Similarly to other Italian cities, in Livorno Jews and gentiles socialized and worked together, entertained intellectual discussions, and even had sex together, despite repeated fulminations and edicts against such dangerous promiscuity, which was considered a crime all over Christian Europe.117 This de facto border crossing at the individual level, a generalized feature of early modern Jewish life in Italy, and the relative acculturation of Livornese Jews, did not break down the engrained sociocultural structures that kept national groups separate. For most individuals, communal boundaries continued to define opportunities and assumptions about the world they lived in.118 Still, when new ideas of toleration and inclusion started circulating, the horizon of social and cultural expectations for some Livornese Jews began to shift and new strategies of cultural participation emerged. In the course of the eighteenth century, some members of the ­nazione ebrea became increasingly attuned to European intellectual politics, absorbing Enlightenment ideas and exploring innovative cultural practices. In order to better understand what it meant for Livornese Jews to engage with Enlightenment thought and the values of the re-

A Fruitful Symbiosis

forming Tuscan state, it is necessary to account for the specificities of the Illuminismo, as the Enlightenment was known in Italy.119 The Italian urge to transform society with the help of reason presents traits different from those of other national Enlightenment configurations. If the French Enlightenment of the philosophes was characterized by radical, anticlerical ideals and the encyclopedic tradition, the Scottish was thoroughly empirical and pragmatic, and the Prussian influenced by metaphysical and historicist questions, the Italian Enlightenment was eminently driven by goals of societal reform and transformation.120 Franco Venturi, the father of Italian Enlightenment studies, argued that eighteenth-century Italian culture and politics were characterized by a “will to reform,” particularly during the peaceful decades that followed the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48).121 For Venturi, the Illuminismo was primarily a civil enterprise with urgent reformist ambitions.122 While Venturi emphasized the role of ideas and of “intellectuals” as champions of enlightened reform, more recent studies have focused on government ministers and officials, animated by practical urges.123 The protagonists of these efforts were enlightened princes and their political advisors, scientists, and educators who believed they could modernize and rationalize the state and society. In Tuscany, one of the Italian states most closely associated with Enlightenment-­ inspired policies,124 this tradition is connected to the Florentine government and its ministers between 1737 and 1790, under the rule of Grand Dukes Francis Stephen of Lorraine (r. 1737–65) and Peter Leopold of Hapsburg-Lorraine (r. 1765–90).125 For centuries, Tuscany had constituted a central reference point for the development of European and Italian culture at large. During the eighteenth century, a time many historians consider of decline for Italy as a whole, the Tuscan state remained part of the avant-garde of European culture and politics.126 After the extinction of the Medici house in 1737, the Lorraine dynasty embarked on a series of reforms, which were meant to rationalize Tuscany’s legal and administrative spheres and to enhance agricultural productivity, according to physiocratic and liberal ideas, while reducing the traditional prerogatives of Tuscan corporate groups.127 Particularly under the rule of Peter Leopold, the third son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and Francis Stephen of Lorraine, Tuscany emerged as one of the most successful examples of a Euro-

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pean reforming state.128 The Grand Duke, along with some of his key Tuscan and Austrian advisers, was personally affected by Enlightenment ideas and writings. As a model of an enlightened ruler, he garnered the praises of European thinkers. Mirabeau, who dedicated his Les économiques (Amsterdam, 1769) to him, dubbed Peter Leo­pold as the “Salomon du Midi” (Solomon of the South), a “prince-­shepherd who considers his State as his patrimony and his subjects as a family assigned to his care.”129 In the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the “will to reform” was expressed in discussions over the most urgent problems concerning the administration of the state and its finances. It additionally fostered changes to the justice system, the university system, and public health structures. The relationship between state and Church also came under scrutiny, and the imposition of state control over printing significantly diminished, and ultimately abrogated, ecclesiastical censorship. 130 A large part of the intellectual debate concerning reforms remained within the closed rooms of ministerial cabinets in Florence, but notions of reform also entered the broader domain as governmental memoranda percolated into the public sphere through journals and other forums of sociability.131 Despite its peripheral position, Livorno itself stimulated the distribution of Enlightenment thought in the rest of Tuscany and beyond, thanks to the web of networks that converged on it. Periodicals printed in the port were receptive to trends in British, French, and North American culture.132 The proximity of the University of Pisa, which preserved the legacy of the scientific Galilean tradition, facilitated the development of fruitful relationships between some of its professors and Livornese scholars in the port’s relatively tolerant atmosphere. Opinions that might have elicited censorship or political opposition in the rest of the Grand Duchy and its more conservative academic structures were voiced in Livorno, where the government approved of the publication of innovative or radical works, such as Cesare Beccaria’s Dei delitti e delle pene (On Crimes and Punishments; 1764),133 and the second Italian translation of the Encyclopédie (1770–78).134 The reformist will of the Lorraine house did not spare Livorno itself, as the exceptional status of the port and its inhabitants came under critical examination.135 When the new rulers replaced the Medici

A Fruitful Symbiosis

family, whose mercantilist policies had informed the development of the port, they subjected the legacy of Medici government to sharp criticism. Livorno’s alterity in the broader Tuscan arena, its eminently commercial nature in a region primarily devoted to agriculture, and the special privileges of its corporate groups, all came to be associated with the decadence of the Medici and the perceived failure of their economic aspirations.136 As a countermove, the reforming policies promoted by Francis Stephen and Peter Leopold strove to incorporate the port and its now fully developed city into the broader context of the Grand Duchy, in an attempt to apply homogeneous policies to the entire state and gradually curb particularistic interests.137 Regardless of the general direction of Lorraine and Hapsburg policies, Livorno’s exceptional nature did not diminish. Its population remained diverse, while the freedoms granted to the nazione ebrea were never abolished, but routinely confirmed. As soon as the Prince of Craon, appointed regent by Francis Stephen, who ruled from Vienna through a web of ministers and advisers, took possession of the Grand Duchy in July 1737, he wrote the governor of Livorno reiterating his commitment to foster commerce and to protect all his subjects without distinctions, reaffirming all privileges granted by the Livornina.138 After Francis Stephen’s death, the Livornina was once again confirmed. When Peter Leopold arrived in Florence in 1765, reestablishing the court in the Tuscan capital after eighteen years, he started a comprehensive project to reorganize the state, simplifying and dismantling corporate liberties in the rest of the Grand Duchy. Still, he endeavored to accommodate specific Livornese privileges to the principles of a free-market economy that his government propounded.139 He complemented attempts to turn Livorno into a center for the export of Tuscan grain with initiatives to confirm its status of neutrality and to strengthen commercial networks with North Africa and the Levant.140 While the Grand Duke sought to limit the prerogatives of specific categories (Jewish printers and coffeehouse managers were among those affected, as were members of other professional groups), he opted to maintain the corporate nature of the Jewish community intact over time. Nonetheless, several of the policies promoted by Peter Leopold between 1767 and 1789 touched Jewish life directly and are reflected in modifications to the regulations that governed the nazione ebrea. The

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reformist vocation of the Tuscan state thus provides a vantage point to study the ways in which Livornese Jews, embedded in an ostensibly tolerant society while being part of complex multicultural and multiethnic networks, were impacted by and engaged with Enlightenment policies. Through an investigation of specific traits of the Tuscan Enlightenment it is also possible to scrutinize Jewish participation in and contribution to the broader intellectual sphere. Lamentations bemoaning the decline of Italian letters vis-à-vis French production, which abounded in the early decades of the eighteenth century, combined with undying pride in the enduring tradition of Tuscan scientific excellence, gradually gave way to a mature movement pragmatically and optimistically focused on improving the human condition. As we will see in the following chapters, members of the Jewish mercantile and medical intelligentsia took advantage of the cultural ferment of ­eighteenth-century Tuscany in its various forms, and attempted to contribute to it. Their ambitions presented them and Livornese society with unexpected challenges.

Two  Balancing Acts The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

Italian Jewish culture in the early modern period was permeated by an ideal often referred to as the “rabbi-poet-doctor” model, first identified by Meir Benayahu. Jewish scholars were praised for their halakhic expertise, their ease with both Hebrew and Italian literature, and their skills in modern science and medicine.1 Rabbis such as the Anconabased Samson Morpurgo (1681–1740), Shabbetai Marini (d. 1762) from Padua, and the Ferrarese Isaac Lampronti (1679–1756) embodied this model over the course of the eighteenth century. Its roots lay in the rationalistic, Maimonidean tradition of cultural integration, widespread in Italian and Sephardi communities, hinging on the notion that Jewish scholars could harmonize Torah with external knowledge. Jews could, and indeed should, pursue “the sciences of the gentiles” within a framework in which Jewish traditions remained superior, because all knowledge was understood to be ultimately part of Torah. This ideal was in full display in Livorno. Eighteenth-century Livornese authorities published halakhic works and contributed to the wider rabbinic community thanks to their responsa and approbations (haskamot). Their literary output also included Hebrew and Italian occasional poems composed for Jewish literary gatherings in honor of weddings and other celebrations. When the Spanish infante Don Carlos visited Livorno in 1732 with Gian Gastone de’ Medici, the m ­ assari commissioned Rabbi Immanuel Hay Ricchi (d. 1743), renowned kabbalist, to compose a poetic homage for both rulers.2 Abraham Isaac Castelli, accomplished preacher and rabbi, was a prolific poet who explored all Hebrew forms.3 Moses Aharon Piazza (d. 1808), a communal teacher and preacher well-read in Greek and Latin literature, left a rich legacy of Italian and Hebrew poems.4 Among the Livornese

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doctors, members of the Bondì family, all university graduates, stood out not only for their expertise but also for their poetic efforts.5 But over the course of the century, other cultural models also emerged, primarily among the exponents of the Livornese Jewish lay elite. These models offered a significant alternative to the “rabbi-poetdoctor” trope, and in turn they led to greater compartmentalization of external knowledge from Torah studies. As material prosperity increased for prominent families, those who could afford to do so avidly consumed. By midcentury, the wealthy merchant Gabriel de Medina owned a collection of “ancient sculptures, statues, and paintings.”6 Another member of the same family, Isaac Hayim, commissioned his and his wife’s portraits around 1769.7 At the wedding of Jacob Aghib in 1770, the festivities culminated with a musical performance that included a cantata composed by Orazio Mei (1731–88), maestro di cappella at Livorno Cathedral, and concerts executed by Pietro Nardini (1722–93), a violinist admired by Mozart.8 Still, with the universalistic spirit of the Enlightenment beckoning, consumption was hardly enough for those members of the nazione ebrea who yearned to contribute to the broader culture of their times. A small but significant number of Livornese Jews—Joseph Attias, Angelo de Soria, Joseph Vita Castelli, and Graziadio Bondì—participated in knowledge production, not as “Jews,” but in their capacity as educated men of letters or scientists. Although they possessed a degree of rabbinic education and lived observant Jewish lives, some of them serving the Jewish community in a variety of leadership and charitable roles, Jewish tradition did not always provide the main, guiding framework for their intellectual output. Optimistically, if perhaps naïvely, they believed that the happy circumstances of the eighteenth century, combined with their long-standing privileges rooted in the Livornina, could allow them to fully partake in the surrounding culture, while remaining active members of the organized nazione ebrea. The figure of Joseph Attias (1672–1739), who aspired to take part as a peer in the eminently non-Jewish Republic of Letters, illuminates opportunities and challenges of Jewish scholars eager to participate in outside culture and the compromises they came to terms with. Attias exemplifies trends that are not only relevant for eighteenth-century Livorno, but that also foreshadow later Jewish cultural phenomena.

The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

His social role and intellectual import differed from the classic Italian “rabbi-poet-doctor” model. Although never formally trained as a physician, Attias was skilled in the most recent trends of modern science, Hebraic studies, and Italian letters. He was well-traveled, having visited during his youth not only various Italian capitals but also Paris. Unlike the rabbi-cum-physician of the ghetto age, Attias was an “unencumbered” scholar who did not depend on a salary from the community or from a patron. He did not go down in the annals of Jewish history as a halakhist. In fact, he seemed eager to develop cultural relations primarily within non-Jewish society, and to absorb the cultural mores of it. By investigating Attias’s position at the intersection of Jewish and non-Jewish worlds, this chapter explores the kind of balancing acts required of a Jewish scholar who was predominantly active among nonJews. Attias’s role as an intermediary and the intellectual relationships he forged in the non-Jewish world are central themes in my analysis, as is the role of his library as a site of cultural contact and controversy at a time of delicate political renewal in Tuscany. In the non-Jewish cultural arena, Attias aimed to present himself neutrally, distancing his scholarly persona from conventional depictions of Jewishness. The areas of Jewish culture that he did choose to represent to the outside world were primarily his legal expertise and political role on behalf of the nazione ebrea. External forces continued to reinforce Attias’s Jewishness, however, despite his desire to serve the wider Republic of Letters as an unmarked intermediary. His individual experience anticipates the strategies followed by later Livornese Jewish lay scholars and leaders who participated in non-Jewish culture, the opportunities they could seize, and the restrictions and limitations they faced.

Joseph Filalete Attias: A Different Jew? In June 1725, Georg Christopher Martini, a traveler and painter from Saxony, encountered Joseph Attias in Livorno. “Among the Jews [of the city] there is a man of quality, very learned and of abundant experience, called Attias. He is an expert in all sciences, owns a precious library of modern books, some of which he lent to me so I could read

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them, and he treated me with much courtesy,” Martini wrote in his diary. The traveler was struck by how little Attias’s home looked “Jewish” to him: “The first time I called on him, it did not seem to me that I was visiting the house of a Jew,” he commented, describing Attias’s apartments as “not ugly in the least” and noting that “the ceiling of a big room was frescoed.” Martini was impressed by his host’s musical prowess (“from time to time, he would hold a musical gathering, where he plays the harpsichord very well, as well as other musical instruments”), and the fact that he did not work as a merchant, unlike most privileged Jews, either in Livorno or central Europe, but rather lived “off his revenues and capitals.”9 Some of the elements that struck Martini as “un-Jewish” can be explained by considering the lifestyle of Italian and Western Sephardi Jews, more comfortable with the surrounding gentile culture, in contrast to the more conservative and often poorer Ashkenazi Jews of central Europe. When the Italian maskil Elia Morpurgo (1740–1830) visited the Viennese court, minister Count Stampfer could hardly believe that he was Jewish, because of his appearance and culture.10 Martini, a Saxon, may have known Ashkenazi, but not Sephardi or Italian Jews; anti-Jewish prejudice and ignorance perhaps also colored his reaction. Other traits that Attias displayed, however, were entirely peculiar to him and a testimony to his uniqueness. Joseph Attias—Filalete (“Lover of truth”) as he liked to dub himself—was well known, not only in Livorno, but within Tuscany and the intellectual universe of the early Italian Enlightenment.11 He entertained a rich network of non-Jewish friends and connections both locally and in the wider world of Italian letters. In Livorno and Pisa, Attias was close with reformist academics who embraced the latest research methods. In Florence, he befriended antiquarians, scientists, and humanists, such as the renowned librarian of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Antonio Magliabechi (1633–1714), the influential physician Antonio Cocchi (1695–1758), and the classical scholar Antonio Maria Salvini (1653–1729).12 During the 1720s, he had epistolary exchanges with two of the most innovative exponents of Italian culture, the Modenese historian Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1672–1750),13 and the Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668–1744).14 In 1728, he conversed with Montesquieu in Florence.15 Attias enjoyed a personal relationship

The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

with the last Grand Dukes of the Medici house. Cosimo III (1642– 1723) rewarded him with a honorary doctoral title at a time when Jews could not attend the University of Pisa.16 Gian Gastone (1671–1737) occasionally took him to musical and scholarly gatherings in Florence.17 In many ways, Attias was exceptional. A rare example of a Jewish scholar known primarily through non-Jewish sources and the nonJewish relations that he built, he amassed a fine library of over twelve hundred titles on natural science and philosophy, history, literature, and other secular subjects; hosted a salon in his home; and built relations with some of the greatest minds of the early eighteenth century. At the same time, his life sheds light more generally on the complex cultural universe of Livornese Jewry, as well as on mores and conventions of the eighteenth-century Republic of Letters.

A Jewish Cultural Mediator in the Non-Jewish World A wealthy Sephardi Jew from a merchant family, Joseph was born and raised in Livorno.18 Attias’s father, Abram, a Spanish New Christian, studied and practiced law in Salamanca before turning to commerce and moving to the Tuscan port. It is presumably there that he reverted to Judaism.19 The elite of Sephardi merchants was central to the commercial growth of the city, and Abram built a fortune for himself in Livorno, where his family became preeminent members of the small political oligarchy of the nazione ebrea. Joseph and his younger brother Jacob were sons of Abram’s second wife, Blanca de Mora.20 Joseph’s uneven formal schooling, which he described as “vague, irregular and interrupted,” is indicative of the education of children of Sephardi merchants, who favored Spanish culture and a training geared toward careers in commerce over in-depth Jewish studies.21 Until he was fifteen, Attias had a (“mediocre”) tutor for Hebrew and a teacher of Spanish, with whom he studied reading and writing. ­Despite his father’s juridical studies, he lamented growing up in a house where the only available books were a “lonely Latin Bible,” “a small treatise on some astronomical quadrants by Gemafrisius,”22 and “eight tomes of Spanish comedies by Lope de Vega, Calderon, Montalbàn, Solìs, Salazar, and other dramatists of extremely dissolute poetry, who mixed

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tragedy and comedy and moreover were not familiar with Greek literature.”23 His father did not own Hebrew books. Only in 1687, when marriage with the wealthy Rachel Attias, daughter of his older half-brother Moses, gave Joseph financial independence, was he able to pursue his scholarly passion.24 After investing his wife’s dowry, he hired a “teacher of Latin and a rabbi who had perfect mastery of the Hebrew Bible and Hebrew grammar.” He read Latin authors daily (“yet in very poor editions, because the country was much more backward then”), while acquiring Hebrew texts. Attias recalled hiding his early book purchases outside his house and away from the gaze of his father, who disapproved of his bibliophilia.25 These initial timid acquisitions were the seeds of the large library he would put together throughout the rest of his life. Eager for conversations, Attias used his book collection to attract learned foreigners and friends to his place for erudite exchanges. Although Joseph spent his adult life devoted to different areas of study, the meaningful relationships that he built significantly tempered his isolation. Early accounts of Attias’s learning agree on his centrality as an intellectual figure in the scholarly world of the early eighteenth century.26 Attias, however, never published anything, whether in Italian, Spanish, or Hebrew; nor did he leave a body of writings for posterity except for his correspondence.27 The fact that a man universally recognized as a great scholar never wrote anything substantial or felt the urge to publish may seem peculiar in a period increasingly consumed with publication, aptly dubbed “the age of the author.”28 But at a time of heightened concern for authorship, Attias represented a different and equally valid model of the scholar. Programmatically and self-consciously, he was an avid reader, not a writer. In the scholarly world, he was a mediator devoted to the ideals of sociability and civility that defined the learned community of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In her exploration of behaviors and relationships within the Republic of Letters, Anne Goldgar has shown that its citizens were remembered because of their acts, rather than for their published works. Much of the eulogistic literature memorializing deceased scholars emphasized their intellectual generosity, collegiality, and mutual support. This emphasis strengthened a scholarly value system based on social interaction, rather than on actual learned output, and helped build

The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

community.29 Some scholars could thus gain fame and high repute despite their poor publishing or writing record, or in the absence of brilliant scholarship and research, if they devoted their life to further the learning of others. Attias’s acquaintance Antonio Magliabechi was a case in point. Magliabechi, dubbed by Jean Mabillon “a walking museum and living library,” achieved international renown as a scholar without publishing a single word. Still, the Tuscan librarian fulfilled one of the main duties of citizenship in the Republic of Letters through his good offices, namely cooperation and assistance to fellow researchers.30 This was sufficient for the Bibliothèque Italique to call him after his death “an oracle in the sciences.”31 Like Magliabechi, it was Attias’s primacy and generosity as a book collector and his commitment to friendly offices, rather than his literary output, that defined his role within the scholarly collectivity. His dedication to the scholarly community gained him an enduring place in the Italian Republic of Letters. Consider the éloge that the Tuscan philosopher Giovanni Gualberto de Soria (1707–67), one of Attias’s friends, dedicated to him a few decades after his death:32 “Books and conversations were his main pleasure, and since he was provided with enough wealth, he was able to devote himself entirely to books and conversations. The most learned men were his friends, while a selected and rich library served as a most valuable replacement of their company for a good part of the day.”33 Most importantly, Attias “wanted his library to be always open to his friends.”34 The savant himself was aware of his forte within this social circle. “Even if I were able to write, I could not apply myself to such a task,” he charmingly admitted to Uberto Benvoglienti (1668–1733), a wellknown member of the oldest extant Tuscan academy at that time, the Accademia degli Intronati. His literary shortcomings were due to his “chores, occupations, and domestic duties.” Other members of the Republic of Letters who did not publish their work, such as the physician Esprit Calvet of Avignon (1728–1810), similarly blamed their lack of time.35 But for Attias, the most important justification for his lack of publications and desire to write were his friends, “the dearest thing [he had] in the world.”36 He liked to “serve and cultivate” them, and did so by acting as a scholarly intermediary, supply-

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ing valuable bibliographic information, and by opening his library to them. Livorno’s geographic location and primacy as a Mediterranean port made Attias enviably located to serve as a liaison in the commerce de lettres that connected European intellectuals across different countries and religious creeds. His mediating role illuminates the broader dynamics of an increasingly interconnected world.

A “Port Scholar” in Livorno: Literary Commerce and Commercial Networks Attias can be best described as a “port scholar.”37 Although he did not produce original work, he received and disseminated information thanks to his broad contacts, like a port trader would circulate goods.38 Similarly to the Sephardi merchants of Livorno who redistributed the wares brought to the port by British and Dutch merchants to further Mediterranean destinations, Attias circulated knowledge through his network of scholarly relations and Jewish connections. The very fact that Attias lived in a port city allowed him to rely on existing channels of distribution to further his scholarly activity, buy the books he desired, and serve as an intermediary for his learned correspondents. He was a linchpin in a network of communication that paralleled and took advantage of wellestablished local and international commercial routes in which members of the Livornese nazioni were involved. During the early modern period, exchanges of texts and scientific specimens among scholars relied primarily on the postal service and on river and sea routes. Learned information, books, and samples were sent through brokers such as booksellers, peddlers, and traders along existing commercial routes. Sebastiano Bassi, a Bolognese merchant, was one of Attias’s most trusted contacts in sending parcels and books to northern Italy. Another merchant directed from Livorno to Sicily helped Attias deliver Muratori’s letters to some of his correspondents in Palermo.39 Attias also relied on Jewish relatives and contacts in Venice and Amsterdam to guarantee safe delivery of letters and books.40 But the postal service and trustworthy intermediaries were not the only option. Personal delivery not only saved postage, but also created and strengthened scholarly bonds.41

The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

Joseph was particularly active as a scholarly go-between on behalf, and with the assistance, of English scholars. The fact that the British commercial fleet played the most important economic role in the Tuscan port facilitated his work. Prodded by his friend Benjamin Crow, minister of the Livornese British community,42 and the British consul Brinley Skinner (fl. 1722–40),43 Attias turned to Muratori to acquire a rare volume for William Wake (1657–1737), archbishop of Canterbury.44 Through his English connections in the port, he sent the Italian translation of Homer by Antonio Maria Salvini to the king of Britain himself.45 Attias’s interest in modern English culture was also facilitated. The prominent merchant George Jackson, himself a bibliophile, helped him purchase English books on occasion, some of which Joseph in turn lent to Muratori.46 The Livornese hub provided links with Protestant northern Europe of which Attias’s friends could avail themselves. The philosopher Vico, who had met Attias in Naples when they traveled in the same literary and scientific circles, sought out his help in circulating copies of his Scienza nuova (New Science) to international colleagues.47 Because of Attias’s foreign contacts, Vico was able to reach beyond Catholic circles and had copies of his New Science sent to Isaac Newton and Cambridge librarian Conyers Middleton in England, and to the Protestant theologian Jean Le Clerc in the Low Countries.48 Similarly, Antonio Magliabechi leaned on Attias to deliver a book to Gisbert Cuper (1644–1716), professor of classics and headmaster at the Athenaeum at Deventer in Holland.49 Attias did not circulate only letters and books to his correspondents, but also information he obtained from booksellers, journals, and his friends. The Livornese Donato Donati, whose bookshop functioned as a gathering place for the scholarly-minded residents of the port, kept Attias abreast of the latest publications. So did traveling booksellers, such as the Swiss Bousquet, together with scholarly periodicals, which contained abstracts and reviews of recent books.50 Attias subscribed to some of the most culturally progressive journals of the early eighteenth century, such as the Bibliothèque Choisie, edited by Le Clerc;51 the Biblio­thèque Angloise, which provided information on English literature; the Nouvelles de la République des Lettres, edited by Pierre Bayle;52 and the Giornale de’ Letterati, published in Venice

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by Apostolo Zeno.53 Through his connections to scholars in Pisa and Florence, he informed his correspondents ahead of time of publishing enterprises involving friends and acquaintances. Livorno’s strategic position as the center of thriving commercial routes and its proximity to the University of Pisa were crucial for the book trade. In early modern Europe, books were exported as sheets packed in barrels, and traveled along the main freight routes.54 Ports such as Livorno were important connecting hubs in the circulation of printed texts. Shipments of books regularly traveled from England and Amsterdam to the Tuscan port, destined to Donati’s shop or in transit to Naples and other Italian destinations.55 The fluidity of Livornese commerce also meant that books without due licenses could enter the city, not unlike contraband goods. Lamenting that “Livorno [was] a port frequented by all Nations, and all Sects, with ships continuously arriving from everywhere,” the local Inquisition was unable to stop the occasional arrival of prohibited materials. “Since it is almost impossible for the Ministers of the Prince to prevent contraband goods from being introduced into the port at times,” Pisa inquisitor Bernardi admitted in 1738, “in the same way it is extremely difficult for the Ministers of the Holy Office to avoid that, from time to time, books without due licenses and permits land there.”56 Donati himself sold prohibited volumes.57 That Attias’s collection included a large number of forbidden books is evidence of his broad contacts and intellectual appetite, and of Livorno’s importance as a center of book distribution. Several times in his correspondence, Attias modestly mentioned his “few books.” By the end of his life, the collection contained more than fifteen hundred volumes.58 The library is known thanks to a fifty-fourpage catalog in quarto (Catalogo della libreria da vendersi in Livorno), which lists 1,247 titles (many comprising multiple tomes), mostly in Latin, Italian, and French, with a number of multilingual works in Hebrew and Greek.59 Additional volumes in the collection were in E ­ nglish, alongside a handful of items in Spanish, a title in German,60 and one in Portuguese.61 The catalog was prepared after Joseph’s death in March 1739, at the behest of his younger brother Jacob, who inherited the collection and wished to sell it. The catalogers were two Christian scholars: the respected physician Giovanni Gentili and the antiquarian and

The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

book collector Abbé Bernardo Sterbini.62 In 1740, a number of Florentine booksellers appraised the value of the collection for the hefty sum of fourteen hundred pezze.63 Like other sale catalogs compiled after the collector’s passing, this list provides only an incomplete reflection of Attias’s holdings.64 His most precious books, such as his manuscripts, were not included. Hebrew books by Jewish authors were excluded altogether from the sale.65 While prudence would have dictated that the most controversial and interesting titles be omitted or listed separately for private sale, the catalog includes a great number of rare books and works put on the Index of Prohibited Books by the Roman Inquisition. The next chapter will explore in greater depth Attias’s proclivities in light of his library holdings, but a brief description of the collection is in order here to appreciate its importance and appeal as a center of scholarly sociability. Attias was renowned by his contemporaries for his expertise in biblical criticism, Oriental languages, and music, as well as his interest in the sciences, metaphysics, and history.66 His library faithfully mirrored his intellectual leanings. The largest section in the collection consisted of 270 titles on the natural sciences, physics, and medicine, including many recent seventeenth- and eighteenth-century editions on modern scientific theories and discoveries. Belletristic literature, ranging from Homer, Virgil, Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch, to a rich selection of contemporary Italian authors, amounted to 173 titles. Lexicons, grammars, and language books, useful for the study of classical, Oriental, and modern European languages, were represented by 158 titles. Next came 154 texts on historical subjects, which comprised classical antiquities, Jewish history, Church history (including forbidden volumes on Protestantism), Tuscan history, and contemporary European history. Attias’s collection included 115 items on a variety of legal fields (especially commercial law), and 104 “theological and sacred” titles, which demonstrate great interest in biblical and Hebraic studies. The library held 64 books on moral and political philosophy, 79 items on geography and travel literature, as well as journals, reviews, and bibliographies (64 titles). The catalog also listed 27 “omitted books,” missed in the initial cataloging, as well as a separate section of 40 “English books,” among which appear eight titles by the deist John Toland.67

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The number of contemporary Italian, French, and English works in the library reflects the directions of scholarly inquiry in early eighteenthcentury Italy. Tuscany’s scholars were, as in most of contemporary Italy, particularly attuned to the intellectual output of French authors. In the sciences and philosophy, English culture elicited great admiration. English works were usually known via French translation, and Attias’s ability to procure many volumes in the original made his collection especially sophisticated. The holdings reflect not only prevalent trends in broader Italian culture, but also a move away from the Iberian culture prevalent among seventeenth-century Livornese Jews. Although Attias’s mother tongue was Spanish, hardly any Iberian books appeared in the catalog.68 Joseph had no works by Spanish poets or playwrights, in marked difference with trends identified among Amsterdam’s Portuguese Jews, and in contrast to his own father’s meager library—further evidence of the progressive Tuscanization that took place within the elites of the nazione ebrea during the eighteenth century.69 Attias’s collection was the focus of one of the most interesting ­Jewish-Christian social encounters of the early Italian Enlightenment. He held it in a dedicated room in his large apartment and repeatedly called the gatherings that took place there la mia quotidiana conversazione (“my daily conversation”).70 His guests included, not only the Saxon Martini, but also learned English expatriates, booksellers, and Sardinian aristocrats. Livornese professors at the University of Pisa brought their students to the library, to see rare books and works prohibited by the Inquisition.71 Attias’s library was nothing like a rabbinic bet midrash. Rather, it was a new sociocultural space, one in which a Jewish scholar not only figuratively opened the gates of his erudition, but literally opened the doors of his own home to non-Jews. It is to Attias’s self-presentation to non-Jewish scholars that we now turn.

Attias’s Self-Presentation as a Citizen of the Republic of Letters During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, correspondence between Jews and Christians customarily revolved around theological matters or Hebrew scholarship. The French humanist Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637) communicated with Rabbi Solomon Azubi of

The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

Carpentras on questions related to the Hebrew language and the Bible.72 The Italian bibliographer Giovanni Bernardo de Rossi (1742–1831) entertained a rich epistolary exchange with Jewish informants, mostly related to the acquisition of Hebraist tomes, rare Hebrew manuscripts, and information on rabbinic culture.73 Attias’s letters to his correspondents differ from standard Jewish-Christian examples. Rather than being a vehicle for polemic and apologetic discussions, his exchanges strictly followed the scholarly conventions of erudite literary commerce. They contain information about his scholarly interests, requests or offers for books and scientific specimens, personal and literary news about common acquaintances, along with a few details about his life. Correspondence was one of the key activities in the Republic of Letters, as European scholars established complex epistolary networks for the circulation of ideas. This collective effort engaged humanists and scientists located both at the heart and the periphery of European culture, in its centers of intellectual ferment as well as in its sleepier provinces, and fostered the creation of webs of information. While this epistolary social sphere ensured the progress of scholarship, it also profoundly transformed eighteenth-century culture, and eventually legitimized a new type of scholar: one rooted in a cooperative intellectual universe, no longer wholly dependent on a patron, and actively engaged with social and political processes.74 The autobiographical letter was a subgenre within this sort of literary commerce. Like his contemporaries, Attias used letters not only to disseminate knowledge but also to construct his scholarly identity in relation to his correspondents, fashioning his own intellectual genealogy.75 Attias revealed details about his background, aspirations, and achievements in two letters composed for Muratori, one of the most respected Italian scholars of the time, in 1724 and 1733, at the very beginning and the end of his known correspondence with him. Since “life writing” was a widely accepted scholarly custom by the early eighteenth century, Attias did not have to justify his engagement with it, unlike earlier Jewish authors such as Leone Modena or Glickl of Hameln, who situated their autobiographies within a “frame of family interest.”76 Published letters by great scholars inspired imitation.77 By engaging in autobiographical writing, scholars like Attias aimed to control and protect their own cultural legacies and reputa-

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tions, and aspired to become exemplary models of learning and virtue. Still, a­ lthough he embraced prevalent conventions of scholarly self-­ presentations, as a Sephardi Jew, Attias was a highly atypical member of the Republic of Letters, a literary space that incorporated Protestant and Catholic authors but only a handful of Jews (and these mostly later in the century). Certain limitations restricted his opportunities to study and interact with other intellectuals. An investigation of which credentials he emphasized and which elements of his life he glossed over clarifies the ways in which a Jewish scholar justified and demonstrated his worth as a citizen of the Republic of Letters.78 To Muratori, Attias portrayed himself as a Jewish autodidact attracted to the world of ideas in spite of the materialistic milieu surrounding him, who had succeeded in fashioning for himself the life of a full-time scholar, respected and well connected. He positioned his younger self in conflict with the Iberian culture of his own father, a representative of the Sephardi mercantile world, and with the provincial lassitude of the port of Livorno, where “everyone is busy and immersed in their own businesses, [and] there are no conversations or literary gatherings.”79 Proud of his achievements, Attias understood himself as a man who had managed to overcome the circumstances of his upbringing and to fashion for himself a destiny different from that of most people, let alone most Jews, of his time: he had become a magnet for, and broker of, intellectual exchanges. Despite the image of equality and openness that scholars projected onto the Republic of Letters, the world of learning was imbued with the same normative values as the rest of society.80 The aristocratic ideal of scholarship was still prominent in the early eighteenth century. Obituaries noted the artisanal or mercantile origins of a scholar who had risen to fame despite the circumstances of his birth. The Bibliothèque Italique, for instance, remarked that although Magliabechi was destined to become a goldsmith by his family, he “raised himself by his talents above such a slender destiny.”81 Similarly, Attias turned his back to his fate and, out of love for learning, “resolved to abandon commerce and live isolated on [his] modest revenues.”82 Through his explicit disdain for commerce, which he associated with lack of intellectual pursuits, Attias not only adopted a scholarly convention; above all, he distanced himself from Jewish stereotypes, all

The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

the while stressing, consciously or unconsciously, his difference from other “mercantile” Jews. Trade was, after all, the most common profession within the nazione ebrea of Livorno, and the very reason for its toleration. Still, Attias had a keen sense of business. Along with his brother Jacob, he administered his property carefully and their revenues were far from modest.83 Despite his aristocratic-like disdain for traders, moreover, it was his position in bustling Livorno that allowed Joseph to enjoy the company of travelers and collect books that arrived from all over the world via the rich networks that crisscrossed through the port. Attias embraced other conventions of literary biographies in his autobiographical letters. Printed éloges, which provided models of emulation for the learned collectivity, included specific details about a scholar’s education, his university training and scientific contributions, his travels, his friends and correspondents, and his publications. As a Jew, Attias was unable to attend the University of Pisa and to become a member of scientific academies, which according to Eric Cochrane shaped eighteenth-century Tuscan culture more profoundly than formal institutional venues such as universities.84 Regardless, he mentioned informal ties to both. In Florence, Attias noted, he had studied mathematical principles from a disciple of Vincenzo Viviani (d. 1703), Galileo’s trusted student, and Aristotelian philosophy from the brother of Pascasio Giannetti, a professor at the University of Pisa.85 He overcame the practical obstacles posed by his Jewishness by conversing with Pisa professors “on their summer vacations from the University,” while in Florence he “visited the academies” and “became close friends with men of the best taste.” Remarking that he “traveled around Italy . . . and in France, where [he] met with the great men of our time,” he echoed the widespread notion that only by experiencing the world could a scholar widen his perspectives and achieve “more perfect knowledge.”86 Through his letters, Attias crafted a careful scholarly self-portrait that could not but appeal to contemporary men of letters. When discussing his study methods, he emphasized his knowledge of the “Hebrew Bible and Hebrew grammar,” rather than his rabbinic education. His cultivation of “Hebrew [and] the other Oriental languages by means of the grammatical methods of . . . Jews who lived in the

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twelfth and thirteenth century, and of the Christian Hebraists” would have been immediately understandable to Muratori.87 By emphasizing his knowledge of Hebrew in terms clear to learned Christians and by stressing his own distance from commerce, Attias represented himself as an atypical, non-Talmudic Jew, who more easily fit the norms of the broader scholarly community. We would look in vain for details about Attias’s Jewish life in his letters, to either Muratori or other correspondents. He separated his scholarly life from his private, Jewish world. This is not entirely surprising. Personal information irrelevant to a scholar’s career, for example about his wife or children, was excluded from the biographical writings that members of the Republic of Letters avidly read as sources of inspiration. As Pierre Bayle mused, “among Authors one thinks of oneself not so much as husbands, or as fathers, but as making books. The Republic of Letters does not enter into marriages, nor into births, these are things which do not serve it in any way.”88 Similarly, intimate information about his Jewish life, let alone his family, did not serve Attias in the Republic of Letters and it was almost entirely silenced. But Attias’s reticence about his Jewishness was also a strategy of self-­defense to safeguard his peculiar status within the scholarly community. On the one hand, the fact that de Soria dedicated an éloge to ­Attias suggests that he was indeed considered a rightful member of the scholarly collectivity. Alongside his erudition and generosity, Attias’s exquisite behavior surely contributed to his success. As noted by Peter Miller, the ideals of politesse and civil conversation, publicized by revered examples such as Gassendi’s Life of Peiresc (1641), contributed to democratize an older aristocratic model of excellence.89 Attias’s friends noted his courtesy. De Soria described him as “free of malice, considerate, and courteous,” qualities commonly found in exemplary lives of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century scholars, and emphasized his civility, liberality, and love of good conversation. According to Livornese librarian Giuseppe Arnoldo Mornini, he had “a beautiful way of dealing with people, knowing how to accommodate to everybody’s character: an art mastered by few, even at Court.”90 Thus, Attias’s position in the broader world of learning seems less precarious than that of comparable Jewish scholars of later periods.

The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

When Amsterdam Sephardi author Isaac de Pinto (1717–87) corresponded with Voltaire, he adopted a discernibly apologetic tone. As Adam Sutcliffe has noted, de Pinto aspired to be recognized as a philosophe in his own right. De Pinto’s obsequious tone proves both his continued admiration for Voltaire, despite Voltaire’s scathing criticism of the Jews, and his own difficult status as an “enlightened Jew.” 91 In contrast, Attias’s letters never betray more obsequiousness than we would expect from eighteenth-century epistolary norms. He did not need to justify his religious and ethnic identity, and he communicated with his Christian correspondents as an equal, on the grounds of his expertise and learning. On the other hand, the Jewishness of exceptional intellectuals was always emphasized with ambivalence in the universalist world of eighteenth-century learning. When the Scottish philosopher David Hume described de Pinto, with whom he had become close in the mid-1760s, he “ventured to call him Friend, tho’ a Jew.”92 The nonJewish correspondents of the Anglo-Jewish natural historian Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717–91) never forgot his Jewish identity and fellow members of the Royal Society considered him a “specialist on Jewish affairs.”93 Attias’s correspondents, for their part, did not bring up his Judaism in their epistolary exchanges with him—but Attias’s identity was a topic of conversation behind his back. Even one of his closest friends echoed the Saxon Martini, commenting that his qualities were extraordinary for a Jew: “I should hope that you know the virtue of this Sig. Attias,” the Livornese naturalist Diacinto Cestoni wrote Magliabechi in 1701, “who, for being a Jew, is indeed remarkable and of good judgment.”94 Thus, on the surface, Attias’s aspirations to be accepted into the community of scholars as a peer appear largely successful and it is hard to detect an evident discrepancy between his self-perception and his image in the eyes of his correspondents.95 Attias’s correspondents did not regard his Jewishness as an insurmountable barrier to his participation in the Tuscan world of learning. Yet, Jewish difference was impossible to forget even in the most enlightened circles. In fact, Attias himself was well aware of his peculiar and ambiguous status in the scholarly world. He negotiated his difference by carefully avoiding any “meddling with theological matters.” Attias resented

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being dragged into religious discussions; acquaintances that impertinently wanted to converse on religion upset him. “If you answer courteously, avoiding conflict, then you are called apathetic (and on such an important matter!),” Attias remarked to Muratori, “if you joke, you are an unbeliever, if you object, you are stubborn and obstinate.”96 For Attias, a civilized avoidance of all matters religious seemed the best strategy to protect his social status and acceptance into the community of scholarship. By keeping his “non-Jewish” learning clearly separate from his Jewish life throughout his correspondence, Attias not only followed literary conventions of the Republic of Letters, but also pursued a strategy of self-silencing that allowed him to function as a scholar, not as “a Jew,” in the learned sphere of his time.

Attias’s Jewish World: Legal Knowledge and Shtadlanut Attias participated in the Republic of Letters by way of his literary commerce and activities as a cultural mediator, which turned his library in Livorno into the focal point of a vibrant social and intellectual exchange. But what was the status of this atypical Jewish scholar within his own community? Because Attias died intestate, many details about  his commitment to the nazione ebrea are unknown, though extant evidence suggests that he continued to identify with the Jewish community and its requirements. As a member of the Livornese Sephardi oligarchy, Attias took on leadership roles when the Jewish community called on him and held political offices within the Government of the Sixty, the body from which the massari and communal deputies were selected.97 In 1714, A ­ ttias served as superintendent of the Livornese Talmud Torah, alongside the anti-Sabbatean kabbalists Joseph Ergas and Eliezer ha-­ Cohen.98 He held a range of communal offices between 1727 and 1733,99 and was elected massaro twice: first in September 1731 and again in March 1736.100 Similarly to his intermediary role within the Republic of Letters, where he facilitated scholarly exchanges and knowledge dissemination through his correspondence and book collection, Attias had the ability to mediate with the non-Jewish world and with its power structures.

The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

This ability and his legal savvy were the only two aspects of his Jewish life that Attias discussed liberally within his correspondence. Some of Attias’s political obligations entailed traveling to Florence and negotiating with the Grand Duke and his ministers. In 1726, he was in Florence together with another Livornese Jew, Jacob Saccuto, to settle some communal affairs.101 Taking advantage of his reputation and the respect he garnered before the Tuscan authorities, Attias interceded on behalf of the entire community, in the tradition of shtadlanut (intercession) common among early modern Jewish communities. Attias’s role as a lay leader is not in itself sufficient evidence that he continued living a religious Jewish life. His younger contemporary, the Bordeaux Sephardi merchant Abraham Gradis (ca. 1695–1780), maintained a prominent and highly respected role within the Jewish community even though rabbis such as Hayim Joseph David Azulai excoriated his well-known religious lassitude and nontraditional views of Judaism. Yet, Gradis’s unorthodox religious beliefs did not diminish his attachment to the Jewish community. He exploited powerful connections in high places to intercede successfully for the Sephardim of Bordeaux, gave generous gifts to the local Jewish poor, and even contributed to Jewish life in the Holy Land.102 Like Gradis, Attias could have held a range of loyalties and fulfilled multiple obligations depending on the context in which he operated. Regardless, it does not seem that his religious observance diminished. While there is no way to know how Jewishly he lived during his travels abroad or his stays in Florence, in Livorno he frequented the synagogue for prayer and ate matzah (unleavened bread) during Passover.103 His rabbinical appointment as hakham (the highest rabbinic title in Sephardi communities) in November 1733 further suggests that his relations with the non-Jewish world did not weaken his commitment to Jewish learning, and that neither the lay leadership nor the rabbinic authorities in Livorno objected to his intellectual proclivities.104 In order to receive the title of hakham, a student had to be first admitted into the most advanced course of the Livornese Talmud Torah (the so-called rosh yeshivah class), after a selection on the part of the school supervisors, who represented the mercantile and intellectual elite of the nazione ebrea. After the pupil was deemed ready by the three rabbis sitting on the Issur ve-Eter committee (the commu-

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nal body that decided what was halakhically prohibited and permitted in Livorno), the massari conferred the title, which carried legal value across the diaspora.105 Attias’s rabbinic title thus reflected his erudition, although it is not entirely clear what sort of rabbi he may have been. The loss of the records of the Livornese Talmud Torah does not permit to gauge the extent of his expertise in practical halakha (Jewish law) and who his teachers were. As there is no way of knowing the number of Hebrew works owned by Attias, much of his rabbinic interests remain in the shadow. Yet, he possessed sufficient knowledge to deserve a rabbinic appointment and perform legal duties accordingly. In the last years of his life Attias collaborated with other rabbis to pronounce judgments according to halakha. In 1735, his name appears alongside that of six other Livornese rabbis in the haskamah (official approbation) appended to a mahzor (prayerbook) for the High Holidays according to the Sephardi rite, published for the use of the Livornese nazione ebrea.106 Three years later, he participated in preparing a legal opinion when the Livornese lay leaders had requested that the rabbinic authorities render a halakhic ruling on the nomination of legal guardians to supervise the education and inheritance of orphans.107 Attias’s legal knowledge reached extensively beyond halakha. He operated as an intercessor on behalf of the nazione ebrea thanks not only to his good relations with the ruling authorities and his reputation, but also, more practically, because of his expertise in Tuscan law. Ever the autodidact, Attias claimed familiarity with civil, canon, and Roman law, as well as with statutory laws, Florentine edicts, the legal statute of Livorno, and commercial and maritime laws.108 Attias’s library catalog documents his interest in jurisprudence and corroborates his juridic prowess. When he returned to Florence on a government mission in 1728, he had the opportunity to put his own legal skills to work on behalf of the community without the help of an attorney or a solicitor. “I do this by myself,” he remarked, “so that I can avoid the nuisance of having to wait in their offices and evade the malice of butcher-like lawyers.”109 Attias not only represented the interests of the nazione ebrea in the non-Jewish world, but also his own interests in secular courts. Embroiled in a painful inheritance dispute, the scholar acted as the legal

The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

representative of his branch of the family against his older siblings born of his father’s first marriage: “Eventually I managed to acquire some peace thanks to my money and by knowing how to write up a deed or legal instrument with a more specific know-how than our inexperienced notaries,” Attias confessed to Muratori.110 Attias’s activity as a litigator opens new vistas into the legal abilities of Jews in Italy. In the early modern period, Jews were not admitted to the formal study of law. In Sephardi communities, this prohibition set Jews apart from recent immigrants of New Christian descent, many of whom had received university training in jurisprudence in the I­ berian Peninsula before moving to the Low Countries, England, or Italy where they reverted to Judaism; this was the case with Attias’s father, who had studied law in Salamanca before his arrival in Tuscany.111 Regardless of this formal prohibition, some knowledge of mercantile and maritime law was expected of Jewish merchants living in a commercial entrepôt: for instance, the court of the Livornese massari adjudicated commercial cases involving Jewish litigants according to the statutes of Livorno. Moreover, it was customary for Livornese Jews to resort to nonJewish courts in cases that involved monetary disputes and that did not need to be judged by halakha.112 This behavior was not exceptional. Early modern Jews from the Ottoman Empire to France, from Poland to the Holy Roman Empire, also brought their legal disputes before non-Jewish courts in the hope of receiving a more favorable outcome and stronger legal guarantees than the Jewish community could offer.113 In Italy, Jews normally relied on the assistance of Christian attorneys and notaries when they sought legal counsel at a municipal or state court, but Attias claimed that he could intercede on his own behalf and on behalf of the Jewish community without the customary help of a Christian lawyer. These brief remarks highlight further the intermediary role that Attias fashioned for himself at the boundary between the nazione ebrea and the outside world. His need to master a complex variety of legal systems in order to “acquire some peace” from his own legal troubles illuminates the precarious situation of many Jews in early modern societies, who had to learn how to successfully negotiate between competing and at times confusing jurisdictions.

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Popular Hostility, Accusations of Heresy, and Jurisdictional Conflicts Attias’s life does not only offer insight into the career of an exceptional cultural mediator, but also, more generally, into the persistent challenges faced by Jews living in early eighteenth-century Italy: popular hostility and ecclesiastical surveillance. Despite the considerable protection that the Tuscan government granted them, Livornese Jews were exposed to the prejudice of the Livornese Catholic lower classes. Moreover, although Attias wished to be considered as a neutral participant in the non-Jewish learned society, his unique status—his Jewishness— exposed him to particular suspicion on the part of the inquisitors, who policed society for the expression of unconventional opinions, challenges to accepted morality, and exchanges deemed inappropriate between Jews and Christians. The Catholic population of Livorno was known for its traditional piety and religious conservatism. Devout Christian commoners despised the Jews for their unbelief, all the while envying them for their privileges. When the Jewish holiday of Purim fell during Christian Lent, as a matter of routine the government offered armed protection to the Jewish neighborhood.114 The passing of the eucharist procession through the streets where Jews lived was seen as similarly dangerous and required precautionary measures.115 In the occasion of spontaneous celebrations on the part of Livornese youth, Jews could suffer personal threats and even beatings.116 In those cases, the local and central authorities quickly dispatched soldiers to protect Jewish persons and interests, or acted to obtain reparation for the offended parties.117 The Jewish elite was occasionally subjected to threats and acts of aggression as well. In spite of his wealth, education, and the ample privileges he enjoyed in Livorno, Joseph Attias was the target of an intimidatory campaign between the springs of 1726 and 1728. During carnival 1726, one Cerbioni, who rented a shop from the Attias family, followed Joseph home on his way back from the theater, asking for a large sum of money. The situation escalated dramatically at the sudden arrival of Joseph’s cousin and nephew, David and Isaac. With a knife, Cerbioni attacked David, who later died from his wounds, and hit Isaac and a Christian lance corporal who had arrived to check on the

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situation. After this violent episode, the leaders of the nazione ebrea requested protection from the Tuscan government, which responded by instituting a watch in the Jewish neighborhood. This notwithstanding, Joseph remained under constant threat by extortionists, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. In April 1728, when he disclosed his concern for his personal safety to powerful connections among the Tuscan authorities, Attias was discreetly removed from Livorno and assigned a tax-related mission in Florence.118 But for a Jew like Attias, even Florence posed some dangers. While the privileged status of Livornese Jews heightened their visibility and, as a result, their vulnerability, the conditions set by the Livornina granted them far greater security vis-à-vis ecclesiastical control. In early modern Italy, Jewish subjects, and above all those living directly under papal rule, were exposed to a thick web of inquisitorial scrutiny. The Church considered practicing Jews infidels. Accusations of blasphemy, sorcery, sexual relations with Christians, possessing prohibited books, and employing Christian domestic help were common.119 The Grand Dukes of Tuscany, however, starting with Ferdinand I de’ Medici, significantly curbed the authority of the Papal Inquisition over the ­nazione ebrea. Local Tuscan authorities closely watched the activities of the inquisitors in Livorno and Pisa and tempered their zeal. Aware that the city’s prosperity was based on the statutes of the Livornina, the Medici and their ministers delicately balanced their pragmatic commitment to the freedoms of Jews and non-Catholic minorities with their respect for the teachings of the Church. Despite the fragmentary nature of the extant sources, it appears that investigations against Livornese Jews were limited to cases of Judaizing, apostasy, and sexual relations with Christians, and trials occurred primarily in the seventeenth century.120 Unlike in Mantua, Rome, and Modena, the Pisa inquisitors rarely scrutinized Livornese Jews for blasphemy against Christianity or alleged witchcraft. Hebrew books were confiscated in the port only under exceptional circumstances.121 The fact that Attias’s opinions came under inquisitorial suspicion in Florence, rather than in Livorno, reinforces the notion that, while Jews were never entirely safe, they were safer in the Tuscan port than elsewhere in Italy. Despite its dramatic motivations, the opportunity to establish residence in Florence had fulfilled Attias’s desire to immerse himself in

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the world of learning and erudite conversations offered by the Tuscan capital. Until the early 1730s, Florence served as the main cultural center of the state. Florentine culture, expressed in a flurry of literary and linguistic research, revolved around the inspiring presence of classical scholar Antonio Maria Salvini, a dear friend of Attias.122 The Jewish savant contemplated a permanent move to the city, by “taking an airy and appropriate house to transfer [his] library,”123 but his hope never came to fruition. At the end of July 1729, Joseph left Florence in secret and moved back to Livorno. His disappearance fueled sinister rumors. According to librarian Anton Francesco Marmi, “people commonly said that this Inquisitor had him arrested at night time and taken to [the Inquisition’s] prisons.” This was not the case, Marmi soon learned. Rather, “this government let [Attias] understand that he should go back to Livorno and should not think of establishing his home here.”124 The reason for Attias’s escape was an accusation of heresy mounted against him by Father Vincenzio Conti of Bergamo, inquisitor of Florence. Rumors claimed that Joseph was in suspicion of “atheism” and “had been exiled” for spreading false doctrines.125 It is uncertain whether Attias was banned from the capital. He was not arrested by the Inquisition and did not undergo any interrogations about his alleged heretical views before returning to the safety of Livorno. More likely, he moved out of inquisitorial range of his own accord in order to avoid a possible investigation. It is tempting to speculate that his privileged relationship with the Grand Duke allowed Attias to leave a dangerous situation unscathed and seek renewed shelter in the port city. Thus, despite the precarious conditions of his departure, Attias’s sudden return to the province was not a sign of illiberal Tuscan policies.126 Rather, it serves as emphatic demonstration of the unique status that Jews enjoyed in the port. Attias’s nocturnal flight from Florence is symptomatic of the tense relation between state and Church in the last, uncertain years of the Medici rule. As noted by Luciano Allegra, policies concerning Jews were often the locus where tensions converged between competing lay and ecclesiastical powers during the slow and difficult process of modernization and secularization in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Italian states.127 Tuscany was no exception to this trend. Throughout

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most of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Medici had acquiesced to the decisions of local ecclesiastical tribunals and to the demands of the Roman Inquisition. Faint signs of change appeared around 1690, when the last Medici Grand Duke, Gian Gastone, initiated a tentative program of ecclesiastical reforms. Conflicts between inquisitorial and civil powers in Tuscany in the 1720s, exemplified by Attias’s tribulations in 1729, reflected rising political and diplomatic frictions between the state and papal Rome.128 While Gian Gastone’s policies did not initially meet with great success, they prepared the way for the deeper, more radical transformations championed by the Lorraine and Hapsburg houses.129 Another case, involving this time Attias’s library, illuminates the fast increasing tensions between secular and ecclesiastical authorities after the ascent to power of the reforming Lorraine rulers in 1737.

Attias’s Library, the Inquisition, and the House of Lorraine Ten years after Joseph Attias was involuntarily caught in the mounting power struggle between state and Church in Tuscany, this jurisdictional conflict flared up again.130 In May 1739, Attias’s library became a contentious element in the conflict between lay and ecclesiastical authorities that marked the beginning of state-driven reform in Tuscany. The failed inquisitorial attempt to scrutinize Attias’s collection further exemplifies the oscillation between benevolent protection and intolerance that Livornese Jews experienced throughout the eighteenth century. Tuscan political circumstances had changed greatly since Attias’s escape from Florence. In 1737 the heirless Gian Gastone de’ Medici had died and the House of Lorraine established power over the state through a system of ministers governing on behalf of the new Grand Duke, Francis Stephen, who remained in Vienna. From the very beginning, the Lorraine authorities embarked on a set of reforms. In the course of less than fifty years, from 1737 to 1790, state administration was unified, the judicial system simplified, and Tuscan economic legislation overhauled according to free-market principles. The Lorraine administration directed its attention early on to the relationship between state and Church. The ministers increasingly

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questioned Tuscany’s traditional submission to papal policy, which had characterized Medicean rule. One of the main fields of controversy was the autonomy of the Tuscan Inquisition, which the Lorraine house proceeded to weaken and gradually dismantle, abolishing the civil jurisdiction of the clergy and ecclesiastical censorship. 131 While Tuscany was ultimately regarded as a model of successful reforms in Italy, these changes were not achieved without struggle. The events of May 1739 exemplify the efforts of the Holy Office to retain its power in Tuscany in the face of mounting pressure on the part of the lay authorities. During an inquisitorial inquiry regarding dubious behaviors on the part of University of Pisa professors, concerns arose about teachers who allegedly went to Livorno to “discuss religious matters with a Jew.”132 The inquisitor of Pisa reported to Rome that some Livornese professors had been to the home of a Jew “with scholarly pretenses,” not to discuss religion, but rather to visit his library, “rich of beautiful and rare editions,” and on occasion brought along some of their students.133 Not only were the intellectual exchanges between this erudite Jew and Christian scholars a source of worry for Rome, but the collection was rumored to contain a number of “wicked books.” When it became clear that the Livornese scholar was none other than that very Attias suspected of “atheism” ten years previously, the Holy Office requested authorization to search his library.134 The Lorraine ministers aborted the proposed investigation. Secretary of State Giovanni Antonio Tornaquinci denied permission for the inquiry to go any further, under the recommendation of Count Emmanuel de Richecourt, a close collaborator of Francis Stephen who crucially influenced the new Grand Duke’s ecclesiastical policy. In a memorandum to the Viennese court, Tornaquinci cited the regime of liberty that characterized Livorno as the main reason for protecting Attias’s library. The Tuscan authorities expressly associated the success of the port with the toleration guaranteed by the Livornina. Count Riche­court himself had proposed to dissuade the inquisitor, as granting him access to Attias’s home “would be contrary to the freedom and privileges” of the Livornese nazioni and could jeopardize the port’s prosperity. A challenge to this profitable arrangement would not only “ruin the commerce of that port,” but also “favor the priests of

The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

Rome, as they aim to increase the commerce of Ancona and diminish that of Livorno.” “A different law [was] in effect in Livorno,” Tornaquinci insisted. Presented with such an argument, the father inquisitor “did not push his request any further.”135 Secretary of State for Ecclesiastical Affairs Giulio Rucellai agreed on the necessity to prevent ecclesiastical interference in Livorno out of similar utilitarian reasons. If the Tuscan ministers not only “let the Inquisitor act freely, as he has always desired,” but also “believed these rumors,” Rucellai claimed, “all would be lost.” Livorno used to be “only a swamp,” he continued, but “thanks to the security promised and granted in the privileges of the Free Port, it has become in less than a century one of the most important cities in Italy and the only source of income for the State.”136 Surely, Livorno was not the “only source of income” for the Tuscan state, which in fact relied primarily on agriculture. Still, Rucellai’s emphatic rhetoric betrays his pragmatic commitment to safeguard and bolster Livornese commercial prosperity by maintaining the privileged status of the port. This effort entailed protecting local Jews from unwelcome interventions on the part of the religious powers, since the nazione ebrea had grown into the port’s most active mercantile minority. Although Attias had always regarded Livorno as intellectually wanting and materialistic, it was precisely the port’s commercial importance that led the Tuscan authorities to guard his library from the Inquisition’s prying eyes. In a striking coincidence, inquisitorial concerns about Attias’s book collection were voiced on the very day of the arrest of Tommaso Crudeli (1702–45), a Tuscan poet known for his sharp anti-­Jesuit ­satyrs, who was unjustly accused of heresy based on his masonic sympathies. Crudeli’s horrific treatment at the hand of the inquisitors gained him the heroic status of a martyr for the cause of intellectual freedom.137 The Crudeli affair has been viewed as the last attempt on the part of a weakened Inquisition to rescue the tribunal’s status by mounting a highly public case against a famous man of letters reputed to be a freethinker.138 While Crudeli was arrested in Florence in the increasingly heated and divided context of May 1739, Joseph Attias’s library was spared, thanks to the “the different law in effect in Livorno.”

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The Afterlife of Joseph Attias’s Library The Pisa inquisitor did not know that Joseph Attias was no longer alive when the Holy Office threatened to investigate his library; he had passed away in March 1739. His book collection, however, remained a focal point of intellectual interest and conflict for some time after his death, a testament to the ongoing importance of this site in early eighteenth-century Tuscany. The afterlife of Attias’s library was embroiled in a legal case between his heir, his younger brother Jacob, and the two catalogers Giovanni Gentili and Bernardo Sterbini. After Joseph’s death, according to Jacob Attias, Gentili and Sterbini had expressed the desire to catalog their friend’s library “with the only goal to see and read more comfortably not only the rare books . . . , but also those numerous notes by the hand” of his brother that were to be found there.139 This very redaction became a bone of contention. Gentili and Sterbini disputed the younger Attias’s claim that their work had originated purely from the “desire to favor a common friend.” They requested an honorarium for their work. Jacob refused to pay. A prolonged court case ensued; the circumstances under which this catalog was produced emerge from accompanying documents.140 According to Gentili and Sterbini, Joseph Attias had left his collection “in very poor order and completely devoid of catalog.” Witness Giuseppe Calzabigi, who took part in the cataloging operation, affirmed that Gentili and Sterbini had reorganized Joseph Attias’s library, by “forming and separating into classes the subjects of the books.” When Jacob Attias appeared in court, he complained about the quality of Gentili’s and Sterbini’s product. The catalogers’ claim that they had reordered his brother’s chaotic collection, Jacob lamented, was preposterous, as it was altogether impossible that Joseph, whose great precision was well known to everybody, would have kept the library “messy and disorganized.” Sterbini and Gentili, rather, must have “muddled and confused the fine order” in which Attias had left his books. No judgment can be made today as to whether the two scholars in fact had “disorganized” Joseph Attias’s library or had “reorganized” it. What is clear is that our current knowledge of Attias’s collection and consequently our understanding of his intellectual leanings is based

The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias

on a catalog prepared by two Christian men of letters after his death. The inventory’s internal classifications possibly reflect cultural categories and biases that were not Attias’s, but Sterbini’s and Gentili’s. Most importantly, the circumstances under which the library catalog was prepared, through the intervention of two Christian scholars, are symbolic of the life that Attias fashioned for himself as a cultural mediator and bridge figure—both of his successes, which he achieved by virtue of his intellectual assiduity, curiosity, and personal privilege, and of the limits he faced as a Jewish scholar in the non-Jewish world of the early eighteenth century. We have so far scrutinized Attias’s position as an intermediary within the non-Jewish learned society and his strategies of discursive self-representation, along with his role as a leader within the nazione ebrea and the challenges he faced from the outside. Despite the delicate balancing acts and limitations associated with Attias’s experience, he was able to participate in the scientific and antiquarian fields of the day. His inspirations were Galilean experimental culture and the critical methods of Ludovico Antonio Muratori. We now turn to exploring the ways in which he was able to contribute to early Enlightenment Tuscan culture and how the first decades of the eighteenth century made a figure like Attias possible.

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Learned foreign travelers who visited Italy in the first half of the eighteenth century, such as Montesquieu and Charles de Brosses, focused their attention on the art and antiquarian collections, rich libraries, and archeological remains that constellated the peninsula. Contemporary contributions to the sciences and the humanities went largely overlooked, as if Italian culture had stopped producing anything of note.1 The very protagonists of the Italian intellectual world in the early eighteenth century saw themselves as living in a time of crisis, constrained by the excessive censorship of ecclesiastical authorities and by the antiquated Aristotelianism that still dominated institutional learning in Jesuit schools and many university classes. Reformist programs to infuse renewed energy into Italian culture defined the initial decades of the century. Scientists such as Celestino Galiani (1681–1753) and his circle decried the lack of freedom in philosophizing, due to prejudice and sectarianism, as the main reason for the cultural decline of Italy.2 In his De ingeniorum moderatione (1714), Ludovico Antonio Muratori proposed a list of research fields in need of renewal that spanned from civil to ecclesiastical history, art and science, and biblical exegesis.3 Despite the generalized decline felt by scholars, the intellectual debate in Italy was in reality as vibrant as in the rest of Europe. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, new philosophical and scientific ideas circulated widely. The intensity of this ferment quickly transformed the peninsula into one of the most “heavily contested philosophical and scientific arenas of the early Enlightenment,” in Jonathan Israel’s words.4 In Tuscany, the nourishing experiences of the Renaissance and the scientific flourishing of the early seventeenth century

Galilean Science, Critical Spirit, and Hebraic Studies

kept infusing life into culture. More so than in other Italian states, the Galilean tradition was never interrupted.5 Galilean empiricism offered a context in which an educated Jew like Joseph Attias could engage with the values that characterized the early phases of the Italian Enlightenment, inspiring a critical, if still vague and undefined, sense of cultural reform. Attias was conscious of current literary-political discussions concerning the state of Italian culture. With his learned contemporaries he shared a concern for its perceived decline, wishing that all of Tuscany would join him in his admiration for figures such as the humanist Antonio Maria Salvini, the naturalist Francesco Redi (1626–97), and above all Galileo Galilei (1564–1642).6 Reason and experimentation appeared to Attias as a remedy for the crisis of contemporary culture. He associated progress, in the sciences as well as in the humanities, with the notion of discriminating critical spirit, an ideal that he absorbed from the work of Muratori, his longtime correspondent, whose reformist cultural project was to become an inspiration for the mature Italian Enlightenment that flourished from the 1740s on. Muratori himself was an admirer of Galileo, and viewed the legacy of his empiricism as an inspiration for a rational, reformist approach to literary and historical studies. Attias’s cultural curiosity, ranging from science to Hebraic studies and antiquarianism, mirrored the intellectual and social milieu of early eighteenth-century Tuscany with which he interacted. His intellectual leanings shed light more broadly on the complexities of early eighteenth-century Tuscan culture, and especially on the precarious relationship between modern thought and religious concerns that characterized the initial phases of the Enlightenment in Italy. This chapter addresses Attias’s position within the Tuscan milieu and his contributions through an investigation of the Galilean legacy in A ­ ttias’s world and his engagement with Muratorian critical ­rationalism. We cannot forget, however, that Attias’s specificity as a Jew colored his experience. His cultural tactics exemplify a move away from the traditional worldview that had dominated the learned Italian Jewish world of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and point to a trend of intellectual compartmentalization. Instead of combining Torah and “sciences of the gentiles” from a Jewish perspective, Attias approached Hebraic culture from a critical perspective that echoed the

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studies of contemporary Christian Orientalists. Similarly to his selfpresentation to the Christian scholarly world, where he silenced his Jewishness, A ­ ttias pursued a form of cultural separation—especially evident when examining his Hebraic expertise—that is emblematic of the larger separation of epistemologies taking place in European culture at that time. This sets Attias apart from contemporaneous Jewish reformist scholars in Ashkenazi lands, and it anticipates modes of knowledge production that will develop in the Jewish world in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Tuscan Science in the Early Eighteenth Century: Attias and the Galilean Tradition According to Attias’s first biographer, philosopher Giovanni Gualberto de Soria, the Livornese scholar excelled in metaphysics, was adept in history, loved music, and played the harp well. The “advanced ­sciences,” however, were not at all Joseph’s strength.7 Although Attias did not have a natural predisposition for mathematics or physics, there is ample evidence of his keen interest in scientific culture, especially botany and pharmacology, as well as of his engagement with the Galilean tradition that infused energy into the early Italian Enlightenment. The selection of literary and scientific news mentioned by Attias in his correspondence, the names of scholars whom he frequented most often, and the holdings in his library, all reveal his connection with a precise circle: the Galilean school in Pisa.8 Attias was unable to formally enroll at the University of Pisa, which admitted Jewish students only starting in 1738. As a Jew, he was also unable to join one of the many literary and scientific academies that flourished in Tuscany during the eighteenth century, such as the Accademia dei Fisiocritici, whose private nature allowed their members a greater dose of intellectual freedom than university courses.9 Nonetheless, thanks to the flexible nature of scholarly relations outside of established institutions, Attias interacted with the protagonists of the survival and renaissance of the Tuscan Galilean tradition. In particular, the Livornese scholar socialized regularly with some of the key figures involved with experimental science at Pisa in the 1720s and the 1730s,

Galilean Science, Critical Spirit, and Hebraic Studies

two decades of political transition characterized by heightened intellectual fervor. Among them was his good friend the professor of astronomy Tommaso Perelli (1704–83);10 Giuseppe Averani (1662–1738),11 professor of law and member of the Royal Society of London, famous for his experiments with Boyle’s pneumatic machine;12 the aforementioned de Soria, a professor of logic and physics; Agostino Padroni (1684–1754), a professor of law; Pascasio Giannetti (1661–1742), physician and professor of philosophy; and the celebrated mathematician Luigi Guido Grandi (1671–1742).13 Attias also associated with some of the most innovative scholar-administrators of the university, such as Gaspare ­Cerati (1690–1769), an enlightened thinker who would be appointed as provveditore generale in 1733 and oversaw the reform of the university;14 and the rettore (dean) Giovanni Paolo Gualtieri (d. 1734). Grandi, Averani, and Cerati were involved between 1710 and 1718 in the publication of Galileo’s works.15 During the 1720s, the Tuscan intellectual avant-garde was intent on reviving the debate on science stifled by the reactionary policies of Cosimo III de’ Medici. Even after Galileo’s papal condemnation in 1633, the Medici had continued to patronize empirical scientific research, by supporting the foundation of the Florentine Accademia del Cimento, Europe’s first scientific academy (1657–67). The “new philosophy,” including Newtonian, Cartesian, and Gassendian ideas, was actively discussed both at the court in Florence and at the University of Pisa.16 Under the conservative rule of devout Cosimo III, however, Galileo’s legacy of intellectual freedom came under attack. In 1691, the teaching of all doctrines contrary to Aristotelianism, above all fi ­ losofia democritica ovvero degli atomi (“Democritean philosophy, that is atom­ism”), was banned. In spite of this official opposition, the Grand Duke’s repression had limited results and Pisa maintained a role as a defender of experimental methods.17 The second decade of the eighteenth century marked a renewed opening to modern philosophical and scientific currents. Between 1715 and 1716, a number of innovative mathematical-physical works were published at the initiative of Pisa faculty members. In 1717, the posthumous Italian translation of Lucretius’s De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), by Pisa professor Alessandro M ­ archetti (1633–1714), a monument to atomistic philoso-

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phy, came to light. It was thanks to this ferment that the completed works of Galileo were printed in Florence in 1718.18 Most of Attias’s Tuscan friends and acquaintances were involved in the Galilean, anti-Aristotelian, and anti-Jesuitic camp, whose fortune surged in the aftermath of Cosimo III’s death. The beginnings of modern physics at the University of Pisa in the early eighteenth century had progressed amid a cultural struggle that pitted the exponents of the old Aristotelian school against the so-called novatori, younger researchers influenced by Galilean experimentalism or Gassendian atom­ism.19 When Cosimo’s son Gian Gastone, an admirer of Leibniz and Wolff and a reputed freemason, succeeded his father in 1723, the intellectual climate became more favorable to the university’s novatori, who were permitted to discuss the new philosophical and scientific ideas that had been repressed in the previous decades. By and large, the Pisa novatori were moderate Catholic thinkers with anti-Jesuitic inclinations, committed to reconciling intellectual freedom and religious faith. But the university also harbored some radical philosophers. De Soria, for instance, appointed as reader in logic by the Grand Duke himself in 1731, and later professor of physics, taught the ideas of Spinoza and Locke in his crowded lectures.20 Attias held an ongoing scholarly conversation with this group of reformers, with whom he shared a dispassionate and discriminating approach to the sciences. An examination of the composition of his scientific network and his reading choices, his participation in experimental culture, and the deeper implications of his philosophical leanings highlights the eclectic and unsystematic nature of the early Enlightenment in Tuscany.

Attias’s Scientific Network and Shelf Attias supplemented his early education with scientific studies in Livorno, by learning arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. His more advanced scientific education, which he acquired in Florence, combined elements of the older Aristotelian models with the modern Galilean tradition. While Attias studied “Aristotelian philosophy with some new modifications from sig. [Federico] Giannetti,” brother of Pisa professor Pascasio Giannetti, his (unnamed) mathematics teacher was a student of

Galilean Science, Critical Spirit, and Hebraic Studies

Vincenzo Viviani, the disciple of Galileo who had inherited his master’s papers and devoted much effort to rehabilitating his memory.21 Attias’s mention of Viviani in his correspondence signaled the savant’s Galilean penchant. As admiration for the great Pisan grew into a quasi-religious reverence in the early eighteenth century, any self-respecting “modern” thinker could not but include Galileo’s pupil Viviani among his intellectual inspirations.22 Despite his criticism of Livorno’s uncultured materialism, Attias was able to find a fertile ground for his empirical scientific interests in his hometown. There he was close with the apothecary and botanist Diacinto Cestoni (1637–1718),23 and with the latter’s heir and successor, Marcellino Ittieri, who served as physician for the Deputazione di Sanità (Health Bureau) in the port.24 The name of Cestoni, always invoked with great fondness and affection, recurs in Attias’s letters more frequently than anybody else’s. Through Cestoni, Attias was in turn influenced by the empiricism that had characterized Francesco Redi’s work in the second half of the seventeenth century. Redi (1626–97), court physician to the Medici, was one of the first Italian scientists to apply the empirical method to biology. Through his experiments with rotten meat and maggots published in 1668, he convincingly demonstrated that life did not arise on its own from decaying matter, thus inflicting a blow to the Aristotelian theory of spontaneous generation. In the spring of 1680, during a sojourn in Livorno, Redi befriended Cestoni and started a fruitful intellectual exchange that lasted until his death. It is not clear whether Attias ever met Redi personally, yet the close friendship and lively exchanges between Redi and Cestoni left a mark on his intellectual formation:25 “Whenever we had a chance we would dabble with the examination of things natural with Cestoni and others from the school of the most illustrious sig. Francesco Redi,” Attias acknowledged.26 Attias’s specific interest in applied botany and pharmacology, reflected in his choice of intellectual companions, also reveals his predilection for Galilean experimentalism.27 In both Pisa and Florence he met with botanists, such as Michelangelo Tilli (1655–1742), the renowned director of the university’s botanical gardens (Giardino dei Semplici), whose successful experiments on exotic species Attias discusses several times in his letters;28 and Pier Antonio Micheli (1679–1737), profes-

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sor at Pisa and prefect of the botanical gardens in Florence, who is considered the father of mycology (the study of mushrooms).29 In his old age, he befriended the younger, cosmopolitan Florentine physician Antonio Cocchi, who was to become a key figure in the movement for medical reforms in Tuscany. In 1728 and 1729, Attias spent enjoyable time with Cocchi and Micheli in the botanical gardens in Florence.30 If Attias’s Galilean penchant is clear from his scientific network, the holdings in the Livornese savant’s library tell a rather complex story about the breadth of his curiosity, showcasing the variegated epistemological choices available to modern researchers. The catalog’s largest category of 270 volumes was a miscellaneous grouping titled “Filosofi, Geometri, Medici, Naturalisti, Arti.”31 Included in this section were many recent editions—the bulk of the catalog listed volumes printed after 1650. In keeping with Attias’s Galilean predilection, he owned the 1718 edition of Galileo’s complete works, as well as the prohibited Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems), the book that had precipitated his author’s accusation of heresy.32 The Novum organum, by Francis Bacon,33 was featured along with a classic text of Tuscan experimentalism—the reports on empirical observations carried out in the Accademia del Cimento 34—and numerous studies by Redi.35 The availability of such texts in Attias’s home served as an alternative to certain narrow institutional libraries of the early eighteenth century. It was at the recommendation of Attias, and possibly borrowing from his library, that young Giovanni de Soria started reading Bacon, Galileo, Redi, and the Cimento experiments after studying at the Jesuit college of Livorno, which censored the modern scientific curriculum.36 Starting from the beginning of the eighteenth century, Italian scientific circles established a link between the Galilean legacy and Newtonian theories. Despite their differences, Galileo and Newton were invoked together as champions of the progress of human reason and viewed as the twin patron saints of the new science. By the 1760s, their connection appeared as entirely natural.37 Attias’s collection includes some of the works instrumental in corroborating the notion of this ideal partnership, often published at the initiative of moderate Catholic scientists, such as Celestino Galiani. Besides writings by Newton himself,38 Attias owned numerous texts by Christian scholars influenced by

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Newtonian thought. Among them was the 1716 Florentine edition of Francis Hauksbee’s physical and mechanical experiments, a book that marked an important turn in Italian scientific culture by disseminating an apologetic interpretation of the “Newtonian universe-machine,” of great significance for Catholic reformist scientists.39 Similar concerns spurred the 1729 Italian translation of George Cheyne’s Philosophical Principles of Natural Theology, a text championing an antimaterialist Newtonian view, which Attias also owned.40 But Attias purchased far more than Newtonian and Galilean texts. He also owned works that, by pushing the Galilean separation of science from theology to its logical conclusions, shook the foundations of Christian culture. Among these was the controversial De’ corpi marini che su monti si trovano (On Marine Bodies Found on Mountains; 1721) by Antonio Vallisnieri, a study of fossils showing that the Bible’s flood could have never taken place as described in the book of Genesis.41 Attias interacted with Vallisnieri personally during the first decade of the eighteenth century, and the scientist held him in great esteem. A professor of theoretical medicine at the University of Padua, Vallisnieri was one of the most radical naturalists of his time. The two met during Vallis­nieri’s sojourn in Livorno in September 1705, through Cestoni,42 and again in 1706, during one of Attias’s trips to Venice.43 Against Newton’s view of God intervening directly in the world, Vallisnieri believed that matter unfolded itself autonomously after God’s first impact. Vincenzo Ferrone has defined his scientific contribution as a reinterpretation of the “old Libertine naturalism” in a mechanistic key.44 Vallisnieri’s text is but one example of the eclectic curiosity demonstrated by Attias in science and philosophy. Radical works, such as Toland’s Letters to Serena,45 sat close to classics of Aristotelian thought, as well as the avant-garde of European critical-scientific culture.46 On the shelves of Attias’s library, mathematical abstraction went hand in hand with sensist materialism. Next to a great number of works by Descartes,47 the catalog listed atomistic treatises, including many by Gassendi, the principal expounder of atomistic philosophy in the seventeenth century.48 Based strictly on his library holdings, Attias showed an omnivorous scientific curiosity, collecting works informed by the most varied epistemological frameworks. In fact, these heterogeneous reading choices mirrored the synchretistic predilections of contem-

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poraneous Italian science and philosophy. In the struggle against Jesuitic Aristotelianism, the front of the novatori freely incorporated elements of modern philosophical traditions ostensibly at odds with each other—Cartesian rationalism, Galilean empiricism, Newtonian principles, and Gassendian atomism.49

Attias’s Experiments In the spirit of empirical scientific observation, Attias carried out his own experiments in the fields of botany and pharmacology. Attias was never able to present his findings formally, for instance in a prolusion delivered at one of the Tuscan academies flourishing at the time, as any contemporary Christian scientist would have done. However, he was able to share his results in his correspondence with Muratori. The occasion was the Modenese historian’s request for quinine (chinachina, in eighteenth-century Italian parlance), a drug used against tertian fever or malaria. Before his death in 1718, Cestoni had supplied Muratori with the bark of the Andean plant out of which quinine was then extracted, so that the historian could distribute the drug free of charge to the poor of Modena. Once having exhausted his own supply of quinine, Muratori turned to Attias to buy an additional fifty pounds. More than once Attias remarked that he had acquired some firsthand expertise about the drug through his friendship with Cestoni.50 As one of Muratori’s main concerns was to acquire as much effective drug as possible, he asked of Attias whether larger chunks of bark possessed stronger curative powers than smaller ones. In reply, Attias offered a short treatise on the properties and virtues of different kinds of bark. He laid out his arguments in a logical progression typical of the inductive method favored by eighteenth-century scientists. Starting first with external observation, he moved to more complex botanical comparisons partly based on his readings, and finally concluded with a description of his own experiments, which corroborated his initial examination. Displaying equal commercial and scientific savvy, Attias questioned the effectiveness of larger pieces over small ones, given their price difference and the merchants’ preferences.51 He had put to test this hypothesis in the summer of 1727, during a vacation in the insalubrious Livornese countryside, near the coast, when a “terrible tertian fever”

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had struck him. Attias first tried out his pharmacological experiments on his own person, with the approval of his personal physician. After testing the veracity of his intuition about chinachina, he extended the treatment to other sick vacationers “who trusted him.” Through an equal and impartial employment of both thick and thin pieces of bark, which he demonstrated to possess exactly the same curing virtues, ­Attias was able to prove that the merchants’ predilection for large rolls of bark was due to their “aesthetic” appeal rather than their curative properties. Given the gravity of the fever and the seriousness of the symptoms, the fact that Attias’s physician let him run this experiment indicates his trust in the validity of his patient’s methods.52

Attias’s Ideas: Epicureanism and Free Thought Before Attias’s library catalog resurfaced, modern scholars speculated about his heretical sympathies and suspected him of nurturing atheistic leanings.53 Father Conti’s accusations in Florence and the inquisitorial concerns about the gatherings in his home at the time of the Crudeli affair, investigated in the previous chapter, were taken as evidence of Attias’s libertine beliefs. He was even singled out as the founder of a masonic lodge in Livorno in 1738.54 None of these speculations, however, is substantiated by sufficient evidence. Since Attias never articulated his philosophy in any systematic manner, reconstructing his worldview proves problematic. Caution is especially in order while evaluating his library holdings, which feature a majority of moderate texts alongside some of the most “dangerous” philosophical works of the early eighteenth century. Based on Attias’s biography, it is reasonable to surmise that his views were not as radical as some of the books he owned. Still, he did not shy away from discussing them with his friends in his “daily conversation.” According to Livornese bookseller Giuseppe Arnoldo Mornini, ­Attias followed “a certain philosophical way” to keep himself in good physical shape.55 A later note by doctor Giovanni Gentili, who treated Attias in his old age, sheds some light on this issue.56 Gentili, who succeeded Marcellino Ittieri at the Deputazione di Sanità of Livorno in 1737, penned a brief medical memorandum on Attias’s last illness and death in his collection of medical consilia.57 There, the Livornese physi-

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cian described his subject as “Doctor Attias, famous Jewish Livornese, man of letters and music dilettante, leading an Epicurean life.”58 The “certain philosophical way” referred to by Mornini was probably Epicureanism—but what did that mean in eighteenth-century Tuscany? The invocation of libertas philosophandi, the Galilean emphasis on experiments, the questioning of scholasticism, and a marked interest in English science played an important role in the definition of the new Tuscan culture of this period. One of the main by-products of this intellectual endeavor was the rediscovery of Epicurean philosophy, couched in terms that could be palatable to a Catholic audience and stripped of its atheistic overtones.59 This is likely to be the context for Attias’s convictions. Attias’s atomistic and Epicurean sympathies are suggested by his repeated mention of the translation of Lucretius’s De rerum natura undertaken by Alessandro Marchetti.60 Under Cosimo III, Marchetti was forbidden from teaching Galilean and Cartesian ideas, let alone atomism, and from publishing his Italian version of Lucretius’s treatise. ­Attias owned a copy of the clandestine edition published posthumously in Naples in 1717.61 Although Marchetti’s translation had circulated in manuscript, its printing marked an important turn in the dissemination of materialistic physics in Italy. Attias’s atomistic propensity is also demonstrated by his appreciation for Ralph Cudworth (1617–88), one of the Cambridge Platonists, whom he called “a man of vast erudition, and full of good morals, piety and religion.” Cudworth’s magnum opus, The True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678), was a ponderous tome of nine hundred folio sheets that contained a confutation of atheism couched as a discourse in favor of human freedom, against determinism and religious fatality. Cudworth imputed atheism to a distortion of the original atomistic theories, which he believed to have been first invented by a Sidonian thinker called Moschus, whom he identified with the biblical Moses. Although atomism had been misused as an argument in favor of atheism, Cudworth considered it perfectly tenable as an explanation of the physical world. The book, however, elicited much controversy after its publication and was eventually prohibited by the Church in 1739.62 Attias’s praise of Cudworth indicates his sympathy for moderate attempts to reconcile modern scientific outlooks with traditional

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religion. Le Clerc’s exposition of Cudworth’s theories in his Bibliothèque Choisie, which emphasized the English author’s anti-atheistic and anti-pantheistic positions, influenced Attias’s perspective on this English philosopher.63 Indeed, Le Clerc’s apologetic interpretations of ­English science, disseminated in Italian learned circles through his French periodicals, informed many of Attias’s reading choices, including his appreciation for John Locke.64 Yet, as often happened with refutations of atheism, the boundaries between reservations and insinuations, and between attacks and apologetics, were blurred by matters of interpretation. Thus, the English Cudworth featured, together with Hobbes, Bayle, and Spinoza, as a staple of the “libertine bookshelf.” The Florentine scientist and diplomat Lorenzo Magalotti (1637–1712), secretary of the Accademia del Cimento, is another case in point. His Lettere familiari contro l’ateismo (Family Letters Against Atheism), which Attias possessed, provided the reader with lengthy quotes from Hobbes, Spinoza, Bayle, and Thomas Burnet.65 While the presence in Attias’s library of books reputed dangerous by the ecclesiastical authorities is insufficient to prove heretical or libertine propensities on his part, his curiosity clearly reached beyond conventionally approved texts. Although his library did not list any of Spinoza’s works, he owned a collection of refutations of Spinoza’s system published in Brussels in 1731, which not only provided the reader with polemical material against the Dutch philosopher but also gave access to his ideas.66 Attias bought Pierre Bayle’s Dictionnaire (1697), one of the most controversial works of the early modern period, placed on the Index in 1700,67 and skeptical texts, including a 1725 French edition of Sextus Empiricus.68 He was familiar with Hobbes and Locke,69 including a French translation of the latter’s Essay on Human Understanding, prohibited in 1734.70 Among the most “dangerous” works in Attias’s library were eight books by the Anglo-Irish deist John Toland (1670–1722),71 whose materialist interpretation of Newtonian principles became an inspiration for European freethinkers and Spinozists.72 In his controversial Letters to Serena (1704), Toland presented a view of the universe as incessantly and aimlessly moving matter, which excluded God’s presence, while his Nazarenus (1718) offered a Spinozist construction of Christianity as a civic religion meant to teach morality to the common people.73 It

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is likely that the presence of a wealth of deist and Spinozist material under one roof in Attias’s home contributed to spread radical thought in Italy.74 De Soria’s Della esistenza e degli attributi di Dio (On the Existence and Attributes of God), published anonymously in 1745, relied heavily on Toland and other prohibited works that the author would have easily found together in Attias’s library. De Soria embraced a radical materialism that extolled reason “as a god” under whose light anything could be scrutinized—even the existence of God or the immortality of the soul. By stripping revelation of any a priori authority, the book posed a crucial challenge for the Catholic establishment and marked a turning point in Italian culture.75 Its conception might have been impossible without Attias’s collection.76 To conclude, Attias had Galilean, atomistic, and Epicurean tendencies, as well as a significant interest in deism. Some of the works he acquired were not listed on official booksellers’ catalogs and do not appear in other private collections.77 But these philosophical preferences do not turn him into a Jewish heretic, as a romantic reading would have it. Rather, they place him squarely amid the cultural elite of his time. As we have seen, he frequented circles of enlightened Catholic figures, who attempted to reconcile religious faith and modern experimental science, rejecting dogmatism and reactionary Catholic conformism, and did not shy away from radical readings. Although their individual philosophical positions varied significantly, these intellectuals were united by their unwavering belief in reason and observation as the keys to reach truth, and by their rejection of Aristotelianism, associated with Jesuit education. As Attias’s library holdings demonstrate, such an endeavor often took place through a philosophical syncretism in which different and conflicting traditions coexisted side by side in a heterogeneous “modern” front.78

“Good Taste”: Attias’s Critical “Jewish Hebraism” Critical spirit, empiricism, and enduring faith in the Galilean-­Newtonian worldview animated not only scientific study, but also other fields of intellectual inquiry in eighteenth-century Tuscany. After skeptical scholars influenced by extreme Cartesian doubt had denied any ability

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to reconstruct the past, historical and antiquarian studies were revived in eighteenth-century Italy, inspired by the work of Modenese moral philosopher and historian Ludovico Antonio Muratori. Muratori’s Galilean approach included the rejection of all ideas based merely on accepted authority and the application of inductive methodologies borrowed from physics and natural science, such as the careful collection and analysis of individual data to achieve general conclusions.79 Attias adopted a similar critical spirit, as well as a strong inclination for data-based philological study, in the fields of Hebrew and Jewish history. A discussion of his attitude toward kabbalistic and biblical studies shows both his rationalism and the extent to which he was influenced by recent research in textual criticism. His library holdings mirror larger trends in Christian, rather than Jewish scholarship, while his personal interactions with Christian scholars reveal another facet of Attias’s strategy of cultural compartmentalization.

Rational Antikabbalism Muratori inspired Attias’s penchant for critical precision and philological accuracy. Even in matters touching on Jewish literature, Attias was influenced by the notion of buon gusto (good taste), a concept akin to “discriminating reasoning,” which was central to the thought of the Modenese scholar and for the development of Enlightenment Italian aesthetics.80 In January 1725, two Barons from Sardinia visited Attias in Livorno. “After a long and mysterious discourse,” he wrote Muratori, “they asked me for the Key of Solomon. I proposed to disillusion them . . . and eventually persuaded them to bring back to Sardinia some copies of your golden book Reflections on Good Taste, which will cure them from this and other vulgar errors.”81 The Key of Solomon (Clavicula Salomonis) was the title of one of the most famous Renaissance grimoires, a handbook of magical recipes of spurious origin composed some time in the sixteenth century, but attributed to the biblical King Solomon.82 Prohibited by the Church, the Key of Solomon derived its alleged efficacy from its ostensible Jewish authorship and the belief in Jewish magical prowess. As Federico ­Barbierato has shown, in early modern Italy popular imagination associated Jews with witchcraft and magical practices. Already by the

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end of the sixteenth century, kabbalah and magic tended to overlap in common perception, while Hebrew was regarded as the main language of magical invocations.83 It is likely that the two Sardinian aristocrats sought to acquire this book from Attias because they believed that this great scholar, being Jewish, must have had access to books of magic. Attias’s efforts to dissuade the Sardinians exemplify the growing chasm between popular beliefs and elite culture that characterized the early Enlightenment. Among his books, for instance, was a parody of magical texts, Le Comte de Gabalis (1670), by Henri Montfaucon de Villars, which played an important role in discrediting the occult sciences at the turn of the eighteenth century.84 Attias’s suggestion of Muratori’s Riflessioni sopra il buon gusto as an enlightened therapy against the faux kabbalistic Key of Solomon further proves his rationalism. In this work on literature and historiography, published under the pseudonym of Lamindo Pritanio in 1708, Muratori envisioned a philological-critical methodology meant to rejuvenate Italian culture, inspired by Galilean experimental scientific methods.85 By denying any Jewish association with magical literature, moreover, Attias defended the respectability of Judaism: “I would like to know which kind of person might have been the impostor who invented your Key of Solomon . . . and in which epoch it might have been composed,” Attias wrote. “If it is so absurd,” he continued, “it is not worth to keep it or discuss it. Any erudite person could compose one as a joke and make it more similar to Solomon’s work, by imitating biblical idioms and dealing with really obscure and opaque matters, like the kabbalistic book Zohar.” 86 It is unclear if Attias implied that the Zohar was a forgery created by a later author, as the Venetian rabbi Leone Modena had claimed in his work Ari nohem (Roaring Lion; ca. 1639),87 or whether he invoked kabbalah as an example of “really obscure and opaque matters,” but his antikabbalistic, rationalist sentiment is evident.88 Attias’s equation of kabbalah with magical nonsense is all the more significant, as Livorno is remembered as an important center of Jewish mystical studies. The memory of the recent Sabbatean fiasco, still alive within the Livornese community in the early eighteenth century, provides a further context for Attias’s opinion. The savant’s comment on the “impostor” who might have authored the Key of Solomon resonates

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with the widespread late seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-­ century fascination with political and religious imposture, epitomized by the case of Shabbetay Zevi (1626–ca. 1676), the pretended Jewish messiah-turned-Muslim, whose brief trajectory had shaken the Jewish world while also reverberating within European culture.89 The Tuscan port of Livorno had not only been swept up in the frenzy that engulfed Jewish communities all over Europe and the Otto­ man Empire following the revelation of Zevi’s alleged messiahship in 1666, but it remained one of the centers of diffusion and circulation of clandestine Sabbatean beliefs after his apostasy to Islam. Joseph Ergas, the most famous Livornese mystic of the early eighteenth century, spent most of his life fighting against Sabbatean kabbalah, despite—or perhaps because of—his own family connections to notorious early Sabbatean believers and missionaries, such as Moses Pinheiro, the teacher of Sabbatean prophet Abraham Cardoso.90 In the wake of Zevi’s debacle, the anti-Sabbatean factions swiftly regained control and carefully destroyed documentation regarding early manifestations of Sabbatean faith within their communities. By the early eighteenth century, the fear of religious enthusiasm, seen as a threat to the rabbinic establishment, led to the growth of a stricter orthodoxy within European Judaism.91 Although Attias himself was born four years after the 1666 frenzy, he must have been aware of the enormous disappointment caused by Zevi and his heretical brand of kabbalah. He was well acquainted with both Ergas and another antiSabbatean kabbalist, Eliezer ha-Cohen, with whom he shared a post as superintendent of the Livornese Talmud Torah in 1714.92 Attias’s library collection confirms interest in the episode. He owned a well-known tract by Jean-Baptiste de Rocoles, Des imposteurs insignes (1683),93 which dedicated a thirty-five-page account to the imposture of Shabbetay Zevi, based on earlier Dutch and English narratives.94 De Rocoles not only provided the most extensive non-Jewish treatment of the Sabbatean fiasco at the time, but also used the episode to launch a harsh attack against Jews and Judaism. Attias’s own skepticism toward kabbalah, and his denunciation of the Key of Solomon as an imposture, while stemming from his historicist and critical spirit, was likely reinforced by a desire to defend the rationalism and sensibility of Judaism before Muratori.

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Biblical and Historical Interests In his éloge, Giovanni Gualberto de Soria introduced Attias as an expert of critica sacra e profana (biblical and historical criticism) as well as Oriental languages, studies in which he truly excelled “because of his circumstances.” Attias’s (now lost) “critical observations” displayed his sophistication in the field of sacred criticism. He had a wondrous memory on which he relied for information, while his “philological mindset” triggered a tendency to get easily distracted from the subject at hand, his main flaw. When Attias spoke, de Soria recalled, he sounded like a page of John Selden (1584–1654) or Claude Saumaise (1588–1653), two scholars who appeared like towering examples of critical erudition by the eighteenth century.95 De Soria’s portrayal captures a trait of Attias’s Hebraic scholarship that was unusual for Jews of his time. He relied on all valid scholarly tools available to him, whether produced by Jewish or by Christian authors, in order to reach the clearest, most objective understanding of a given antiquarian or historical subject. Azariah de’ Rossi (1513– 78), the great polymath from Mantua, had relied extensively on nonJewish authors, including works of Christian Hebraists, in his Meor enayim (Light of the Eyes; 1573). With dazzling erudition and humanist acumen, de’ Rossi sifted through both Jewish and Christian texts, considering them equally valid sources in his search for historical truth; his approach proved highly controversial within Jewish circles. We do not know whether Attias knew this important Renaissance work firsthand, but he was animated by a similar critical sentiment. Unlike de’ Rossi, however, Attias pursued Jewish fields of study from a perspective that does not reflect the position of contemporary rabbinic culture, but rather that of Christian scholarship. For this reason, he should be considered as a “Jewish Hebraist” rather than a traditional Jewish scholar. A reconstruction of Attias’s expertise on textual criticism is only partially skewed by the fact that his catalog does not list any work written exclusively in Hebrew and intended for Jewish readers. While Attias certainly owned Hebrew texts, which he had begun acquiring soon after his marriage, he kept them separate from his “gentile” ­library. The separation between Hebrew and gentile books in Attias’s home

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not only underscores his strategy of compartmentalizing Jewish and non-Jewish spheres. Its significance is broader: it also points to generalized contemporary trends in the study of Jewish antiquities and the Hebrew Bible. The most recent advances in biblical criticism and Jewish history during the seventeenth and early eighteenth century were the product of Christian rather than Jewish scholarship. In his Hebraic studies, Attias found inspiration in “the grammatical methods of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Jews, and of the Christian Hebraists.”96 Attias’s library confirms that his research instruments mirrored those in the collections of contemporaneous Christian students of Hebrew. Since the sixteenth century, Christian authors had produced a steady flow of grammars, study aids, and historical investigations that served the needs of members of the clergy and Christian university students pursuing “Hebraic studies,” a phenomenon particularly visible in Protestant countries. Most of Attias’s books on Hebrew grammar and on Jewish history and customs were authored by Christian Hebraists. Among the preeminent Protestant scholars ­Attias relied upon were Johannes Buxtorf (1564–1629), the most influential seventeenth-century Christian Hebraist;97 and his son Johannes Buxtorf Jr. (1599–1664).98 A number of studies by English Hebraists, including the complete works of John Lightfoot (1602–75), spanning his biblical and rabbinic studies,99 and two books on Jewish customs and rituals by John Selden and John Spencer (1630–93),100 confirms his interest in English research. Attias also claimed that he did not cultivate Hebrew on its own, but “together with the other Oriental languages.”101 In a philological vein, he read passages in Arabic, Syriac, and Samaritan that helped him “with Hebrew literature.” Relying on various Semitic languages aided Attias “to penetrate the sentiments of Bochart and other eminent non-Jewish men of letters, who are Hebraists.”102 His library shows a wealth of grammars, lexicons, and linguistic studies that Christian Hebraists regularly perused. Alongside the grammatical works of Samuel Bochart (1599–1667),103 he turned to the studies of the humanist Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522),104 Cardinal Bellarmine (1542– 1621),105 Jean Plantavit de la Pause (1576–1652),106 and Johann Heinrich ­Hottinger (1620–67).107 Recent products of Italian Hebraic studies, such as the bibliography of Hebrew literature compiled by G ­ iulio

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Bartolocci (1613–87) and completed by Carlo Giuseppe Imbonati (fl. 1690–96) also appear in his catalog.108 Of the 1,247 titles listed, only 16 were works by Jewish authors, and they were intended for a non-Jewish public. These included two popular multilingual dictionaries, the lexicons by David de Pomis and Elia Levita,109 well known by Christian scholars, and books on history, astronomy, and philosophy. Attias had five editions of Josephus’s historical works, in Italian, French, and Latin;110 Buxtorf’s Latin version of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed;111 French and Latin translations of Philo;112 a Latin commentary on Hosea by Abravanel;113 Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore;114 Simone Luzzatto’s Socrate;115 Isaac Cardoso’s Philosophia libera;116 Abraham bar Hiyya Savasorda’s Sphaera mundi, also in Latin;117 and two copies of the Fasciculus trium propositionum astronomicarum by the converso physician Jacob Rosales, alias Imanuel Bocarro Frances.118 Just as Attias did not find it strange to turn to Christian interpretations of the Hebrew language and the Bible, he similarly turned to Christian authors to learn about postbiblical Judaism. His appreciation for scholarly accuracy and for discriminating historical reconstruction based on the Muratorian notion of buon gusto extended to the treatment of Jewish history. This translated into a remarkable willingness to consider even sources with obvious supersessionist overtones, in order to pursue his interest in intertestamentary traditions. In praising the recent French translation of the History of the Jews by the British Orientalist Humphrey Prideaux (1648–1724),119 a work that “serves to fill the historical gap between the Old Testament and the New,” Attias claimed that it seemed to him “well-written and full of beautiful historical conjectures, of good taste, combined with the history of the monarchies of those times.”120 In fact, the title of ­Prideaux’s original English text, The Old and New Testament Connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations (London, 1716–18), is more revealing of the author’s underlying Christian intentions than its French translation. In a similar vein, Attias owned a collection of New Testament editions and commentaries, including prohibited Protestant works such as Calvin’s Harmonia evangelica.121 Like many Jews living in Catholic Italy (and especially those coming from converso backgrounds), he

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had more than a passing knowledge of the New Testament, so that Georg Christopher Martini was impressed by Attias’s expertise on it: “[He] discussed its unrivaled teachings,” the Saxon traveler wrote, “as the precept to love your enemies, to do good to those who curse us, etc.”122 Attias’s shelves also featured anti-Jewish tracts by the Italians Luigi Maria Benetelli (1641–1725) and Melchiorre Palontrotti (fl. 1640– 49), as well as by Johann Christian Wagenseil (1633–1705).123 Besides texts by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Christian grammarians and Hebraists, Attias purchased several books that represented the emerging field of biblical criticism. With the beginning of biblical criticism in the seventeenth century, Hebrew textual study had entered a new phase. Philologists such as Louis Cappel, Grotius, and Jean Le Clerc examined the textual corruptions of the Old Testament.124 While remaining within Christian orthodoxy, their willingness to compare variants challenged scriptural authority (Attias owned the foundational works of Grotius and Le Clerc).125 Building on these earlier traditions of critical exegesis, Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise (1670) dealt a blow to biblical authority and the notion of its divine authorship, and triggered a flurry of apologetic and polemical works by Christian scholars of various denominations. While Spinoza’s book does not appear in Attias’s library, as we have seen, he gained access to the Dutch philosopher’s ideas on biblical criticism through secondhand sources and anti-Spinozist confutations, as many other scholars in Italy. One significant example was the French oratorian Richard Simon (1638– 1712), who rebutted Spinoza’s position by employing the same critical methods. Attias owned Simon’s pioneering historical work,126 along with its rejoinder by Protestant author Jacques Basnage (1653–1723).127 Biblical criticism caused a tremendous upheaval in Christian learning. But this area of research did not significantly impact Jewish textual study until the second half of the eighteenth century and the Haskalah. In fact, study of the Bible was generally neglected in early modern rabbinic circles. An important exception was the attention Jewish scholars continued to devote to the medieval writings of Abraham ibn Ezra and David Kimchi, whose probing grammatical and exegetical questions were an inspiration for early biblical critics. Attias must have examined their works extensively. Mostly, however, Sephardi and Ashkenazi ­yeshivot emphasized the traditional study of halakhic literature, with kab-

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balah representing an avenue of spiritual fulfillment in Jewish confraternities. Between 1650 and 1750, rabbinic methodology and questions remained distant from the problems of textual interpretation raised by Spinoza’s hermeneutics.128 The separation between Hebrew and gentile books in Attias’s home, thus, exemplifies the very different trajectories of Christian and Jewish textual study in the early modern period. Attias was not only knowledgeable of recent trends in biblical criticism, but also of their larger implications. Those few Jewish scholars who engaged in textual criticism before the 1760s did so within the context of Jewish-Christian polemics.129 One such case was a controversy over the nature of biblical poetry that took place in Italy between 1710 and 1714, when the Jewish physician Raffaele Rabeni and the Spinozist Hebraist Biagio Garofalo debated aggressively whether biblical poetry was rhymed or metrical, clashing over the textual authority of the Hebrew Bible and the accuracy of the Masoretic text.130 Although Attias owned a copy of Garofalo’s work,131 he agreed with Rabeni’s opinion that poetic passages in the Bible were neither rhymed nor metrical, well before the enunciation of the principle of parallelism formulated by Robert Lowth later in the century.132 By siding with ­Rabeni, Attias supported the notion that the Masoretic text had not been corrupted by Jewish copyists.133

Exchanges with Christian Scholars According to de Soria, Attias’s expertise on biblical and historical criticism, as well as Oriental languages, was acknowledged by “all the masters in that art who . . . conversed with him.”134 Evidence of Attias’s interaction with Christian scholars as a Hebraist is scarce, however. In some cases, a discussion triggered his curiosity for specific editions. After seeing the first volume of a bilingual Mishnah with Latin commentary in Florence, at the home of librarian Antonio Magliabechi, for instance, he became interested in acquiring a copy.135 In other cases, the exchanges were less innocuous: although he “always felt some repugnance at participating in . . . theological polemics,” some arrogant interlocutors aimed straight for a religious discussion, which upset him greatly.136 One such conversation took place in Florence some time before 1727, when Attias became embroiled in a long debate with antiquarian

Galilean Science, Critical Spirit, and Hebraic Studies

and Church historian Giovanni Lami (1697–1770). Medieval and Renaissance anti-Jewish polemists had traditionally sought to undermine the moral validity of Judaism by claiming that the Pentateuch did not account for eternal punishment and the soul’s immortality, unlike the New Testament.137 With the rise of biblical criticism and its attending threats to biblical authority, new apologetic views developed. Lami, an aggressive protagonist of the Tuscan literary world and a defender of Catholicism, contended that the ancient Hebrews believed in the immortality of the soul, and sought to prove his point with biblical references. Attias disputed Lami’s view, championing the correct but then controversial notion that the Torah does not make any direct mention of this doctrine. Lami perceived Attias’s critical approach to the biblical text as undermining established religion.138 A similar opinion was presented by Toland in his Origines judaicae (1709), a book that his contemporaries considered as an example of atheist menace to Christian morality (it does not appear in Attias’s library), and later in Pietro ­Giannone’s skeptical Triregno (ca. 1731–33), a radical work that circulated in manuscript until the late nineteenth century.139 The basis of Attias’s opinion and the extent of his claims are unknown, but the absence of references to afterworldly (as opposed to material) rewards in the Bible was widely discussed by medieval Jewish philosophers, and probably informed Attias’s view.140 Whatever the case may be, after this public debate he kept away from theological discussions, to avoid being misrepresented by his interlocutors.141 Within the contentious world of early eighteenth-century scholarship, in which dispassionate philological pursuit could be perceived as dangerous heterodoxy, Attias never made unsolicited remarks on Hebrew texts in his correspondence with gentile scholars. Although he volunteered his opinion freely and generously when it came to science or to classical, Italian, and English literature, he referred to Jewish subjects only when asked by a correspondent. In these cases, he presented himself as an expert on the matter, adopting a confident and matter-of-fact tone. His pithy comments confirm Attias’s equal familiarity with, and ostensibly equal appreciation of, classical Hebrew, as well as modern publications by Christian Hebraists. He never dwelled on the sacred nature of the Hebrew language, nor did he ever show a

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particularistic, apologetic, or polemical understanding of Hebrew or Jewish antiquities in his letters. Compared to contemporaneous epistolary exchanges between Jews and Christians, Attias’s remarkable lack of Jewish emphasis further underscores his reticence at being openly identified as a “Jewish scholar.” Coupled with the detached tone employed whenever touching on Jewish or Hebraic subjects, his silence conveys the sense that these matters needed to be incorporated into the existing antiquarian and philological canon available to discriminating eighteenth-century scholars. Attias approached the study of Jewish antiquities with the same critical and dispassionate spirit that he brought to the study of botany and pharmacology. He considered Hebrew on a par with other “Oriental” languages such as Arabic, Syriac, and Samaritan—and, for that matter, the elusive Etruscan idiom.

Contribution to the Study of Etruscan Antiquities At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Italian scholars were acutely aware that the peninsula had fallen behind most European countries in terms of culture, and felt a pang of jealousy at the rise of the French oltramontani, who flourished beyond the Alps. Addressing the mocking claim circulating in some French periodicals that “[Italians] do not know anything other than to translate French Books, or to copy Editions made on the other side of the mountains,” the antiquarian Scipione Maffei rebutted national stereotypes about  the crisis of Italian culture.142 But Attias himself, quoting his friend Antonio Maria Salvini, a towering figure of early eighteenthcentury Tuscan culture, dolefully conceded that, in order to be known in their homeland, Italian men of letters needed “to be officially recognized by their transalpine neighbors [han bisogno delle patenti degli oltramontani].”143 Nonetheless, learned Tuscans continued to express an unmitigated pride in local intellectual traditions. Following a century of cultural decline, the examination of archeological artifacts and antiquarian themes seemed especially useful in reestablishing and recovering Italy’s former prestige in the Republic of Letters.144 “Because of our lack of adequate means, the oltramontani have gone well beyond us in the sciences,”

Galilean Science, Critical Spirit, and Hebraic Studies

observed the erudite Pietro Giulianelli, “but in antiquaria . . . no one has yet arrived at the excellence of Italians.”145 The discovery in the 1720s of the lost Etruscan civilization allowed Tuscan scholars to use the stuff of antiquarian collections for historical and academic purposes, giving a fresh spur to their study of local history and stimulating a new appreciation of documentary and archeological evidence. While teaching at Bologna and Pisa early in the seventeenth century, the scholar Thomas Dempster (1570–1635) had collected a number of strange artifacts and illegible inscriptions in his manuscript De Etruria regali (1619). Drawing on various Latin sources, he had deduced the existence of a highly developed civilization in Italy before the rise of Rome. A traveling Englishman, Thomas Coke, eventually acquired Dempster’s work in Florence in 1720 and handed it over to the antiquarian Filippo Buonarroti (1661–1733).146 Supplementing the original text with many illustrations of monuments mentioned by Dempster, Buonarroti published his own edition of Dempster’s De  Etruria regali in 1726. Maffei greeted the publication with enthusiasm in his Istoria diplomatica, and saluted it as “a new source of marvelous and precious knowledge . . . the documents of another people until now unjustly omitted from the study of antiquities.”147 De E ­ truria regali gave rise to countless erudite debates about the origin of this mysterious people, the Etruscans, and the nature of their language. Attias contributed to the discussion about ancient Etruscan culture from the vantage point of his Hebraic expertise. In 1726 the Sienese historian Uberto Benvoglienti published his learned research on the origins of the ancient Italic peoples, the Discorso sull’origine della ­lettera K, in the Giornale de’ Letterati d’Italia. He sent it to Attias in Livorno, so that he would read it in his “daily literary gathering.”148 In 1728, after hearing that Attias had composed some notes to Maffei’s ­Istoria diplomatica concerning the origins of the Etruscans, Benvoglienti asked his liaison in the Tuscan port, the Livornese librarian Giuseppe Arnoldo Mornini, to procure that manuscript. From Attias’s reply it becomes clear that no such handwritten notes existed: “I did not make any notes to the [Istoria] Diplomatica by sig. marchese Maffei. I suppose these rumors were born out of a conversation I held with sig. auditore Buonarroti on the origins of the ancient Italic peoples.”149 In their learned discussion, Attias and

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Buonarroti (the publisher of Dempster’s work) argued that Maffei had wrongly concluded that the ancient Etruscans originated from Palestine, based on a mistake found in the work of “Christian Adricomius and some Hebraists from his land,” who had failed to distinguish “between the famous city of ‫‘( ענר‬Aner), capital of a Palestinian province, and the city of ‫‘( ענרער‬Anaro‘er) . . . , close to another city called ‫‘( ענטרת‬Antarot).”150 Attias’s critical discussion of the Dutch Christiaan van Adrichem (1533–85), a topographer who published treatises on the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, must have been fairly articulate if it could be mistaken for a full-fledged commentary on the origins of the Etruscans.151 Attias’s invocation of his biblical erudition in the service of the flourishing study of Etruscan antiquities that swept Italy in the late 1720s shows that he did not think of Hebrew as a special and incommensurable language. Rather, he brought his appreciation for the Hebrew language, and hence ancient Judaic culture, into the scholarly conversation on other ancient civilizations.

Conclusion Attias participated in the early phases of the Tuscan Enlightenment, characterized by a renewed appreciation for Galilean empiricism, a rational critical spirit, and a desire to reform the ailing Italian culture. Notwithstanding the early judgment of de Soria, he was deeply familiar with the latest tendencies in experimental science. He demonstrated a distinct attention to English scientific culture, and associated himself with the group of the novatori at the University of Pisa, in particular Averani, Cerati, Giannetti, Grandi, Perelli, and Tilli. Attias’s experiments in botany and pharmacology displayed his empirical bent. On more than one occasion, he expressed sympathy for atomistic ideas. His Epicurean leanings were evident in his adoption of a temperate health regimen and diet. A critical-philological spirit animated by similar inductive principles informed Attias’s approach to Hebrew and to “the antiquities of the Jews.” As an antiquarian in search of truth, Attias seems to have believed that religious affiliation, be it Christian or Jewish, should not hinder the pursuit of buon gusto.

Galilean Science, Critical Spirit, and Hebraic Studies

As we saw in the previous chapter, there is no evidence that ­Attias’s cultural leanings eroded his adherence to traditional Judaism. Likewise, there is no indication that anybody in the Livornese Jewish establishment disapproved of his intellectual investigations. But how did ­Attias, a rabbinically ordained scholar highly invested in the non-­Jewish world of culture, negotiate his involvement in these two spheres, visà-vis his community and the broader Republic of Letters? He does not seem to have found these two realms, the Jewish and the nonJewish, the religious and the scientific, irreconcilable or incompatible. Still, he kept them clearly distinct, instead of harmonizing Torah and general culture, like earlier Jewish scholars in Italy. Attias silenced his Jewishness while immersed in the non-Jewish world, and approached Hebraic studies from a critical-philological perspective informed by methodologies developed within the gentile learned society. While engaging in scholarly pursuits according to the dictates of modern scientific methods, he successfully maintained a separation between Jewish and non-Jewish spheres that reflects the Galilean separation between science and theology. In the field of Hebraic studies, this compartmentalization proved more complex. By maintaining a careful separation between theology and science in Galilean fashion, Attias negotiated his involvement in the two spheres of Jewish and non-Jewish culture in ways that are markedly different from those developed by the exponents of the contemporary early Haskalah, which formed in German lands between the 1720s and the 1760s. The early maskilim proposed broadening the Ashkenazi curriculum by returning to the study of Hebrew and biblical exegesis, in lieu of Talmudic casuistry (pilpul) and kabbalistic theology, and turned to foreign languages and science to break the cultural insularity of Ashkenazi communities. While Attias shows intellectual predilections for the Hebrew language, philology, and empirical science comparable to those of early maskilim such as grammarian Solomon Hanau (1687–1746) and experimental scientist Israel Zamosc (1700–1772), their worldview and methods were radically different. As David Sorkin has argued, the early Haskalah aimed to harmonize current knowledge into a “decidedly Jewish framework,” carefully maintaining the superiority of Judaism.152 This was not the case for Attias, who did not integrate Judaism and gentile culture, but rather separated them.

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His case shares some similarities, but also significant differences, with that of a younger contemporary from the Prussian world, Aaron Gumpertz (1723–69). Gumpertz, another early maskil, was one of the few Ashkenazi Jews who received a full-fledged German education during his time. He also entertained social relations and correspondence with non-Jewish intellectuals. Gumpertz was aware that his participation in Jewish and German milieus would not be welcomed by most members of both, and he kept his interventions in the Jewish and the German spheres clearly distinct. His only Hebrew publication did not refer to his involvement in German cultural life. His German works, addressed to a non-Jewish readership, made no mention of his Jewish identity.153 Two generations before, Attias distinguished between life pursuits in the two arenas, as suggested by the absence of rabbinic and liturgical texts in his library catalog, by the almost complete silencing of his Jewish identity in his learned correspondence, and by his approach to Jewish scholarly matters with a dispassionate tone and the tools of Christian scholars. Unlike Gumpertz, however, Attias’s scholarly efforts appear entirely personal and limited to his individual interest in non-Jewish scholarship. He was not part of a larger Jewish movement akin to the early Haskalah, nor animated by a desire to change or reform the Jewish curriculum. Rather, Attias wished to contribute to cure the crisis of Tuscan culture by promoting the dispassionate, critical pursuit of truth. The case of Joseph Attias in the 1720s and 1730s shows that modern science, together with the informal frequentation of university professors, offered an ideal context for an educated Livornese Jew to engage with the values of the early Enlightenment. His experience points to the beginning of a trend for eighteenth-century Jewish scholars who yearned to engage as peers in the non-Jewish intellectual sphere—the gradual emergence of distinct and disconnected fields of interests and activity—and suggests that Jews approached Enlightenment values of criticism and reform by paths other than the Haskalah, decades before the Prussian movement developed. His ability to move between two coexisting yet separate spheres, one defined by his Jewish identity within the nazione ebrea of Livorno, the other pertaining to his scholarly and scientific pursuits outside of

Galilean Science, Critical Spirit, and Hebraic Studies

it, makes Attias an exemplar of a new type of Jewish scholar that would flourish in western Europe in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the demands of Jewish emancipation progressed. In its mature ramifications, this new Jewish scholar not only silenced his Jewish identity in public, but also approached traditional Judaism from a critical perspective. This tactic of cultural separation became more evident in the following generations of Livornese scholars who engaged in scientific pursuits. A similar strategy was employed by a cadre of younger Livornese Jews, all educated at the University of Pisa, who embraced values animated by rationality and pragmatism, striving to meet the challenges posed to Jews by the universalistic demands of the Enlightenment. Recent scholarship has maintained that the upper echelons of the Livornese Jewish community were disconnected from secular studies, and that the “cultural exchange between Jews and Christians, revived by Joseph Attias at the beginning of the Enlightenment, remained a brief episode.”154 The opposite, however, is the case. The intellectual conversation between Jews and Christians never stopped in Livorno, and science continued to provide a suitable outlet for interactions between Jewish and non-Jewish scholars well beyond Attias’s time. As we will see, the practice and study of medicine played a crucial role for Livornese Jews to engage with mature Enlightenment ideas.

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Fou r  Entering the Medical Republic Jewish Physicians and the Pursuit of the Public Good

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The pursuit of science and natural philosophy served as a key channel of acculturation for early modern Jews.1 Of all the sciences, medicine was an especially significant venue for the integration of Jewish and general knowledge. Since the Middle Ages, Jewish physicians had traditionally acted as cultural mediators between Jewish and non-Jewish societies. Medicine was practiced professionally by Jews under both Islam and Christianity, where Jewish doctors forged relationships with Muslim and Christian elites.2 While the philosopher Maimonides is the most illustrious example of this phenomenon, countless Jewish physicians strove daily to integrate new scientific and philosophical concepts into the traditional framework of Judaism. In the early modern period, they held intellectual and professional exchanges with non-Jewish doctors and at times treated non-Jewish patients. Those who were able to pursue formal university training were exposed to an unprecedented degree of secular cultural stimuli and interactions with non-Jews. During the eighteenth century, medicine specifically allowed Jewish doctors to embrace and translate Enlightenment values into a Jewish vocabulary.3 Well-known examples of this trend are maskilic physicians such as Elcan Isaac Wolf, Marcus Herz, and Benedetto Frizzi, who adopted the language of Enlightenment science to reform the ailing Jewish social body.4 The maskilic physician, however, was not the only expression of Jewish engagement with Enlightenment medical culture. Another model emerged in Livorno, where Jewish doctors trained at the nearby University of Pisa aimed to contribute to the broader medical public sphere, rather than to reform Jewish society, and to do so, not in their capacity as “Jewish physicians,” but as productive Tuscan subjects.

Jewish Physicians and the Pursuit of the Public Good

From 1738 on, when Jews were officially admitted to study and to receive doctoral degrees from the University of Pisa, a small, but substantial, number of Livornese Jews took advantage of the Pisan scientific and medical training. There they experienced directly the reformist spirit that informed academic life in the second half of the eighteenth century. Focusing on the examples of three Livornese physicians who graduated between 1754 and 1785, Angelo de Soria, Joseph Vita Castelli, and Graziadio Bondì, this chapter shows that their courses of study and relationships with their mentors shaped their interest in the brand of Enlightenment reforms that characterized Tuscan culture during the Lorraine and Hapsburg periods, and fostered their political consciousness. Unlike later eighteenth-century maskilic physicians, these Livornese doctors were not concerned with the Jewish body, be it individual or social, and did not prescribe modern medical remedies, diets, and ministrations in order to heal Jewish society of its perceived ills. Rather, they believed that medical university training would allow Jews to heal and reform the broader society, beyond the boundaries of the Jewish community and without any explicit connection to Judaism. ­Castelli and Bondì published medical treatises in Italian that contributed to the development of medical studies in the second half of the eighteenth century, without drawing attention to their Jewishness. These Livornese physicians did not seek to harmonize science and Torah, unlike many earlier precedents, but rather, similarly to Joseph Attias, compartmentalized Jewish and non-Jewish spheres. Thus, they present an alternative not only to maskilic medicine but also to the early modern model of the “Italian Jewish rabbi-doctor” described in Chapter Two. A discussion of the relationship of Livornese Jews with the University of Pisa further highlights the cultural transformations that affected some layers of Livornese Jewry in the second half of the eighteenth century. Not only did the Livornese Jewish graduates of the University of Pisa adopt the latest trends in medical studies, but their attendance at the university also led to stronger bonds with the Tuscan state. De Soria, Castelli, and Bondì considered themselves rooted in their Tuscan mother­land. In their writings, a patriotic discourse emerged that connected Jewish contributions to the eighteenth-century “Medical Republic” with the notions of civic usefulness and inclusion. It can

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be suggested that the Livornese physicians did not intend to use modern medicine to reform the Jewish public because they did not believe that it was in need of reform. To them, Jewish involvement in modern medical practice proved that Jewish doctors could, and in fact already did, contribute productively to the public good as subjects of the state. Barriers and obstacles from the Jewish community and the outside society, however, limited their efforts.

Livornese Jewish Physicians and the University of Pisa The well-respected Jewish medical class in Livorno, like many Jewish doctors in the early modern period, occupied a liminal position at the intersection of Jewish and non-Jewish culture. Their professional training and interests allowed them to bridge between Jewish and Christian societies. In the first half of the seventeenth century, Livornese Jewish physicians came from a converso background. They had grown up as Catholics and received university training in Spain, before leaving for more tolerant lands and reverting to Judaism.5 Because of their upbringing and studies, these doctors often presented themselves as an elite class within the community.6 As the Livornese community grew, a local Jewish medical culture developed, fostered by studies at Italian universities. University training in medicine was part of Jewish life in Italy. Key Jewish figures in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque period, such as Joseph Del Medigo, Leone Ebreo, Joseph ha-Cohen, and the Provenzali brothers were all university graduates. Given these premises, it is understandable that the Livornina permitted Jews to obtain doctoral degrees. This privilege was however soon revoked when Ferdinand II de’ Medici, pressured by Pope Gregory XV, forbade Jews to matriculate at the University of Pisa in 1621.7 Not until 1738 were Jewish students allowed again to receive degrees in philosophy and medicine in Pisa, by taking the oath of Hippocrates while laying a hand on a Pentateuch.8 In the course of the eighteenth century, fifteen Jewish students attended classes in botany, logic, geometry, anatomy, and in practical and theoretical medicine at the University of Pisa, working under the close supervision of a Christian academic advisor. Nine graduates were Livornese.

Jewish Physicians and the Pursuit of the Public Good

David Ruderman has emphasized the extraordinary importance of medical university studies as a vector of Jewish acculturation in early modern Europe, through the dissemination of scientific knowledge and secular currents among Jews well before the emancipation.9 Italian universities were at the forefront of this trend. Already during the fifteenth century the medical schools of Bologna, Ferrara, and Naples had conferred degrees on individual Jews, but from the sixteenth century on, increasing numbers of Jewish students matriculated at the University of Padua.10 Until the eighteenth century, when more prominent medical schools in northern Europe (such as the University of Leiden in the Netherlands) took its place, Padua was the most important center in Europe for training Jewish physicians and the best organized to welcome their arrival.11 An “informal fraternity of mutual professional and cultural interests” developed among Jewish medical students who graduated from Padua and other European centers.12 These men shared a common training in philosophy and the natural sciences, an element that deeply affected their identity and culture.13 Between 1646 and 1738 seven members of the nazione ebrea of Livorno also received their medical degrees in Padua.14 A substantial presence of international Jewish students rendered this small northeastern town an extraordinary place for young Jewish men to live, comparable to Venice and Livorno for its “cosmopolitan” vivacity. The University of Padua afforded the possibility of establishing ties with members of distant communities and of creating social networks that would last well beyond the end of one’s time at the university.15 Additionally, the coexistence of diverse national and religious groups (the university also enrolled Protestant students) in a limited geographical area created an optimal environment for the exchange of different ideas. This facilitated a degree of interreligious dialogue between members of different faiths and confessions, and the dissemination of the most recent, and at times controversial, scientific and scholarly opinions among its students.16 A similar situation can be assumed for the Jewish students at Pisa, though, unlike Padua, Pisa mostly served Tuscan students and did not have a large international body of graduates. By 1750, the number of foreign students had decreased significantly and the university primarily acted as a regional cultural center.17 Still, there is evidence

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of dialogue between members of different faiths and confessions at the university, which was routinely subjected to inquiries by the local Inquisition, ever suspicious of heretical tendencies among students.18 While the attendance and enrollment numbers of Jewish students at the Tuscan university cannot be compared to those in Padua (where fifty-three Jewish students received medical degrees between 1738 and 1799, as opposed to fifteen in Pisa during the same period),19 the presence of a number of Livornese students in Pisa in the course of the second half of the eighteenth century fostered the creation of a medical class in the port with shared characteristics. Unlike most Jewish medical students elsewhere in Italy, the Livornese physicians went back to their community. As a social group, they appear to have been firmly rooted in Tuscany. As soon as Pisa opened its doors to Jewish students, Livornese Jews turned to the nearby school, only twelve miles away from their hometown, and stopped enrolling in Padua. In Livorno, doctors primarily served the Jewish community; some provided their services to communal institutions that supplied free medical assistance to the Jewish poor, the pious societies Gemilut Hasadim and Bikur Holim. A few popular Jewish physicians were simultaneously active in the larger medical world. And some, as we will see, also conceived of their medical endeavors as playing a role in a larger Enlightenment effort to promote “the public good.” It has been argued that Italian universities were not sites of scientific innovation during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but rather conservative institutions interested in maintaining traditional structures and privileges.20 According to this claim, the greatest scientific advances and innovative experiments were carried on, not in traditional university settings, but in academies and other private institutions.21 Certainly, by the middle of the eighteenth century Pisa had entered a season of decline. Enrollment had dwindled to about two hundred students, the number of lectures had diminished, and some professors were uninterested in pedagogical innovations and new currents of thought.22 Still, the experimental analysis of problems, an outgrowth of the Galilean tradition, never ceased.23 A Pisan education meant cultivating the value of doubt, experimental observations, and methodical research.24 The university remained a crucial destination for the formation of the Tuscan elite and was promoted as the state’s

Jewish Physicians and the Pursuit of the Public Good

main cultural center.25 As a progressive trend to professionalize medical knowledge and practice emerged in Tuscany from the 1740s on,26 university readings exposed students to new ideas about the social significance of the medical practice. For all its apparent decline, studying at the University of Pisa thus afforded Jewish students, not only the opportunity to immerse themselves in the liberal arts and the latest trends in botany, chemistry, anatomy, and medicine, but also a privileged access to Enlightenment ideals. The Livornese Jewish graduates represented a reformist vanguard. We turn now to investigate the ways in which they participated in contemporaneous medical culture, as well as their roles and selfperceptions in the increasingly specialized and professionalized world of Tuscan medicine.

Angelo de Soria’s Plea for the Public Good When Francis Stephen of Lorraine established his authority over Tuscany in 1737, after the death of Gian Gastone de’ Medici, the Grand Duke inaugurated a period of rule known as Reggenza (Regency); he maintained his residency in Vienna and appointed Count Emmanuel de Richecourt as his chief representative in Florence. But the absentee Grand Duke did not rest on his laurels. The new government immediately embarked on a broad attempt to study and examine Tuscan institutions, in order to reorganize, rationalize, and ultimately bring under central control the various corporate bodies that had formed the texture of the old Medicean society. Enlightenment discourse on educational reforms, particularly in the scientific and juridical spheres, also spurred practical efforts to reorganize existing institutions of culture in Tuscany.27 Encouraged by the Lorraine authorities, ­provveditore generale Gaspare Cerati—the chief scholar-administrator in charge of financial matters—restructured the academic curriculum at the University of Pisa, in the hope of transforming the institution into a stateapproved, primary center of advanced scientific enquiry. In April 1755, Cerati ruled that Jewish students who enrolled in the university were to pay the same college expenses and graduation fees ( propine) as their Catholic peers.28 Doctoral degrees cost a great deal

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of money for all students, but this was especially the case for Jews and non-Catholics.29 Until 1755, non-Catholic minorities who registered in Pisa, including Jewish students, were forced to pay double college expenses, as if they were enrolled in two separate degrees. They also paid double propine to the professors on the doctoral committee at the moment of their graduation. Cerati’s decision of 1755 removed all discriminations against non-Catholic students, while protecting the right of Jews to take the Hippocratic oath on the Pentateuch alone, as opposed to the Christian Bible including the New Testament, and guaranteeing the presence of lay authorities only during their doctoral ceremony.30 Angelo (Mordechai) de Soria, a young Livornese Jew who had only recently graduated from Pisa with a medical degree, played a fundamental role in bringing about Cerati’s decision.31 Though his efforts ultimately did not ensure lasting change, he can rightfully be described as a Jewish reformer. Encouraged by his advisor, the professor of practical and theoretical medicine Cristoforo Teodoro Verzani,32 de Soria was able to persuade Cerati that the double fee was discriminatory, “not only demanding for the individual student, but also undignified for our nazione [ebrea] in general.”33 Eighteenth-century Tuscan reform, a type of efficient and pragmatic “civil philosophy” that aimed to clarify practical problems in order to improve society, offers a context for de Soria’s actions.34 In the wake of Cerati’s favorable ruling, the young physician sent the massari of the Livornese community an eloquent letter that testifies to his own self-perception vis-à-vis the Jewish community’s leaders. In enclosing a copy of the new university regulations, de Soria stated that “[his] soul’s intent was always to serve . . . our nazione, no less than his beloved Fatherland, so as to become not only an instrument for the public good, but also worthy of the [massari’s] benevolence.”35 His declaration of loyalty is understandable. De Soria had studied in the Livornese Jewish public school (Talmud Torah) before moving on to the pursuit of medicine;36 the Jewish community had helped him, like other doctoral candidates, with a gift and an additional loan of fifty pezze.37 The new decree, de Soria continued, “removed all abuse” that Jewish students had suffered in the past, and would ultimately bring about an educational transformation. Thanks to the new policy, the talented Jewish youth of Livorno would be able to “vie to acquire scientific knowledge with the most fervent desire,” enjoying the incom-

Jewish Physicians and the Pursuit of the Public Good

parable benefits granted by a gracious ruler who allowed “the virtues of his most loyal subjects, without distinctions, to stand out.” In this way, skilled Jews “may be useful to human society, which is the only happiness for mortals.”38 In language strongly influenced by Enlightenment discourse and infused with pride at living in a country well known for its contributions to the development of the modern sciences,39 de Soria professed his equal allegiance to both the nazione ebrea and to his patria, the Tuscan state, praising the Grand Duke for his wisdom in offering all his subjects, Christians as well as Jews, an opportunity to excel and be productive. His emphasis on applied, scientific knowledge (le scienze) and on its direct connection to the improvement of social conditions, speaks of de Soria’s humanistic beliefs and pragmatic efforts to ensure broader social change, more than of his concerns with Jewish health itself. For the young physician, the encouraging university policy did not mean that Jewish university-trained physicians would be able to improve Jewish society alone. Rather, other talented Jewish young men like himself could make similar contributions to the entire human family, using their scientific knowledge to be virtuous and useful members of society at large.

Contrasting Pedagogical Messages The pedagogical vision of de Soria, implying that secular education, not Torah, led to fulfilling the highest goal for man—social utility— was in clear contrast with the ethos propounded in the Livornese Talmud Torah. This public school, most likely established at the beginning of the seventeenth century, provided boys with subsidized Jewish education.40 Over the course of four years, pupils were gradually introduced to Bible and Mishnah study.41 In their more advanced course of halakha, they focused on the Talmud and halakhic codes of Sephardi origin, as well as on ethical works (musar).42 The best students of the upper course helped the teacher expound halakha. In addition, they read works of dinim (such as tractates on dietary laws or on laws related to holidays) at the synagogue every night, and gave a sermon every fortnight before their teachers and fellow students.43

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From 1745 on, students were expected to preach once a week, although already in 1772 it was lamented that nobody was experienced enough to fulfill this demand.44 The Talmud Torah regulations, dating to 1676, were reiterated without noticeable variations until 1748. While the 1748 statutes did not change previous policy substantially, they included a new introduction drawing a striking comparison with the institutions of higher learning that flourished in the Tuscan state. Among the deputies of the Talmud Torah in 1748 was doctor Adam Bondì, a graduate of the University of Padua.45 It is likely that his university education inspired the revision. “Academies and colleges are instituted so as to favor the sciences of the world, which flourish increasingly as they are cultivated,” the regulations stated. They thrive because of the leadership of virtuous directors and principals, who make sure that their prudent regulations are observed and executed. So too, the deputies of the Jewish school intended “to imitate such wise and sensible sentiments” in order “to restore the Talmud Torah to brilliance and fame, with the help of God, both in the number and in the ability of virtuous individuals, as this is the only good we have in this captivity that depends only on meditating and studying our Holy Law.”46 The passage suggests some tension between sciences of the world and the pursuit of Torah. Secular academias e collegios are presented as models of successful institutions whose example should be imitated by the Livornese Jewish public school system. But the regulations, not surprisingly, place their emphasis squarely on Torah study. Angelo de Soria expressed his praise of scientific knowledge to the Livornese lay leaders only seven years after the promulgations of these policies. When juxtaposed, the introduction to the Talmud Torah’s regulations and de Soria’s letter show a comparable fervor for the acquisition of knowledge, an equal commitment to educational reform, and a common understanding of the great benefits that can be gained by so doing. Yet, they come to radically different conclusions regarding the subject matter—Jewish, as opposed to secular knowledge—and its ultimate meaning for the members of the nazione ebrea of Livorno. The Talmud Torah regulations focused their attention on nossa Santa Ley (“our Holy Law”), while de Soria ascribed to non-Jewish knowledge, particularly the sciences, the power to effect progress for all human

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­ eings. Whereas for de Soria social usefulness, made possible by univerb sity education, represented “the only happiness for mortals,” the deputies of the public Jewish school claimed that the only good available to Jews in the diaspora was the fostering of a large and capable number of virtuous students—a condition that depended uniquely on careful Torah study. The stress placed on the unique importance of sacred studies, coupled with the suggestion that the Talmud Torah had lost its past luster, might be read as a polemical reaction against a devaluation of Torah, perhaps countering an excessive emphasis on non-Jewish subjects among the educated members of the Livornese Jewish community. These statutes reflected the pedagogical ethos prevalent among Italian Jewish communities, which, as we have seen, stressed the coexistence of external and internal knowledge—based on the belief that all wisdom was ultimately rooted in the Torah—as long as the cultivation of philosophy, the sciences, and Italian literature harmonized with the more important pursuit of biblical and rabbinic texts. De Soria’s message, conversely, seems to anticipate by almost thirty years elements of Wessely’s Haskalah manifesto, Words of Peace and Truth (1782), which, distinguishing between Jewish knowledge (Torat ha-Shem) and general, secular subjects (Torat ha-adam), gave priority to the latter in the Jewish curriculum. Although it is not known how de Soria’s strong humanistic leanings were received by the Livornese lay and rabbinic authorities, it seems that de Soria, like Joseph Attias before him, represented an avant-garde within the nazione ebrea, whose position was only partially consistent with that of the Jewish leadership. At the same time, just as Attias had been able to negotiate a balance—at times precariously, at times effectively—between his Jewish and non-Jewish commitments and interests, de Soria fashioned a place for himself within the traditional structure of the community.

For Whom Do We Toil? Optimism and Public Happiness De Soria’s optimism provides a small-scale example of the confidence in the possibility of rational human progress that characterized a particular phase of the Tuscan Enlightenment in the 1750s. The proud and hope-

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ful tone of his letter fits well with the enthusiasm for scientific advances and with the interest in education that began infusing Tuscan policies at this time.47 Individuals like de Soria were highly responsive to the broader discourse on pedagogical reforms that the eighteenth-century Tuscan state was committed to: the Enlightenment idea that education brought societal progress. The circulation of medical knowledge, above all, was a cause for great hope, rooted in the belief that it would ensure public happiness. Peter Gay has shown that the philosophes styled themselves as “physicians to the state.” Similarly, eighteenth-century doctors increasingly viewed themselves as “social physicians,” who envisioned their primary duty as teaching the common people how to preserve their health and aimed to extend their ministrations from the individual to the body politic. From the 1760s on, state administrations embarked on efforts to promote a “medicalization” of society, fostering medical education and pragmatic efforts to improve and maintain population health.48 In German lands and in France, the ruling authorities backed the formation of a medical bureaucracy. The most comprehensive set of regulations promoting a healthy population and reducing societal health hazards, known as “medical police,” was formulated in the Germanspeaking world by doctor Johann P. Frank (1745–1821).49 In Italy, the belief that medicine held a precise political role, as an art fundamental to ensuring the “happiness of a people,” was expressed at midcentury by Ludovico Antonio Muratori, by then a well-recognized source of intellectual inspiration.50 In his Della pubblica felicità oggetto de’ buoni prìncipi (On Public Happiness as a Goal of Good Princes; Lucca, 1749), a treatise on good governance that circulated widely, Muratori argued that the prince’s role is to secure public happiness and ensure the well-being of his subjects. The prince ought to view medicine as an aid that any “well-regulated republic” needs for the “health and life” of its citizens.51 The Modenese scholar regarded as fortunate any country that possessed “judicious physicians, who are students of the best theories of their profession and sophisticated in its practice.”52 De Soria’s five-year coursework at the University of Pisa, which included classes in logic, geometry, philosophy, botany, anatomy, as well as theoretical and practical medicine,53 exemplified Muratori’s ideal medical training. His doctoral advisor, Verzani, had already followed

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another Livornese Jewish student in 1752, Jacob Bondì, and sponsored the Modenese Jewish student Leon Prospero Padoa.54 Verzani’s favorable attitude to his Jewish students is radically different from contemporaneous approaches beyond the Alps. According to John Efron, for instance, “rather than expressing pride in their [Jewish] graduates, the German medical schools looked upon them with shame and embarrassment.”55 Jews there could not print their examiners’ names on their dissertations, lest association with a Jew taint the faculty’s reputation. This was not the case in Pisa. Verzani’s official declaration in support of the students’ admission to doctoral candidacy attests that de Soria and Padoa were in good standing, both having attended classes with “such attention and profit that they greatly deserved [Verzani’s] high praises.”56 On more than one occasion, Verzani demonstrated esteem for his Jewish pupils, as well as an ideological commitment to change. Though the double propine requirement benefited professors like himself, he cooperated with Cerati on the new university policy in favor of Jewish students, as he stated, “out of his sense of justice and attention towards the nazione ebrea.”57 Verzani acted as a mediator between de Soria and Cerati, though he gave de Soria full credit as the principal agent in the affair, congratulating him in June 1755 for the favorable result he had obtained, through his “efforts to search for the necessary information” and “the indefatigable requests and notes sent to .  .  . Monsignor Cerati.” The professor dubbed his student “meritorious within his Nation,” as the “first and only” individual who had procured for the Jewish community of Livorno such “decorum and advantage” through the abolition of the burdensome double-fee regulation.58 The enthusiasm for such groundbreaking accomplishment is palpable in the words of both de Soria and Verzani. Advisor and student, however, seemed to attach somewhat different meanings to the role that university education and medical training may play for Jews. In the discourse pronounced on the occasion of de Soria’s graduation, to which we will return, Verzani, turning to the audience gathered at the doctoral ceremony, presented his student “to Human Society, and particularly to your Nation, which showered you with so many generosities and benefits, so that you may become increasingly worthy of its most distinguished considerations.”59

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The thematic similarity between Verzani’s discourse and de Soria’s letter is unmistakable. In both texts, de Soria’s scholarly accomplishments are directly connected to the nazione ebrea, though a subtle chasm in expectations and focus distinguishes Verzani’s and de Soria’s statements. While de Soria hoped that university-trained Livornese Jews might ultimately “be useful to human society,” without limiting their services to the Jewish community, Verzani presented his student above all to the Jewish community, so that de Soria’s newly acquired medical status might allow him to continue garnering its praise. Such a divergence in expectations is revealing of the limited scope of change possible for the cadre of educated Jews imbued of Enlightenment ideals who aspired to leave their mark on the broader society in mid-eighteenth-century Tuscany. In spite of Verzani’s favorable inclination toward Jewish students, his pride in de Soria’s achievements, and his active support against the discriminatory regulation against Jewish medical students at Pisa, this genuine sympathy was not yet sufficient to break the subtle yet enduring barrier between “human society” and the “Jewish nation” that persisted even among the most enlightened minds.

De Soria’s Laurea: The Ideal Coexistence of Jewish and Scientific Scholarship Despite their dissimilar expectations, social position, and professional horizons, the scholarly relationship between de Soria and Verzani grew over a fertile ground of mutual respect. This was partially built on Verzani’s liberal views about the presence of Jewish medical students in Pisa and their positive role in the midst of the Jewish community. Their rapport shows that fruitful interactions could transpire between Jewish and Christian scholars brought together within an institutional context. Verzani’s discourse at the conclusion of de Soria’s doctoral ceremony offers a rare testimony to the relationship between a young Jewish student and his Christian mentor.60 Great pomp and solemnity characterized eighteenth-century doctoral ceremonies, which included two celebratory discourses following the candidate’s examinations. After the student had been approved and had recited the Hippocratic oath, he pronounced a discourse of

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thanks that paid tribute to the athenaeum and to the pursuit of knowledge.61 This was followed by the laurea, a celebratory address recited by the principal advisor in praise of the candidate himself. At the end of the ceremony, the newly minted doctor received the doctoral insignia, symbols of his new status that included a book, a ring, and a laurel crown or a biretta, the four-cornered hat of the scholar.62 Verzani’s laurea in de Soria’s honor reveals the professor’s medical ideals and pedagogical attitudes, and it provides significant information about de Soria’s training.63 The student’s curriculum was a fitting combination of Hebraic scholarship and secular studies. According to Verzani, a background in Hebraic studies was not counterproductive to the pursuit of science; rather, it could be beneficial and preparatory to the medical arts.64 Indeed, de Soria’s biblical and rabbinic expertise equipped him well for acquiring knowledge of the world. Thanks to “his first studies in Jewish schools,” and his immersion “in the rituals of his religion and . . . Oriental literature,” which he pursued with “true kindness and modesty,” de Soria perfectly understood that “those first efforts would increasingly facilitate his endeavors to expand the light of his mind.”65 A clear proof of de Soria’s studiousness and diligence was a Spanish panegyric “drawn from the most pure well of the Bible,” which he had delivered in the synagogue of Livorno some time earlier and recently published “by popular request.” After he stepped down from the pulpit, the heads of the Jewish community had greeted de Soria with open arms, as he modestly attempted to get out of the cheering crowd. From that moment on, the Livornese ­massari had held the young man dear and esteemed.66 In fact, de Soria’s Oracion panejirico doctrinal sobre la mala tentacion (Panegyric-Doctrinal Oration Concerning the Evil Impulse), examined in the next chapter, was a sermon meant to be delivered by a young boy, whom de Soria had prepared for his bar mitzvah. Regardless of these inaccuracies, it is significant that Verzani depicted the Jewish and Hebraic background of the doctoral candidate not as obstacles to his subsequent secular studies, but rather as signs of his diligence. True, a solid background in biblical culture was welcome for physicians. In his Dissertatio epistolaris (Venice, 1746), Padua professor Carlo Gianella suggested that medical students read the Scriptures in their spare time. Above all, however, he recommended those authors who

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“selected from the sacred pages all that pertains to the medical art,” while ­Verzani viewed de Soria’s background as a boon in itself.67 His student’s knowledge of the Hebrew language, with its “arcane mysteries of punctuation” and gematria, underscored the depth of his intellect and his ability to apply himself to the most serious subjects. Likewise, de Soria’s constancy, modesty, attention, and prudence made him ideally suited to be admitted to “the mysteries” of the art of medicine.68

Eighteenth-Century Medical Culture and de Soria’s Training De Soria’s medical preparation, which he underwent with “readiness and fervor,” was characterized by a mixture of old and new science— that is, of Cartesian rationalism and inductive, Baconian methods. Above all, de Soria was a representative of the new empirical medical studies that flourished in Tuscany in the first half of the eighteenth century, inspired by the teachings of Giorgio Baglivi (1668–1707), who had proposed the program of a scientific academy for the pursuit of “experimental medicine” as early as 1696.69 De Soria’s training reflected such innovative developments in medical culture. As eighteenth-century medical practitioners moved away from an Aristotelian, dogmatic approach to physical ailments and increasingly recognized the importance of experience, they emphasized the need for medical practice to be combined with research, teaching, and the reform of public health structures. In Tuscany in particular, the socalled “natural medicine” promoted by Antonio Cocchi placed the local medical school at the forefront of the movement to overthrow the Aristotelian-Galenic system.70 Physicians, like all exponents of Tuscan Enlightenment culture, be they working on natural science or historiography, rejected all beliefs that relied solely on authority. Rather, they stressed the need to proceed according to Baconian induction, “necessary in all physical and medical reasoning,”71 and to a “geometric method” based on the careful gathering and ordering of natural data, drawing general principles only after painstaking accumulation of evidence based on individual examples. De Soria embraced the new medical current that emphasized empirical observation and experience over dogmatic, abstract medicine.

Jewish Physicians and the Pursuit of the Public Good

His initial training, similarly to most medical students until the middle of the eighteenth century, was based on voluntary private reading, alongside formal instruction in philosophy. This continued a tradition dating to the Renaissance.72 In order to acquire the best analytical tools, de Soria first studied metaphysics and mathematics, “the basics to direct one’s mind”; then he pursued natural history, followed by experimental physics. Finally, after studying anatomy and theoretical medicine,73 he threw himself into empirical medical practice.74 Soon, he started observing the ailments studied by his own advisor, on the grounds that a physician should believe only what he sees and has been able to prove repeatedly, and he participated in medical conferences and consultations with colleagues. He researched the symptoms and the causes of illness, and suggested his own diagnoses. Demonstrating a praiseworthy caution, de Soria preferred known and approved treatments over more obscure and dubious ones, so that he could “compare their reciprocal strength and infer from them the most certain consequences.”75 Above all, while inspired by classical medical texts,76 de Soria was keenly aware of modern findings and of the “admirable efforts” of “Locke, ’s Gravesande and George Cheyne.”77 He applied himself to subjects complementary to medicine, such as botany and chemistry, in order to devise pharmacological remedies.78 The innovative research of Friedrich Hoffman (1660–1742) and Herman Boehraave (1668–1738) reinforced his preparation. De Soria’s curriculum and practice emphasized recent discoveries, carried out by “the prudence of modern minds . . . in a more happy and enlightened century.”79 They provide further evidence of the paradigmatic shift that promoted a novel reliance on “modern science” over classical authorities.

Jewish Physicians and the Human Family After receiving his university degree, a physician like de Soria was ready to begin his professional career and apply to his patients the results of the most modern medical advances. But the extent to which a Jewish doctor would have effectively been able to devote his services to the “human family,” the broader municipal arena beyond the Jewish

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communal sphere, as de Soria envisioned, varied greatly depending on local circumstances. In Livorno, more than other Italian Jewish communities, Jewish physicians interacted regularly with Christian patients. Nonetheless, even in the relatively tolerant atmosphere of the port, they faced obstacles. Jews were, in theory, permitted to treat Christians under the Livornina privileges.80 In practice, things were more complex. When Livornese Christians wished to resort to the cure of a Jewish physician, they usually applied for a special dispensation from the local inquisitor.81 In rare occasions, Jewish physicians also secured their own permits.82 By the early eighteenth century, it was common for Livornese Jewish and Christian physicians to collaborate and visit patients together. Young Jewish physicians trained alongside experienced Christian doctors in a number of Livornese public hospitals for the poor. Jewish physicians also treated Christian patients in their homes without the assistance of Christian colleagues. During the Medici period, the Church protested against such alleged abuses with mixed results. In June 1725, the Holy Office prohibited Jewish physicians from treating Christians.83 Not only did a Jewish doctor regularly treat Christian patients in Livorno, who called on him because they “were blindly persuaded that he was the most learned,” but, to the dismay of the cardinals of the Holy Office in Rome, local physicians had also started taking a “new young Jewish doctor” with them to hone his skills in the public hospitals, a common but condemned practice.84 ­Rumors had it that he ministered to the Christian sick even in the hospital of the Misericordia, which housed women.85 The Holy Office deemed such an intimate contact too scandalous to be allowed to continue. The massari initially rejected the validity of the edict on the grounds of the Livornina, but ultimately agreed to comply.86 Despite the Inquisition’s fulminations, Jewish physicians continued to treat non-Jews, either in the company of a Christian colleague or on their own. The ministrations of doctor Jacob Salinas were particularly in demand among well-to-do Livornese.87 By 1730, over seventy residents of Livorno held ecclesiastical dispensations, which allowed them to seek Salinas’s consultation, if accompanied by a Christian physician.88 When Zenobi Griselli and his family, “good Christians” from Livorno, petitioned for a license to introduce doctor Aron Uziel into their home

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in February 1740, the Holy Office was satisfied to hear that the Jewish physician was “a man of good morals,” and gave the Pisa inquisitor powers to grant the dispensation, if he so decided.89 No more ecclesiastical complaints were registered during the Lorraine Reggenza. It seems that 1725 was the last time the Inquisition attempted to curb the practice of Jewish doctors in Tuscany. The situation, however, varied greatly in other Italian states. In Ferrara, under papal rule, university-trained Jewish physicians were not only forbidden to treat non-Jewish patients, but also to collaborate with Christian doctors.90 In Venice, conversely, they were allowed to practice among Christians, in the company of a Christian physician, if they held the required medical license granted by the authorities of the republic. Similarly, Jewish doctors were allowed to cure Christian patients in Padua. In Mantua, on the other hand, Jews limited their medical services to the ghetto, because of the restrictions imposed upon them by the city’s collegio medico. In Modena, Leon Prospero Padoa, who graduated from Pisa in 1754 with de Soria, was repeatedly denied treating Christians by the Holy Office and the local inquisitor, although he had secured a license from the duke. Disregarding the ecclesiastical prohibition, Padoa continued to visit Catholic patients. As a last resort, the Modenese inquisitor asked all local priests to remind their parishioners that relying on a Jewish physician was a sin.91 While de Soria could legitimately expect to use his university training among the broader population in Livorno, clearly not all Jewish physicians in Italy were able to do the same. Judging from the actual ability of Jewish doctors to devote their practice to Christian patients, Verzani’s focus on the importance of the nazione ebrea for his student seems to have accurately reflected the reality of the times. Physicians who aspired to work outside of Jewish communal boundaries confronted a number of practical limitations in many Italian cities.

The Failure of de Soria’s Reformist Aspirations It is possible that de Soria was able to fulfill his vision of serving the entire “human family” as a doctor in Livorno. Yet, his broader reformist aspirations were not crowned with sustained success, a fact that

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further underscores the limitations of his hopeful ambitions. When he graduated in August 1766, the Livornese Jewish student Joseph Vita Castelli requested to pay the simple doctoral fee, to no avail.92 An eleven-year hiatus between de Soria’s and Castelli’s graduations may have contributed to a substantial memory lapse in the university administration. Changed political circumstances within the university played a role as well. By explicitly placing Jewish students on a par with the scolari ­cattolici, Cerati had threatened long-standing privileges of Pisa professors. In 1766, a conflict between Castelli and the collegio medico, represented by Tommaso Perelli, arose. Perelli maintained that the double propine be kept, based on time-honored tradition, and he attacked Cerati’s decision on the grounds that it undermined a right enjoyed “peacefully and without controversy” by other professors between 1737 and 1754. The nazione ebrea of Livorno initially supported Castelli’s request that the collegio follow Cerati’s regulations, but eventually retracted its position, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany promulgated a written order that overturned Cerati’s decision and reinstated the pre-1755 provisions.93 Jewish graduates after Castelli faced the same discrimination. When Vita, a younger member of the de Soria family, graduated from Pisa in 1793 under the supervision of the well-known physician Francesco Vaccà Berlinghieri, he paid double propine despite his request to the contrary.94 The failure of the reform exemplifies the difficulty of transforming institutions of higher education in eighteenth-century Tuscany, because of the entrenched prerogatives held by members of the faculty.95 The volatility of de Soria’s efforts and his long-term failure also raise important questions about the multiple factors at play in the complex phenomenon of eighteenth-century Jewish inclusion. Certain exponents of the Jewish intellectual elite such as de Soria, in tune with the culture of their times and believing optimistically to be living in times of social transformation, attempted to improve their status as Jews. Yet, in the absence of a sustained effort on the part of the Livornese nazione ebrea and of support on the part of the Grand Duke, Jewish cultural integration alone did not produce enduring change in the engrained structures of ancien régime Tuscany, as the corporate interests of the university professors in Pisa prevailed over openings towards the Jewish minority.

Jewish Physicians and the Pursuit of the Public Good

Enlightenment Medicine and Tuscan Pride in the Work of Joseph Vita Castelli Despite the setback suffered after the repeal of the 1755 provisions, Livornese Jews kept attending the University of Pisa, where the modern course of studies rendered them aware of critical trends and reformist attempts in contemporary health care. Enlightenment medicine, a fundamentally optimistic discipline, promulgated the view that human progress was attainable. Health could be preserved by appropriately addressing environmental factors and promoting prophylactic measures. Doctors prescribed fresh air, personal hygiene, balanced exercise and rest, and the control of the “­passions of the soul” as effective tools to conserve a healthy state. Disease could not only be prevented, Enlightenment doctors believed, but also controlled and ultimately removed, as systematic clinical observation and classification led to a more sophisticated understanding of the workings of the human body. Such an optimistic outlook went hand in hand with the physicians’ critical assessment of popular prejudice and fatalism, charlatanry, and superstitions. Enlightenment doctors were hopeful “activists” who perceived their mission as a battle against obscurantist ignorance.96 Medical literature was one of the fora in which physicians promoted their enlightened views. Doctors increasingly published in the vernacular, rather than in Latin, in order to spread new biomedical knowledge and their critical outlook among a broader public. This was the case also for members of the Tuscan Jewish medical class, who contributed to current debates with essays composed in Italian, incorporating reformist and Enlightenment ideas in their publications. In Florence, Cesare Lampronti published a “medical response” in defense of smallpox inoculation in the periodical Magazzino Toscano (1776), countering the doubts expressed by an unnamed rabbi about the safety and morality of the practice.97 In Livorno, Joseph Vita Castelli and Graziadio Bondì, responsive to the health care reforms promoted by contemporary medicine and encouraged by the Tuscan state in the 1770s and 1780s, participated in the debate on medical practice by addressing acute fever and inflammatory diseases, as we will see.

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Apart from their professional contributions to the medical discourse, Castelli and Bondì’s reflections on the current state of medicine emphasized their allegiance to Tuscany and its “benevolent ruler,” Peter Leopold, depicted as an enlightened protector of the sciences. Unlike Lampronti’s medical defense, their works did not contain any reference to their Jewish origin or emphasize a Jewish perspective; neither Castelli nor Bondì wrote for an explicitly Jewish readership. In contrast to contemporary doctors living in areas influenced by German culture and inspired by the Haskalah, who applied medical discourse to the cause of Jewish modernization, these Tuscan physicians aspired to contribute to the betterment of the entire human society, rather than to reform Jews. Castelli’s essay illuminates the intersection between the practice of medicine and the pursuit of the public good that had also characterized de Soria’s ambitions. Castelli intended to compose a history of medical practice in Tuscany. The nineteenth-century Livornese author Abraham Piperno reported that Castelli had requested and received permission from Grand Duke Peter Leopold to dedicate the work to him.98 Because of his untimely death in 1777, however, the book did not come to light. Castelli did, however, publish a “medical-critical” history regarding a case of acute fever in 1774. Medical histories (istorie mediche), written no longer in Latin as in preceding centuries, but rather in the vernacular and directed at a more popular audience, were the stuff of eighteenth-century experimental medicine. Extremely fashionable among both erudite and less learned readers, these detailed accounts chronicled with extreme precision all the symptoms and manifestations of a given illness in a single patient. While sincere love for knowledge and scientific advancement animated many istorie, they also displayed a fascination with monstrosities and wonders of nature, which made these pamphlets as soughtafter for entertainment purposes as travel literature had been in the seventeenth century.99 Castelli’s medical history chronicled the illness of a Livornese woman, “signora R.T.,” the twenty-two-year-old wife of Castelli’s “great friend Sig. R.T.”100 Struck by fever on November 19, the patient lay in great physical distress until December 23, when she finally showed the first, remarkable signs of recovery. Castelli, who was called

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to the young woman’s bedside as soon as she became ill, recorded her daily ailments, along with his prescriptions and treatments. Eighteen days after his initial call, recognizing the pernicious nature of the fever and the need to administer quinine to the patient, he consulted with Giovanni Gentili, the most eminent Livornese physician at the time, and asked him to become involved with the case.101 From that moment on, Castelli and Gentili visited the young woman together. It was with great joy and relief that Castelli, completing his observations about two weeks after their last visit, could record that the patient was fully recovered and in good spirits.102 The young woman had been luckier than most patients at the time, who, subjected to a steady treatment of purges, vegetable broths, leeches, and bloodletting, passed on to a better life without any visible sign of recovery. Castelli prefaced his medical observations—inspired by the reformist opinions of the renowned doctors Samuel August David Tissot (1728– 97) and Giorgio Hasenöhrl de’ Lagusi (1729–96),103 court physician of the Grand Duke of Tuscany—with an introduction, couched as a letter to an unnamed friend, also a doctor.104 It was in remembrance of his friend’s advice that medical histories are the “best gift that the honest physician may offer the public, in such an enlightened century as ours,” so as to increase “the number of truths and experimental facts,” that Castelli decided to publish his precise description of the fever that had indisposed Madam R.T.105 The pamphlet’s title, Lettera medico-critica (Medical-Critical Letter), was aptly chosen, for the letter alludes repeatedly to unjustified attacks brought against Castelli by a highly placed, unnamed doctor, and serves as a defense of his professional practice, shedding light on ­Castelli’s medical ideals as well as on his “critical” philosophical outlook. A Latin verse from Psalms, “In hoc cognovi quod dilexisti me; quoniam non triumphabit inimicus meus super me [By this I know that you favor me, because my enemy will not celebrate in triumph over me]” (Ps. 41:12), stands as a revealing epigraph to the introduction.106 Castelli invoked truth, reason, and moderation as his work’s inspirations. He vocally denounced charlatans, who fuel “popular errors, most obscure ideas, [and] vain opinions,” like tyrants over reason.107 He believed that philosophy should be a light to medicine, and that doctors should prudently wait, to better understand nature’s inclinations and

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movements, carefully avoiding “many glorified remedies, authorized only by ignorance and by stupid credulity.”108 In Castelli’s view, serenity of spirit should inform medical inquiries; philosophical tranquility and moderation applied equally to morals and professional behavior. “Among the most noble and praiseworthy reforms, truly worthy of the happy progresses of the human spirit and of those marvelous lights [lumi], in which the eighteenth century uniquely takes pride,” Castelli included the efforts to stop malicious passions “through philosophical conduct,” which he observed among “some educated Nations,” such as Voltaire’s France.109 For this reason, he refused his friend’s invitation to create an uproar in order to defend himself from the “nonsensical attacks” of his rival. “Acute fever” was one of the most dreaded diseases during the eighteenth century. Physicians were prepared to admit their ignorance of the causes provoking the illness, and they had no proven treatment. Castelli prescribed a number of standard remedies such as purges and bloodletting, but also a modern therapy: recurrent air ventilation in the sick person’s bedroom, and frequent replacement of the bed linens.110 “Cleanliness, prudent changing of linens . . . and the habit of opening the windows often to renew the air trapped in the patient’s bedrooms,” Castelli mused, had been “adopted by the most educated Nations,” and embraced by the “reasoned persuasion of those who know how to think.”111 These simple hygienic measures, which seem to the modern reader all too obvious, were in fact one of the most remarkable advances accomplished by medical practice in the second half of the eighteenth century.112 Less enlightened physicians suffocated the sick “out of too many, heavy layers of covers, keeping them in their bedrooms, secluded as if in a dark prison, preventing them all access to outside air, and making them rot in their own dirty sheets.”113 By promoting mistakes that had once “proven useful to win the approval of the unreasoning masses,” these doctors’ behavior posed a “terrible obstacle for medicine’s most happy progresses and its beneficial influence over men’s health.”114 Unlike those dangerous quacks, to support his treatment Castelli quoted a report on epidemic fevers written by respected Tuscan physicians Giorgio Hasenöhrl de’ Lagusi, Baldassarre Collini, Francesco Antonio Viligiardi, Antonio Franchi, and Giovanni Targioni

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Tozzetti.115 The work was an example of reformist medical literature; it prescribed frequent changes of sheets, and recommended that doctors persuade the patients and their assistants of the necessity of such hygienic practice. While Joseph Castelli’s Lettera displays a sincere optimism in the century’s achievements and the powers of reason, the physician was equally full of disappointment, and he despaired of the enlightening abilities of his own philosophical-medical endeavors.116 His position was not supported by the majority of the Livornese Jewish community. In October 1770, Castelli had requested to be hired as a public doctor by the Bikur Holim society. Soon after, he withdrew his plea and proffered an effusive apology to the massari, claiming he had been unaware that such a request interfered with the privileges enjoyed by the Jewish government, a fact that he deeply regretted and that caused him “revulsion,” as he had always professed the greatest veneration and respect for it.117 Since Castelli’s was not an extraordinary request— other physicians routinely appealed to be hired or reappointed by the Livornese medical confraternities, without scandal—the episode is puzzling.118 It is possible that Joseph came under pressure from members of the governing board, and was forced to renounce his application, because of his reputation as a reformist physician. In 1776, writing in support of Cesare Lampronti’s defense of smallpox inoculation in Magazzino Toscano, Castelli rallied against religious obscurantism, calling for “Theology” to join “Physics” in encouraging men to follow this salutary medical practice. He emphasized the need to fight “all the baleful obstacles” to inoculation, including “vulgar prejudice, lack of examination and calculation, and the ill-understood and ill-applied spirit of religion.” Lampronti’s struggle against “fatalism and fanatical zeal” resonated with his own.119 Castelli’s case presents similarities with the later conflict between the enlightened physician Benedetto Frizzi and the Jewish community of Mantua. The Mantua parnasim severely censured Frizzi’s first reformist medical writings in 1789, leading to his departure to more tolerant Trieste.120 Frizzi was made to feel unwelcome in Mantua because of his radical scientific views. Unlike Frizzi, Castelli was not able to leave Livorno and move to a more open community. In 1779, the rabbi Abraham Isaac Castelli blamed the untimely death of his be-

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loved son on the “persecution” of other Jews.121 It is possible that the intellectual censorship that Joseph suffered within the nazione ebrea prevented him from spreading his modern scientific views and medical practices among broader segments of the Livornese Jewish public and weakened his spirit. In 1774, however, Castelli had not lost all hopes to show his true worth as a scholar: Perhaps some day I will demonstrate that I have honestly employed the weak forces of my very feeble understanding. Zealously attentive to my fatherland’s glories and those, ever notable, of the beneficent ruler who sustains us, I will unveil to the public my ideas more openly, accompanied by a unique history, that may serve as an eternal, illustrious monument to the true, almost primeval, Tuscan wisdom, and to the most honorable renown of many sublime geniuses to which she was able to call herself, in various times, second mother and most ­tender wet-nurse.122

As in de Soria’s letter to the massari twenty years before, Castelli emphasized his allegiance to his “fatherland,” Tuscany. The notion that their country nurtured and protected the sciences was widespread among Tuscan authors throughout the early modern period, providing comfort particularly in the eighteenth century, when Italian culture was perceived as lagging behind that of its European neighbors. Starting in the 1730s, respect for the figure of Galileo and Galilean science had grown into a veritable “cult.”123 The notion, of which all Tuscans could be proud, that scientific wisdom organically flourished in Tuscany and that the country was the cradle of experimental physics, was well established by the 1770s. As a Tuscan subject and a graduate of the University of Pisa, Castelli could not only take pride in the glories of his country, but also share in them as a representative of the medical arts. Joseph Castelli’s statement echoes a sermon composed some ten years earlier by his father, Abraham Isaac, to mark the death of Francis Stephen in 1765.124 The formalized commemorations that took place in Livorno in memory of the deceased Grand Duke reinforced the social structure in the port at a time of uncertainty, reaffirming traditional roles.125 Like the Christians of Livorno, who gathered in their

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churches to mourn the death of their ruler, the city’s Jews gathered in their synagogue, where they expressed comparable feelings and stressed their allegiance to the state and its ruler. The themes of loyalty and gratitude featured prominently in Castelli’s work. Abraham Castelli, one of the chief religious leaders of Livorno, wrote the eulogy in Spanish and pronounced it in the Livornese synagogue; Joseph Vita translated it into Italian, in a slightly augmented, annotated version.126 Both texts were published together in 1766, the same year in which Castelli graduated from the University of Pisa. What pride must Abraham have taken in his son’s university studies when pronouncing the eulogy for the Grand Duke! Alongside praises for the late ruler’s justice and piousness, the elder Castelli reflected on his role as a protector of the liberal arts and all the sciences, noting that the sciences flourished at the University of Pisa thanks to Francis Stephen’s good auspices. The monarch had increased the number of courses and professors, and had improved the study of experimental physics by acquiring expensive machines, because “he knew well that science makes man happy, saves him from dangers, preserves states, maintains kingdoms, [and] governs peoples.”127 Just as Joseph Vita envisioned Tuscany as a generous “second mother” to men of science, his father, Abraham, presented its beneficent ruler as a patron of the sciences who cared for his subjects’ happiness, a worthy example of the enlightened tradition of good governance outlined by Muratori at midcentury. The theme returns in a medical essay composed by another Livornese Jewish doctor trained in Pisa, Graziadio Bondì.

Medicine and the “Benevolent Ruler” in the Work of Graziadio Bondì Graziadio Bondì’s work provides another perspective on the connection between a Jewish doctor, the Tuscan state, and the royal court. Born in 1768, he was the scion of an established Livornese medical dynasty, and had much to live up to. His grandfather Adam, originally from Rome, had received a medical degree in Padua in 1717.128 After moving to Livorno, Adam established himself first as a cantor and later as one of the community’s chief rabbis. Graziadio’s uncle Abraham was

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the first Jew to graduate from Pisa, in 1738. His father Jacob graduated from the same university in 1752, and his older brother Azaria Vita in 1776. Both Jacob and Azaria Vita worked as public physicians for the Livornese Jewish poor, but they were also known outside of the nazione ebrea.129 In 1770, Jacob Bondì published a book entitled Avvertimenti morali (Moral Instructions; now lost), dedicated to his “beloved son Azaria Vita.” This letter of advice in the style of Isocrates urged the young boy “to pursue the sciences, and principally medicine.”130 The news of Azaria’s graduation from Pisa six years later was announced in the Florentine Gazzetta Universale. Noting that even the “Tuscan Muses were invited to celebrate . . . the high praises of father and son,” the article wished “the most fortunate progresses” for Azaria, “the seventeenth professor of medicine in his family.”131 Graziadio graduated from the University of Pisa in 1785.132 Only a few weeks afterward, he published an essay discussing in detail the nature and causes of inflammatory diseases, Riflessioni sopra le malattie dette inflammatorie, which he dedicated to the court physician Giorgio Hasenöhrl de’ Lagusi. The sophisticated style and genre of this essay demonstrated the progress of medical science in the course of ten years. Unlike Castelli, who dwelled only on external symptoms and treatments, Bondì showed a keen interest in detecting the nature and inner causes of inflammatory diseases. His skeptical and critical outlook was grounded in “good physics,” a discipline that had gained recognition over the course of the century as a necessary background for a proper medical training;133 he chastised the “vivid fantasy” of many physicians who had proposed false or defective explanations of inflammatory illnesses. Bondì showed youthful audacity as well. Despite his lack of experience, being at the beginning of his medical career, he dared to disagree with the “judgment and opinion of the greatest men.”134 Despite his general conformity to the theories of his teacher at the University of Pisa, Francesco Vaccà Berlinghieri,135 the young Jewish physician objected to his former advisor’s beliefs about the active role of air as a cause of disease. Bondì held, instead, that inflammatory illnesses might arise from causes entirely internal to the body. While it seemed “impossible that our machine holds in itself a source of diseases, and this surprises us all the more so as we are used to hear all those who call

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themselves philosophers glorify its marvelous and stupendous structure,” Bondì could not but recognize that some diseases had nothing to do with air, but were provoked by some yet unknown bodily dysfunction.136 This utterly mechanistic representation of the human body was a result of the increasing secularization of eighteenth-century medicine and medical discourse. In light of this modern medical insight, Bondi’s dedication to the chief physician of Grand Duke Peter Leopold, a known medical reformer,137 appears all the more meaningful. Between 1778 and 1781, de’ Lagusi had participated in the works of the state-sponsored Deputa­ zione Sopra gli Ospedali e i Luoghi Pii (Commission on Hospitals and Charitable Institutions), instituted by Peter Leopold’s government to reform and restructure the public health system in Florence.138 This governmental commission exemplified a larger process of gradual secularization and increased state intervention in the spheres of health care and hospital administration. Traditionally, in early modern Italy as in most regions of southern, Catholic Europe, public health care was viewed as an aspect of poor relief and managed by ecclesiastical institutions or lay pious confraternities,139 which strove not only to heal the body but above all to offer spiritual comfort to the soul.140 In the early modern Tuscan state too, medical care, organized along corporate structures, was driven by religious concerns and associated closely with assistance to the poor, whatever their health condition. Hospitals and luoghi pii (literally “pious sites”) were often the offshoot of religious institutions or lay confraternities of medieval and Renaissance origin that took care of the poor as well as the sick who could not afford paid medical assistance.141 In the course of the eighteenth century, however, increased state intervention in the spheres of health care and hospital administration transformed the medieval and early modern model of the hospital into a modern structure: a site that offered medical cures to poor patients deemed curable, while serving as a research and study center for university-trained physicians.142 This approach flourished under the government of Peter Leopold, who promoted the reorganization of old assistential networks. Physicians increasingly participated in the restructuring of the luoghi pii and were instrumental in advancing new models of health manage-

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ment that gave greater responsibility and power to trained medical personnel, rather than clergy, fostering a gradual secularization of medical practice on the ground of a professionalization of roles and functions.143 Eventually, after Peter Leopold closed down all religious confraternities in 1785,144 medical assistance became the sole purview of hospitals, a process that ultimately led to the separation and distinction of public health care from poor relief itself. It is likely that Bondì was aware of the medical reforms that the Tuscan government was implementing. It is not known if he too practiced in the city’s hospitals, like other Livornese Jewish doctors earlier in the century, but he wished to reach a broad public of physicians and be considered a rightful member of that reformist community. Accordingly, Bondì requested de’ Lagusi the “grace to publish this literary work . . . adorned with [his] name,” so that it could be favorably accepted by the “Medical Republic.” De’ Lagusi’s acceptance of Bondì’s plea was presented as a personal favor to the author and a particular sign of the dedicatee’s fondness. Even if we account for a degree of rhetorical flourish, it is remarkable that a young Jewish physician such as Bondì traveled in the same circle as the well-established de’ Lagusi. Bondì’s dedication demonstrated ambition and a keen desire to join his own name and theories with the Florentine court, represented by his chief physician, a man “chosen for [this] high and important office . . . by a philosopher-king.” By linking his own name with de’ Lagusi’s, Bondì connected himself to Peter Leopold. In a move common to scientific dedications, the Grand Duke, a “great model among rulers,” was bestowed with the highest scientific knowledge. Indeed, as “an excellent judge and knower of the merit of medical doctrine,” he held “an eminent place among the greatest physicians.”145 The dedication, if only as rhetorical display, underscores an important trend in ­eighteenth-century Italian medicine. Throughout the century, young, ambitious physicians from the emerging bourgeoisie pressed to break down traditional hierarchies and monopolies of power within the medical profession, whose engrained elite came from the aristocracy. Emphasizing the importance of scientific merit over birth and fortune, they fought to overcome obstacles of class and gain access to better jobs.146 For doctors who did not come from privileged backgrounds, one such possibility was a medical career

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at court, climbing the social ladder with the help of noble patrons.147 In the economy of exchange that defined patron-client networks, as Mario Biagioli has shown, book dedications played a crucial role as offerings that could cement one’s career.148 As a Jew, Bondì had no real opportunities to pursue such a path, unlike his Christian colleagues. Rhetorically, however, he conjured a direct relation to the Florentine court and the highest of patrons, the Grand Duke.

Conclusion De Soria, Castelli, and Bondì all envisioned the figure of the Grand Duke, whether Francis Stephen or Peter Leopold, not only as a benevolent father—an ancient trope well established among Jews since the Middle Ages—but more significantly as a patron of the sciences and medicine. The Grand Duke was presented as a protector of their endeavors as physicians, and, by implication, of their contributions as useful Tuscan subjects in their capacity as doctors. The writings of de Soria and Castelli show the emergence of a discourse of “civic usefulness” for Tuscan Jewish physicians, applied to the larger society and transcending the boundaries of their religious and ethnic community. They presented their specialistic knowledge as useful to the entire society, exemplifying the burgeoning role of scientific “civic experts” in the eighteenth century, as identified by Steven Shapin.149 While stressing their righteous position within the “Medical Republic” and their ideal connection to the ruler, moreover, Castelli and Bondì never referred to their Jewish origin in their professional writings. In so doing, their case is similar to the earlier one of Joseph Attias, who mostly silenced his Jewishness in his scholarly correspondence, unless probed by his interlocutors, and kept his scientific pursuits distinct from his interventions in the Jewish world. Like Attias, Castelli, and Bondì, too, aspired to participate in the learned public sphere, not as representatives of the Livornese nazione ebrea, but as members of the “human society.” In early modern Italian Jewish communities, as we have seen, the figure of the doctor was highly respected. His prestige, however, did not derive from his scientific culture alone. The classic types of Italian Jew-

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ish physicians mentioned in Chapter Two, such as Samson Morpurgo, Shabbetai Marini, and Isaac Lampronti, were rabbinically trained individuals who based their authority also on their Talmudic expertise and facility with the Hebrew language.150 This was not the case for de Soria, Castelli, and Bondì, none of whom wrote in Hebrew. Although de Soria produced devotional literature, he did not serve as a rabbi; his stress on scientific education was at variance with the goals of the Livornese Talmud Torah. Similarly, Castelli and Bondì are not known for their halakhic contributions. As Castelli’s failure to secure a position with the Bikur Holim society shows, he lacked political weight within the community. Although Bondì came from a well-connected family, it does not seem that he benefited from communal offices. Unlike the classic model of the Italian Jewish rabbi-doctor, these three lay physicians sought affirmation at a time of increased medical professionalization, primarily outside of the nazione ebrea and with contributions aimed at the larger society. By presenting themselves as loyal and useful Tuscan subjects, they aimed to establish their medical authority in direct relation to the state, rather than the community alone, in ways that foreshadow the rise of the Jewish bourgeois physician of the nineteenth century. The emergence of a different model within the lay Jewish medical class of Livorno does not mean, however, that traditional standards disappeared. Jewish doctors were still expected to treat the members of their own nazione within institutional boundaries. As the next chapter makes clear, the spheres of intervention for Jewish physicians within the community remained intact and doctors kept contributing to Jewish spiritual life from within charitable societies catering to poor patients. In some cases, however, scientific training affected the direction of their spiritual endeavors.

Fi v e  Pious Care and Devotional Literature

at the Time of Enlightenment Reform

While a number of Livornese Jewish scholars influenced by Enlightenment discourse aimed to contribute to the broader society as learned Tuscan scientists, Jewish devotional spirituality continued to play a crucial role for those very same members of the nazione ebrea. Cultural integration in the wider world did not weaken participation in the affairs of the Jewish community, as the case of Joseph Attias demonstrates, nor did enthusiasm for the “magnificent progress” of the eighteenth century turn learned Livornese Jews into skeptics who abandoned or questioned Jewish practice. At this time of transition, lay spirituality remained vibrant, as did traditional modes of pious sociability. The inner religious life of the nazione ebrea was one of the areas in which reformist concerns and Enlightenment philosophy hardly mattered. Certainly, institutionalized Jewish life in Livorno experienced a variety of transformations over the course of the century, some of which were remarkably in tune with the spirit of the times. In specific instances, the Jewish community was responsive to the pervasive Tuscan discourse of bureaucratic reforms and administrative improvements. This was true for lay institutions supervised by the nazione ebrea, such as Jewish coffeehouses, and for sites of cultural production such as the Hebrew printing shops, examined in the next two chapters—both were directly affected by a set of reformist economic policies issued by the Tuscan authorities. But the community’s devotional spaces were largely impermeable to the Tuscan discourse of reform. Devotional interests—articulated in a number of pious institutions (hevrot) and encapsulated in the sermons pronounced by the community’s preachers—are comparable to equivalent concerns within Catho-

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lic society at midcentury. Similarly to the surrounding Catholic world, in which lay confraternities flourished and devotions prospered, hevrot served as sites of religious sociability for Jewish men, while pious literature championed a critique of vain material pleasures and lax observance and urged the Jewish public to lead humble lives devoted to Torah study and faith in the Creator. In order to illuminate the continued importance of Jewish lay devotion, the first part of the present chapter concentrates on the limited transformations experienced within the nazione ebrea in the area of medical assistance. In early modern Italy, as in most regions of Catholic Europe, the provision of health care developed within a primarily religious, not purely “scientific,” context, in which the boundaries between spiritual and medical concerns were blurred. During the Counter-Reformation, public health care was subsumed under the broader category of poor relief, and managed by pious confraternities or ecclesiastical institutions, whose primary aim was to offer spiritual comfort to the soul. Healing the body was a secondary objective.1 Just like their Catholic counterparts, Jewish physicians provided free relief to patients who could not afford any other type of welfare provisions within the context of pious Jewish lay confraternities. All over southern Europe, medical care was deeply affected by Enlightenment reform.2 The sphere of public health care was a key area of administrative intervention for the reformist Lorraine government. Initial financial concerns led to a simplification of the variegated panorama of Tuscan confraternal piety, with the goal of bringing these corporate bodies under greater state supervision. As trained physicians became increasingly involved in the restructuring of hospitals and hospices, a trend ensued of professionalization and secularization of medicine, which fostered the distinction of medical assistance proper from poor relief.3 It appears, however, that the nazione ebrea of Livorno was not touched by the reformist trends that transpired in the sphere of Tuscan public health. Within the community, the ethical concerns characteristic of ancien régime medical assistance prevailed over new directions in medical care. An exploration of public assistance to the sick offered by the society Bikur Holim, a confraternity founded in 1742 to help poor Jews who became ill, shows that the Jewish community incorpo-

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rated few elements of the public health care approach that emerged in Tuscany in the second half of the century, while continuing to stress the soul’s salvation as its goal. The massari asserted increasing authority over decisions concerning the hevrah, during the same time as the Lorraine administration tried to bring Christian confraternities under government control. But despite some similarities with the centralizing and bureaucratizing ethos championed by the Tuscan ruling elites, the process of medical secularization taking place in the general society did not affect the hevrah, which continued to be primarily a site for religious and charitable sociability. If medical reformist trends hardly affected Jewish inner life, an eclectic combination of external cultural traits still seeped into the community’s devotional sphere. Some of the members of the Bikur Holim society not only served the nazione ebrea through their pious care, but also contributed to its spiritual growth with religious works. Such a devotional output shows the ongoing importance of spiritual concerns and observance for individuals who were actively participating in the outside society, while maintaining a commitment to Jewish lifestyle and communal welfare. Doctor Abraham de Bargas, public physician for the Bikur Holim society, and fellow Bikur Holim member Angelo Mordechai de Soria, the Pisa graduate and would-be reformer, are examples of this phenomenon. These traditionally learned, yet worldly, exponents of Livornese Jewry produced works in Spanish, the language of preaching and piety for educated Livornese Jews, which brought into devotional settings elements of the scientific and historical knowledge that they had acquired from non-Jewish sources. Unlike the Italian medical treatises written by Castelli and Bondì, their texts did not strictly compartmentalize between Jewish and nonJewish knowledge. Rather, they display a creative combination of Jewish religious values and new intellectual currents, articulated in a constant interplay between Torah and secular subjects. Elements in these works also share similarities with two devotional tropes of contemporaneous Catholic piety: the vanitas theme and the metaphor of spiritual combat. The second half of this chapter explores how de Bargas and de Soria negotiated the balance between Jewish culture and “sciences of the gentiles” while working within traditional devotional forms, and

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which literary and rhetorical strategies allowed them to combine religious and secular forms of knowledge.

Jewish Confraternities and Public Health in Livorno Relief for the sick, the poor, and the weaker members of society, such as orphans, was one of the principal concerns of Jewish governing boards all over early modern Europe. Communities devoted a large portion of the funds raised through internal taxation to this effort, but the practical and financial help of charitable societies considerably helped them in this task.4 Burial and dowry societies were among the most ancient confraternities, together with the Bikur Holim societies, whose members visited and comforted the sick and the moribund.5 While wealthier Jews could afford the private care of paid doctors, large sectors of the Jewish population relied on the free services of physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, and nurses who operated under the auspices of these benevolent societies. The number of hevrot catering to the needs of the Jewish poor and the sick increased concomitantly with growing impoverishment within the Italian ghettos. Large communities had dozens of benevolent confraternities, but this impressive growth was not specific to Italian Jews living in segregated conditions, and survived past emancipation into the contemporary period. The ghetto-free community of Livorno counted approximately sixty benevolent institutions at the beginning of the twentieth century.6 Besides their social role, early modern Jewish confraternities supplied a unique outlet for religious devotion. Confraternal piety, frequently imbued with kabbalistic values, represented a venue for the members of Jewish societies to express individual religious devotion outside of the controlled context of synagogue prayer, while strengthening mutual bonds of friendship and support with other members of their community. As in all other early modern Jewish communities, Livornese benevolent societies therefore not only provided the community with social assistance, but were also essential for its religious life, along with private academies (yeshivot) and chapels, and the Talmud Torah. Among the numerous Livornese hevrot, some were long-lived and particularly

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influential, such as the burial society Baale Teshuvah (Penitents); the confraternity for the poor Malbish Arumim (Clothing the Naked); and the dowry society Hebra de Cazar Orfas e Donzelas (Society for Marry­ing Orphan Girls and Maidens), also known as Mohar ha-­Betulot (Dowry for the Maidens).7 Among the most influential charitable institutions in Livorno were two confraternities meant to assist and comfort the sick, the Gemilut Hasadim and the Bikur Holim societies. The oldest confraternity, Gemilut Hasadim (Deeds of Loving Kindness), may have been founded in the seventeenth century by the converso doctor Moses Cordovero soon after his arrival in Livorno.8 The hevrah was composed of paying members, and although it was not strictly a mutual-aid society, it is likely that impoverished members would receive preferential treatment. Its gabay (deputy in charge of financial matters) was elected under the supervision of the community’s lay leaders, who reformed the statutes of the society in 1679, asserting the prerogative to select its officials. Two physicians offered their services to the pious society, either voluntarily or in return for a yearly salary, depending on the individual physician’s case. Presumably, doctors with an established clientele among the wealthier residents of Livorno would be less expensive to hire or willing to volunteer. This hevrah served the entire Jewish community. Each of the two doctors was in charge of a section of the Jewish neighborhood in Livorno. Their work consisted in assisting the Jewish poor with pharmacological remedies, while also distributing free meals supplied by the confraternity.9 The Gemilut Hasadim society continued its operations in the course of the eighteenth century. In March 1738, the physicians Adam Bondì and Abishay Peppi, and the surgeon Josef Diaz Cava, requested to be nominated as official doctors. Of them, only Bondì was confirmed by the massari, with the yearly salary of forty-five pezze.10 This hevrah was joined in April 1742 by a large charitable society, the Santa Irmandade de Bikur Holim (Holy Brotherhood Devoted to Visiting the Sick), composed of 184 paying members by 1743. The membership list reads like a who’s who of the Livornese community at midcentury, including Sephardi, Italian, North African, and even Ashkenazi names; many of the members came from the leading Jewish mercantile and rabbinic families of the port city. First among its 184 members, some of whom were listed with their honorific titles

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of hakham, maskil, and doctor, appeared the patriarch of the Bondì medical dynasty, Adam. Together with Bondì, eight other members had carried out the task of revising the chapters of the hevrah, from the Anversa, de Pas, Nunes, Baruch, Lopez, Malach, Herrera, and Servi families.11 Eliezer Hay Recanati, one of the most prominent Livornese merchants of Italian origin, as well as exponents of many other prominent Livornese merchant families (Aghib, Attias, Calvo, Ergas, Franco, Penha, Silvera, Vais, Villa Real) featured among the early members of the confraternity.

The Bikur Holim Society: Religious-Medical Piety It is a curious coincidence that during the same year in which Livor­ nese Jews established a new hevrah devoted to medical assistance, a governmental inquiry into the state of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, headed by the Florentine doctor Antonio Cocchi, produced innovative guidelines for reorganizing public health care in the Tuscan capital. During the seventeenth century, the different Tuscan institutions offering medical assistance and poor relief, such as hospitals and luoghi pii, composed a network to a degree controlled by the Medici family, who relied on hospitals and confraternities as part of a political strategy aimed at strengthening patron-client relations that informed and sustained the very structure of early modern Tuscan society. At that time, Catholic reformers, in particular the Jesuits, started setting up new charitable institutions as part of their efforts to spread ­Counter-Reformation values.12 But above all, it was Tuscan patricians who dominated lay charitable associations providing medical assistance, using them both as an outlet for their piety and devotion and as a vehicle to further their political and economic power against the Medici. With the arrival of the Lorraine house in Tuscany, its ministers produced state policies regarding charitable and medical associations intended to improve the administrative and financial efficiency of hospitals and luoghi pii. The Lorraine regime singled out pious confraternities as conspicuously wealthy (by 1737, the Tuscan luoghi pii administered the enormous sum of 225,000 scudi per year), and stigmatized them as atomized elements of a corporate system that needed

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to be brought under control and reformed. As part of this effort, starting in 1737, Emmanuel de Richecourt, the chief representative of Grand Duke Francis Stephen in Florence, ordered a general inquiry into the administration of the luoghi pii in Tuscany.13 But the burgeoning Tuscan discussion about public health and hospitals in the 1740s did not influence Livornese Jewish approaches to voluntary medical service. The new confraternity had nothing to do with reformist impulses. In fact, its foundation was connected to a specific event: a strong earthquake that hit the port in 1742, causing great fear and destruction. On January 16, Livorno began shaking. After a series of light tremors that lasted about ten days, a strong earthquake on January 27 claimed several victims, damaged a large number of churches and houses, and brought about great desolation and panic, leading frightened Livornese to seek shelter in the open spaces of the countryside, in nearby towns, and as far away as Florence. The earth shook intermittently for more than forty days, interfering with the commercial activities of the port.14 The destruction caused by the earthquake of 1742 weighed heavily on the community’s finances and increased the need for medical help and public assistance to the poor. Still, while the new confraternity helped relieve the public budget and the burden of the sister society Gemilut Hasadim, devotional motivations and penitential concerns, rather than financial necessity, were the most crucial factors in bringing about the creation of the hevrah. Many pious members of the Livornese Jewish community, concerned by the menacing display of divine punishments manifested in the earthquake, decided to resort to charitable work as a way to appease God’s wrath, given the principle that “charity saves from death” (Prov. 10:2). Thus, “looking for the best form of charity, which is to succor and aid those who are unable to do so,” they chose to increase the help already given to poor patients by the society Gemilut ­Hasadim, “because nobody easily reaches the peak, if not by following the path found by others.”15 The confraternity’s goal was for as many people as possible—not only its members, but also contributing “benefactors”—to fulfill the traditional mitzvah (commandment) of visiting the sick. This entailed a combination of practical help, as well as care in the “spiritual and divine” spheres, at the times and points determined by rabbinic

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­tradition.16 The material care offered by the society included supplies of clean clothing provided every year by Livornese Jewish women and distribution of food rations composed of meat, bread, and eggs to eligible patients. The society’s efforts were primarily directed toward weekly visits on the Sabbath to poor patients (and daily visits to those members who may be sick or in mourning) on the part of a rotating number of randomly selected members. Like their Catholic counterparts, the Jewish confraternities that offered medical assistance were equally concerned with healing the body and saving the soul of poor patients, a phenomenon that demonstrates the strong impact of widespread post-Tridentine Catholic values on Jewish communities in Italy.17 At its establishment the Livornese confraternity Bikur Holim, in many ways, was no different from Catholic charitable institutions infused with Counter-Reformation religious caritas, for medical assistance was in fact primarily conceptualized in early modern societies as a spiritual endeavor, one that would equally benefit the soul of the giver and the receiver. The hevrah’s elaborate structure reveals its members’ priorities and highly bureaucratized structure. Eleven officers, out of a total of thirteen, were in charge of financial and administrative tasks.18 During the 1740s, the Gemilut Hasadim society, with its two hired physicians, seems to have provided much broader medical coverage than the new brotherhood. The Bikur Holim society hired only one physician, whose medical responsibilities were not specified in the confraternity’s regulations and who was initially paid by voluntary donations. Additionally, a rubì com seu adjudante (“rabbi with an assistant”) acted as a spiritual counselor to the sick and the moribund, para a salvaçao da alma (“for the salvation of [their] soul”). Emphasis on ritual practices that led to the salvation of one’s Jewish soul mirrored similar concerns among the surrounding Christian society. Visiting patients on their deathbed, the rabbi ensured that they performed the vidduy (deathbed confession of sins) and assisted them “at the time of giving up the ghost to God,” reciting to them all the “orations and offices” ordained by the sages for the last moments of someone’s life.19 The practice of reciting the vidduy publicly in the presence of a rabbi, although not included in the Talmud and me-

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dieval texts, was not uncommon in Italy and it paralleled concerns with deathbed confession that characterized Counter-Reformation Catholicism.20 In the absence of later eighteenth-century ordinances, it is difficult to judge whether medical interests grew more important than spiritual concerns among its members over time. By the second half of the century, the society had developed into a larger medical operation, which served the community’s needs not only with a physician but also with a surgeon and an apothecary.21 The long-standing disparaging attitude to surgeons, who did not undergo university training and were therefore considered akin to manual workers in early modern Europe, started changing in the second half of the eighteenth century, as these practitioners gained increased qualifications and respect. The changing significance and greater role of surgeons and apothecaries alongside trained physicians within the Bikur Holim society is in line with this trend in the broader society.22 A further growth of the hevrah’s medical system is also apparent in the 1770s, with increased yearly salaries for its physicians (from 100 to 140 pezze). In 1777, doctor Jacob Bondì, physician of the confraternity, requested that his son Azaria Vita be appointed with him, with positive outcome. The hiring of a second physician became the norm later in the decade.23 The hevrah thus underwent an increased medicalization by 1770, with the progressive growth of medical activities supervised by its officials—but during the same period its public physicians did not acquire the same level of autonomy as trained medical workers in Tuscan hospitals did. While Christian physicians promoted new models of health management that offered greater responsibility and power to trained medical personnel, fostering a “professionalization” of roles and functions,24 the history of the confraternity Bikur Holim shows an increased control over its operations by the governing structures of the community. As the hevrah developed, the community’s lay leaders became progressively invested in it and maintained a strong hold on its medical appointments, thus upholding the traditional nature of the institution and its “orthodoxy.” Whereas gentile physicians enjoyed increasing autonomy and decisional power in Tuscan hospitals and hospices as e­ ighteenth-century medical secularization advanced, this was decidedly not the case within the boundaries of the nazione ebrea

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of Livorno. The failed appeal in 1770 by Joseph Vita Castelli, who, as we saw in the previous chapter, withdrew his plea to be hired as public physician and apologized to the massari for infringing on their prerogatives, under­scores the oligarchy’s decisional power in selecting candidates for appointment to the medical confraternities, with strong preference for established medical dynasties such as the Bondì family.25 With Peter Leopold’s suppression of Christian religious confraternities in 1785,26 the provision of medical care in Tuscany became associated solely with hospitals. The Jewish hevrot, however, continued to offer both practical help, including medical assistance, and spiritual solace to members of the Livornese nazione ebrea.

Lay Devotion: The Uneasy Balance Between Torah and “Sciences of the Gentiles” Exponents of the Livornese Jewish intellectual elite like Joseph Attias, Angelo de Soria, Joseph Vita Castelli, and Graziadio Bondì aspired to participate as peers in the gentile public sphere. When engaged in the world of non-Jewish scholarship, they silenced their Jewishness and adopted a broadly humanistic discourse, increasingly rooted in Tuscan patriotic pride as the century progressed. Still, learned members of the nazione ebrea who embraced scientific and humanistic learning, often through their study at Christian universities, remained embedded within the community. They kept participating in traditional, devotional settings; attended synagogue services; joined confraternities; and served the community (or attempted to) in official roles. Some also produced pious works that further illuminate the ways in which the learned elite of Livornese Jewry was able to balance Torah and “sciences of the gentiles” while working within traditional frameworks of devotional piety. Distinct approaches to the religious culture of the nazione ebrea are discernible in the devotional output of lay members of the community, who incorporated in their work scientific and historical knowledge acquired outside of the community. In the pamphlets of former converso Abraham de Bargas, the combination of Torah and science mirrored trends found in Baroque Iberian Catholic literature. For Angelo de Soria, non-Jewish subjects equaled or even surpassed in importance bib-

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lical and midrashic knowledge, while military metaphors—a staple of both Jesuit and medical literature—spurred young men to piety.

Earthquakes and Ethics in the Writings of Abraham de Bargas One of the first physicians to serve the confraternity Bikur Holim was the converso doctor Abraham de Bargas, about whom little is known. A prolific author of ethical and scientific pamphlets, he settled in Livorno around 1742.27 After leaving the Iberian Peninsula, where he had been raised as Catholic, he seems to have moved to France, where he became personal physician of the Duke of Gramont. De Bargas ultimately relocated to Tuscany around 1740, where he reverted to Judaism and joined the Livornese community. Following his request presented before the communal council of the nazione ebrea, de Bargas was hired in 1744 and served as public physician until 1762, when he resigned from his office in order to leave Livorno for Bayonne in France, where he presumably joined the prosperous local Sephardi community.28 In Livorno, de Bargas traveled in the same circles as other exponents of the Jewish community’s medical class, such as Angelo de Soria and Isaac, son of Adam Bondì. The Spanish physician found the time to teach his maternal language to Abraham Isaac Castelli29—a highly useful skill for the communal preacher—and to compose three sonnets in honor of de Soria, to whom he was tied by collegial friendship. As one of the reasons for the establishment of the pious society Bikur Holim was the earthquake that hit Livorno in 1742, it is understandable that de Bargas decided to translate into Spanish the Shivhe todah (Livorno, 1744), composed by the Livornese rabbi Malachi ha-Cohen the same year he was elected public physician for the Bikur Holim society. This was a collection of twenty-five devotional Hebrew poems, to be inserted in the regular liturgy, which ha-Cohen had composed for the fast that had been instituted by the Livornese community on the 22nd day of Shevat as a way to thank God for sparing the Jews from the sequence of earthquakes that hit the city in 1742.30 The work contained a preface, dedicated to the parnasim, in which ha-Cohen briefly described the events and redirected the reader to more detailed and precise information found in the Shever ba-metzarim (Livorno, 1742), another collection of prayers, by Rabbi Raphael

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­ eldola, composed in the wake of the earthquake. De Bargas himself M dedicated his Spanish version to the massari of the nazione ebrea.31 In turn, the massari decided to gratify the physician with a gift of four ruspi, “to aid him with the printing expenses,” and “in consideration of the great benefit that the translation of said book . . . may bring to those who do not know the Hebrew language.”32 It is less known that de Bargas also composed an original account of the earthquake in Spanish—Fiel Relazion delos Terremotos (Faithful Relation of the Earthquakes; Livorno, 1742)—which he published only a few weeks after the event, well before starting his service for the Bikur Holim society. Earthquakes often spurred writers to publish eyewitness accounts, attempting to explain the earthquake’s reasons or calling for penance and atonement. This was the case with the Ferrara earthquake of 1570, chronicled by the Jewish Renaissance polymath Azariah de’ Rossi in his work Meor enayim.33 The London earthquake of 1750 and the famous Lisbon earthquake of 1755 provoked the interest of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Kant.34 In most of these cases, a mix of current scientific and philosophical frameworks and old-fashioned arguments informed and shaped the opinions expressed regarding the reasons for the catastrophe. Similarly, the Livornese earthquake triggered the attention of chroniclers and scientists interested in relating the facts and exploring its possible causes,35 alongside a flow of devotional literature.36 The Livornese physician Giovanni Gentili composed a detailed report, still considered today one of the primary descriptions of the earthquake. Though Gentili was in Florence and not Livorno in January 1742, he described the event as if he had been there, at the behest of his “friend and teacher” Antonio Cocchi, occupied at the time in his efforts to champion medical reforms in Florence.37 Like Gentili, the physician de Bargas also published an account of the earthquake during the same year. Unlike Gentili’s account, de Bargas’s work did not show traits of particular modernity or scientific precision. De ­Bargas did not view the earthquake as an occasion to debate some of the broader concerns related to public health that the devastation must have raised in Livorno. Rather, similarly to the founders of the Bikur Holim society, he was principally interested in the spiritual implications of the catastrophic events. The main aim of his Spanish pamphlet was devotional.

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In the first section of the work, de Bargas provided a narrative of the events that fundamentally matches other descriptions, both vernacular and Hebrew, including that of Malachi ha-Cohen and Raphael ­Meldola.38 As was typical in this kind of literature,39 de Bargas added his personal memories to the general description of the events, recounting how, after the formidable earthquake of Saturday, January 27, he took refuge in the synagogue “with his family, and many others . . . to beseech the Lord for mercy.”40 Although a scientific examination of the earthquake was not the main goal of the pamphlet, he did, however, devote the second section of his work to its possible causes. De Bargas believed that explosive underground movements caused earthquakes. The belief that either fiery or watery phenomena, or an interplay of the two, occurred in subterranean caves and that as a result winds, vapors, or other explosive events took place, causing the earth to shake, is common to all early modern theories on earthquakes, until the emergence of modern seismology, marked by the theory of dynamic wave propagation of earth tremors without any mass movement, proposed by Alexander von Humboldt in 1858. Out of the three theories that de Bargas offered to his readers, one referred to fire, and the other two to water, as provoking earth tremors. The first of the causes mentioned relied on the assumption that the earth contained narrow subterranean caves and crevices where fires burned, and seems to have been inspired by an essay by the Italian anatomist Giorgio Baglivi, written in response to the terrible earthquake that shook Rome in 1703.41 In his Opera omnia medico-pratica, et anatomica (Lyon, 1704), Baglivi had attributed earthquakes to the existence of subterranean veins where fire (provoked by inflamed sulphur, bitumen, aluminum, or carbon fossil) burned.42 The other two causes that de Bargas related involved the potentially catastrophic effects of thunderous waters colliding into the earth. The first theory implied the existence of underground conduits where rivers ended with crashing strength, causing a wind that moved naturally toward the center of the earth through narrow crevices, thereby provoking earthquakes. The second posited that melted snows crashing down from the mountains provoked a wind that caused the earth to shake while trying to escape to the surface.43

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Early modern writers traditionally viewed the earthquake as a phenomenon belonging to both the natural and the supernatural sphere, touching on both physics and metaphysics.44 Most authors held that nature could only account for a partial explanation of the wonders of earthquakes, which retained a preternatural quality. No elaborate scientific explanations are to be found in de Bargas’s pamphlet; however, he must have been aware that attempting an investigation of the earthquake’s natural, as opposed to supernatural, causes might elicit criticism from the most pious members of the Jewish community. Accordingly, de Bargas opened his discussion of the causes of earthquakes, arguing that “to attribute these violent events to the ordinary providence of natural causes is to want to conform precisely to the false idea of the atheists,” who imagine that random workings of nature provoke these and similar natural catastrophes. Rather, “anybody who is illuminated by the light of the Torah knows that God takes advantage of natural events to mete out punishments or rewards,” just as the story of Israel in Egypt teaches.45 In order to justify his attempt to relate what might be the earthquakes’ three natural causes “according to the consensus among the philosophers,” and presumably to avert possible suspicions of impiety and atheism, therefore, Dr. de Bargas claimed that his scientific discussion was a mere “digression.”46 Since de Bargas did not quote any classical or modern author in his work, identification of his sources is difficult. For a large part of the early modern period, authors who wrote on earthquakes rehashed Aristotle’s opinion on subterranean winds; in his Meteorologica, the Greek philosopher argued that earthquakes were the necessary consequence of the interplay between wet and dry, ultimately caused by a wind produced by the evaporation of rain on the earth due to the sun and its warmth. When excessive rain caused more of the evaporation to form, this dry exhalation was trapped in the earth and compressed into smaller spaces by water that filled cavities in the ground. When these underground winds broke out, they caused the earth to shake, beating and throbbing against its surface.47 But starting in the seventeenth century new ideas about the earth’s composition emerged, which in turn influenced seismology.48 Similarly, de Bargas conflated a number of theories and mixed recent geological notions with Aristotle’s explanation, following the classical notion that earthquakes were provoked

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by the “noxious mixture of the opposite elements.”49 He simplified and pared down his explanations, without the pretense of much scientific precision, clearly addressing a popular audience. After all, as he observed at the end of his excursus, whatever cause one may choose to believe, ultimately only the Soberano Opifize (“Sovereign Maker”) knew the origins and aims of earthquakes. Indeed, the scientific notions he appropriated and popularized did not stand on their own. They were in the service of penitential themes and, more specifically, of beliefs and ideas typically found in Iberian Catholic Baroque literature and in Jewish writings by ex-conversos. Azariah de’ Rossi had ended his discourse on the Ferrara earthquake on a positive note, observing that many of the city’s damaged buildings had been “impaired for their own good,” so that they could under­go renovations and improvements. Although terrifying in nature, earthquakes came for good reasons, asserted de’ Rossi, providing the ground for better and greater rebuilding opportunities.50 Unlike his Renaissance colleague, de Bargas viewed earthquakes as a taste and premonition of the Last Judgment. Rather than bringing about occasions for greater human fame and glory, they taught human beings about the vanity of the world. Through the demolition of buildings and the destruction of worldly possessions, they reminded humanity of the fragility of its condition and its transitory state.51 In conclusion, de Bargas mused, man should not fear heavenly signs. Instead, earthquakes should spur him to avoid vices, abhor sins, tame passions, and love virtue, always keeping in mind the holy fear of God and the eternal rest of the afterlife.52 The explanation that de Bargas offered at the end of his work provides a variation on the vanitas genre. This literary trope was not only widely explored by sixteenth-century Spanish Catholic authors, such as Fray Luis de Granada (1505–88) and Diego de Estella (1524–78), but also by ex-conversos, some of whom were influenced by Iberian Baroque themes and by a direct reading of Catholic pietistic literature, such as Abraham Pereyra in his Espejo de la vanidad del mundo (1671).53 Scholars have debated whether the presence of the vanitas genre in Jewish writings by ex-conversos should be attributed to Catholic influences or Baroque inspiration; surely, many passages in the Hebrew Bible, such as the book of Ecclesiastes, also inspired Sephardi authors

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of converso background who wrote about the vanity of the world and the fragility of the human condition.54 Perhaps de Bargas had been exposed to Baroque devotional themes in Spain and the well-established vanitas trope in Hebrew literature reinforced his pietistic leaning.

Youth and Temptation in the Works of Abraham de Bargas and Angelo de Soria De Bargas dedicated another ethical work in Spanish, entitled Dialogo entre Sinocrata i Nizetas, to the pious society Bikur Holim some time after his election.55 This pamphlet, too, exhibits an eclectic mixture of pietistic themes. The name Nizetas, or Nicetas, would have instantly evoked concepts of chastity and martyrdom in the mind of seventeenthand eighteenth-century European non-Jewish readers. In fact, Nicetas was a Christian martyr of the fourth century. An extremely popular devotional work composed by the Bavarian Jesuit Jeremias Drexel (1581–1638) immortalized his name as an example of man’s struggle against lust and sexual impulses. Drexel’s Nicetas; seu, Triumphata incontinentia was first published in Munich in 1624; the pamphlet enjoyed multiple editions and was soon translated into several European languages, including English and Spanish.56 In the wake of these publications, the name Nicetas came to epitomize the virtue of chastity in early modern Europe. It is possible that de Bargas knew the narrative from an early ­eighteenth-century Spanish version to which he was exposed during his youth, when he lived as a Christian in the Iberian Peninsula. Be that as it may, what is clear is that he presented the confraternity Bikur Holim with a Jewish version of a Christian exemplar story. In de ­Bargas’s Dialogo, the “chaste Nizetas” is a young Jewish man of great wisdom living in ancient Rome. Like the original Nicetas, the Jewish protagonist of de Bargas’s pamphlet is a pious martyr, who in this case killed himself so as not to succumb to the sexual advances of the noble and beautiful (yet “shameless”) Princess Sinocrata, a variation on the figure of Potiphar’s wife not mentioned in Christian versions.57 Through his uplifting example de Bargas wished to persuade his readers of the necessity of contrasting the vain pleasures of the world with the observance of Jewish law, not unlike he had done in his

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work on the Livornese earthquake of 1742. His message was addressed particularly to young men, who, he argued, are especially vulnerable to the temptations of lust because of their age. For good measure, the author also added to the pamphlet a section on moral maxims and education,58 and pragmatic advice on manners and common courtesy, teaching an ideal of balance and moderation.59 A similar focus on youth and temptation, though developed in a radically different manner, appeared in the Oracion panejirico ­doctrinal sobre la mala tentacion, a substantial Spanish sermon interspersed with Hebrew quotations published in 1751 in Livorno by Angelo de Soria.60 De Soria, who was an original member of the Bikur Holim society in 1742 and had studied in the community’s Talmud Torah in the 1740s,61 called his Oracion the “first fruit of the spiritual goods that my studies brought about,” and dedicated it with gratitude to the physician Aron Uziel, who had plausibly contributed to his Jewish schooling.62 His Jewish sources were biblical, midrashic, and Mishnaic passages, as well as the writings of Sephardi philosophers such as Isaac Arama and Isaac Abravanel.63 The text, warning about the treacherous traps of the evil impulse ( yetzer ha-ra), or mala tentacion, was recited by a thirteen-year-old boy on his bar mitzvah, the ceremony in which young Jewish men are traditionally welcomed into the adult community and take up the observance of the precepts (mitzvot).64 It was a common belief that the evil impulse began attacking man at that age. De Soria depicted the vida contemplativa, exemplified by the study of the Law, as a bastion against the assaults of the mala tentacion and its tempting, yet eventually damning and vain, delights. For this reason, young boys should not abandon their studies after the bar mitzvah, lest they risk losing every defense against its attacks.65 Although each age offers both challenges and opportunities for redemption and return to contemplative life,66 the work addresses young men in particular. It is this group that often gives up entirely on their studies, as they begin to work and to seek out honors and wealth. Blinded by material goods and pleasures, they abandon contemplative life for the pursuit of business and fleeting human gains (“negocio . . . trafico . . . humano perecedero lucro”).67 The observance of commandments alone, which de Soria calls vida activa, is not sufficient to protect against the yetzer ha-ra. Repeatedly,

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the author emphasizes that only the study of Torah for its own sake is the safest protection against evil thoughts and deeds. As one’s years go by, the opportunities to return to the vida contemplativa shrink; the observance of mitzvot becomes crucial as a defense, though insufficient against the strong assaults of the evil impulse. Maturity, with its responsibilities and hard work, leads most men to abandon not only sacred studies but also the observance of the mitzvot altogether.68 Sermons are notoriously problematic as reliable and trustworthy depictions of mores and behaviors. Yet, the context for de Soria’s apologetic endeavors seems to fit with the facts of Livornese Jewish life; many young men must have abandoned Torah study after their bar mitzvah, to pursue a career in commerce. Although negocio, trafico, and lucro are not depicted as negative enterprises per se, de Soria views the mercantile activity and the pursuit of profit, together with sensual pleasures, as threats that lead man to lose his perspective on the vanity of all worldly endeavors, if not balanced by a sustained spiritual commitment.69 De Soria’s matter-of-fact reference to the loss of any observance of Jewish precepts raises questions about the actual level of religious adherence among the mercantile segment of Livornese Jewry. The themes of material vanity and temptation thus feature in Spanish devotional works written by both de Abraham de Bargas and Angelo de Soria. But de Soria’s devotional output is infused with a new type of religious discourse. As we will see, while rhetorically the text adheres to traditional tropes, he took advantage of his familiarity with current historical and military events to further his devotional argument. Unlike de Bargas’s references, de Soria’s combination of Torah and secular interests opens the way to an unconventional approach, where gentile history and politics take center stage. This both upsets the timehonored hierarchy of importance between Torah and “sciences of the world,” and points to a widening distinction between the two.

“At the School of Minerva”: Political History in Angelo de Soria’s Oracion Throughout the first part of the sermon, de Soria employed a striking number of military metaphors to depict man’s life struggle against the mala tentacion. His entire peroration in defense of the study of

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the Law was couched in military terms. Like a general from enemy armies, the mala tentacion besieges man’s natural abilities to defend himself against ill deeds.70 The vida contemplativa serves as the inner castle against such assaults, a plaça fuerte (army base) defending the entire “spiritual republic” of man, while the vida activa is the outer fortress, manned by the “large army of precept observance.”71 De Soria invoked military strategy and maneuvers, discussing at length specific battles from the biblical and more recent past as examples of good and bad tactics of defense and attack. The emphasis on warfare is rather unusual in Jewish writings; after all, most European Jews were excluded from military pursuits until Napoleonic emancipation. De Soria would likely have been exposed to military metaphors in medical literature. The notion of the body as a castle assaulted by disease, and of the physician as a commander of the defensive army, was widespread since the Middle Ages.72 Three years after the publication, as we saw, de Soria would graduate from the University of Pisa with a medical degree. We can presume that when he wrote the Oracion de Soria had started or was about to start his university training. It is tempting to imagine the budding medical student transferring a familiar simile from the physical to the spiritual realm. Military language used to portray spiritual struggle was also very common in Christian literature. In the Letter to the Ephesians, Paul urged the Christian faithful to don the “armor of God,” the “breastplate of justice,” the “shield of faith,” the “helmet of salvation,” and the “sword of the Spirit” to withstand the attacks of evil.73 A rich exegetical tradition concerning the Pauline arma spiritualia developed among the early Christians and flourished in the late Middle Ages.74 The language of spiritual combat resurfaced at times of perceived heretical threats and religious wars and, by the time of the Catholic Reformation, it was entrenched in the Christian tradition. In his Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), the founder of the Jesuit order, presented history as a constant struggle between man and evil, urging Christians to be soldiers of a militant Church.75 Another popular text, Il combattimento spirituale (The Spiritual Combat), by Theatine L ­ orenzo Scupoli (1530–1610), instructed the Catholic faithful on her daily battle against the devil’s temptations. Still, while it is possible that de Soria was aware of the Christian discourse of spiritual

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warfare from sermons heard in one of Livorno’s churches or from conversations with Christian acquaintances, his metaphors and examples did not focus on “spiritual arms,” but rather on military engineering and strategy. Although rare in Jewish texts, emphasis on military strategy is not entirely unheard of. The sixteenth-century physician and polymath Abraham Portaleone (1542–1612), of Mantua, wrote on warfare in his encyclopedic work Shilte ha-giborim (Shields of the Mighty; Mantua, 1612). Portaleone consistently employed biblical examples to teach lessons on warfare, displaying his thorough expertise on modern strategy and weaponry.76 Similarly, de Soria drew from multiple biblical battles: between Jephtah and the king of the Ammonites (Judg. 11:32–33), between King David and the Philistines in the Valley of Rephaim (2 Sam. 5:17–25), and between Ahab, king of Israel, and Ben-Hadad, king of Aram (1 Kings 20).77 But unlike Portaleone, de Soria also relied extensively on modern military history to teach lessons on Jewish piety. Furthermore, de Soria set the conventionally accepted order of knowledge on its head, by presenting secular subjects as important enough to provide exemplars for Jewish behavior. Though Greek and Latin literature would have offered an abundance of possible examples, de Soria hardly drew on the classical past,78 but rather on celebrated episodes from the bloody Thirty Years’ War of the previous century (1618–48) and from the recent War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48), which involved almost all the major European powers. The increasingly professionalized and technically complex War of the Austrian Succession touched many Italian states closely; it weakened Italian hopes of overcoming internal regional division under a great foreign power, and ultimately strengthened the regionalistic structure of the peninsula. Accounts of the night battle of Velletri, with kings and generals fleeing from their beds, of the siege of Genoa, and of the war in the Alps conducted with cold precision by the Piedmontese, found their way into contemporaneous historical accounts, most famously the Annali d’Italia, published by Muratori in Milan between 1744 and 1749.79 Whether or not de Soria had read the Annali, or any other of the several current accounts of the war,80 he ventured precise names of generals and battles, alluding to military tactics that must have been well known at the time.

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The Oracion reflects the burgeoning interest in military strategy and theory that developed throughout the second half of the century and culminated in nineteenth-century works on the philosophy of war, like Carl von Clausewitz’s On War (1832). Those who heard the sermon may have been acquainted with the recent war campaigns, if not through books, then thanks to oral reports or narratives circulating in gazettes and broadsheets.81 They would have followed military developments as eagerly as de Soria. And, as the sermon was penned in celebration of a bar mitzvah, the young boys in the audience would have been fascinated by the description of battles and military skirmishes. De Soria’s sermon deviates remarkably from traditional Jewish standards in other ways. The description of purely secular historical events in a Jewish homiletical work is striking and unusual. His interest in history was hardly unique among Western Sephardi Jews; the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam delighted in reading accounts of modern local and European history,82 and many Sephardi authors discussed historical events in texts specifically devoted to questions of political governance. However, of all the literary genres that Sephardi writers practiced during the early modern period, the sermon was possibly the only one in which authors relied mostly on biblical and rabbinical passages and did not feel compelled to demonstrate their secular erudition. The preacher and rabbi of the Portuguese community of Amsterdam, Saul Levi Morteira (d. 1660), used examples from Roman and Christian history in several of his sermons, yet only in service of Jewish history, with general references meant to emphasize a moral lesson.83 While the reference to secular sources was not frowned upon, preachers cared more about showing their profound knowledge of Jewish literature.84 It seems that this was not so in de Soria’s case. Particularly striking is the fact that in no instance did de Soria refer to divine intervention in history, aside from using recent diplomatic and military events as allegories for man’s spiritual struggle against the evil impulse. While the Amsterdam preacher Morteira approached secular history as “evidence for God’s providential plan,” and subsumed it to a homiletical or polemical (often, anti-Christian) purpose,85 all mentions of political history are devoid of religious overtones in the Oracion. The sermon does not provide enough evidence to gauge de Soria’s historiographical sophistication. Still, he delighted in the sheer

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accumulation of historical details, names of countries, and references to battles. Most significantly, he assigned autonomous wills to each European power, and depicted them as independent actors in the theater of human history, without God’s direction. Several references to the use of political history in the edition’s foreword and conclusion demonstrate that de Soria was aware of the novelty of his approach and decided to publicly rebut potential critiques. In a preface addressed to the reader, the author defended and justified his decision to draw from political rather than biblical history. In de Soria’s opinion, a religious sermon may well include historias politicas ide estado (“political and state histories”). “It is known that an orator must be knowledgeable about all arts, both liberal and mechanical,” he mused, and about all types of history—not only divine but also “human, moral, political, and profane, so that the doctrines, sentences, examples and moral models deduced from it may serve as a persuasive incentive for the people, to be moved to [perform] the divine s­ervice.”86 De Soria vindicated his extensive reliance on events from the recent wars as exemplar stories that would resonate directly with the audience and spur it to piety more effectively than any reference to events buried in ancient history. In the “Protesta del Author,” an apologetic disclaimer located at the end of the work, de Soria took up this subject again. He acknowledged his lack of experience in military training, explaining that he had learned only indirectly about military art and the “shrewd maneuvering that occurs at royal courts, particularly during the recent wars.” His knowledge derived, not from “the schools of Mars,” but rather from those of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom popularly associated with the pursuit of higher learning—presumably a reference to his secular studies and hence familiarity with history books.87 Consequently, he had decided to share his knowledge, making sure that any reference to political events was always preceded by biblical examples. But if anything in his work erred even slightly against the Sagrados Dogmas (“sacred dogmas”) of the Jewish faith or opposed rabbinical tradition, de Soria “of course retracted” it. He humbly bowed in submission to rabbinic direction, as a self-professed judio relixioso. How are we to understand this unusual expression? It would seem that with relixioso de Soria meant to depict himself as a Jew fully com-

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mitted to rabbinical tradition and the principles of Judaism—what today we would call an observant Jew. Such a definition signals an emerging distinction between ethnicity (judio) and religious commitment (­relixioso) among the Jews of Livorno, a phenomenon common among Western Sephardim more generally. A similar separation was noticed in the Jewish community of Amsterdam during the seventeenth century; it was widespread among the Sephardim of London in the eighteenth century.88 The possibility that some members of the Livornese community did not define themselves as “religious” seems implied as well. Ultimately, following an established trope among early modern authors writing on controversial topics, de Soria deferred judgment to the “prudence and discretion” of his readers, knowledgeable enough to assess his text on their own and even correct the author’s errors in the book’s margins, which were left intentionally “free for emendations.”89 Though de Soria was able to garner enough support to bring the book to light, we do not know how the rabbinic authorities or the broader Jewish public of Livorno reacted to the sermon. The prominence it gave to gentile politics and history seems at odds with the pedagogical spirit of the Livornese Talmud Torah, and foreshadows de Soria’s enthusiasm for secular education, as he expressed it to the massari in 1754. For their part, the Church hierarchies strongly objected to de Soria’s work, which was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books on April 14, 1755.90 It was not the use of historical examples which disturbed the Holy Office, but several passages in the text, deemed either dangerously heretical or inviting the reader to “Judaize.”91

Conclusion Confraternal piety continued to offer an outlet for devotion and religious expression to learned lay Jews who were also at home in the wider world. In the case of the Livornese doctors Abraham de Bargas and Angelo de Soria, devotion led to the production of literary works aimed at a popular audience that combined religious and secular themes. Between 1742 and 1751, they published devotional literature in Spanish aimed at the broader Jewish community of Livorno and at Western Sephardi readers outside of Tuscany. Secular studies influ-

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enced the production of both authors, who included in their pious texts self-conscious rhetorical moves explicitly minimizing or undercutting their decision to address lay topics; de Bargas presented as a mere “digression” the natural explanation for the causes of earthquakes in his Faithful Relation, while de Soria circuitously admitted that his sermon might contain elements contradicting rabbinic “dogmas.” While lay and religious topics intersected in these literary works, there are important differences in how they negotiated the balance between devotional and scientific or historical subjects. De Bargas’s writings offer an insight into traits that scholars commonly ascribe to ex-converso intellectuals raised and trained in the Iberian Peninsula. De Soria may have also been aware of contemporary spiritual concerns in the Christian world, as his use of military metaphors show. Above all, his sermon shows traits of self-conscious modernity that may reflect his private pursuit of a humanistic education and the studies in preparation of the medical degree that he would later receive from the University of Pisa. On the one hand, de Bargas remained within the limits of religious “orthodoxy,” and only relied on scientific themes to emphasize the need to let go of the vain pleasures of this world. It is possible that his formative years in post-Tridentine Catholic Spain and his reversion to Judaism as an adult, combined with his position as a salaried official for the Bikur Holim society, led him to exercise caution in his approach to secular subjects. On the other hand, de Soria treaded more controversial terrain by presenting current military events as exempla to spur devotion among the common people. While de ­Bargas placed all hope in an omnipresent, omniscient, and wrathful God, de Soria removed God altogether from the historical stage. Despite the marked differences in their literary output and sensibility, both authors found in the topic of spiritual salvation an avenue to combine traditional Jewish values with modern elements borrowed from the sciences and history. Piety and spiritual salvation also emerged as clear priorities of the hevrah Bikur Holim at its establishment in 1742. As the eighteenth century progressed, the confraternity became increasingly professionalized, with a growing role for its medical personnel, and the lay leaders of the community grew more invested in its operations. Still, the discourse of administrative improvement, centralization, and reforms championed by the Tuscan government in the course of

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the eighteenth century was only partially mirrored within the nazione ebrea at the institutional level. In Livorno, the Jewish public physicians remained strictly dependent on the oligarchic governing board. The phenomenon of medical secularization that interested Tuscan welfare institutions as the century progressed did not have a parallel within the nazione ebrea, where the medical confraternities remained primarily an outlet for spiritual devotion and a form of socialization structured around traditional Jewish religious values. The parallels between transformations in the forms of medical assistance provided by Livornese Jewish institutions and the public health reform of Tuscan society are limited. In the fields of leisure time and lay sociability, however, transformations within the Jewish community reflected broader reformist trends promoted by the Tuscan state over the course of the century.

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S i x  Coffee and Gambling Jewish Recreation and “National” Separation Caffés: . . . ce sont aussi des manufactures d’esprit, tant bonnes que mauvaises. Encyclopédie, 2: 529

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“It would not be easy to tell by which nation this city is inhabited,” mused the erudite Frenchman Charles de Brosses after his arrival in Livorno in October 1739, in the celebrated Lettres chronicling his Italian voyage. “Let us just say that all sorts of nations from Europe and Asia live here; therefore the streets resemble a masquerade, and the language that of the tower of Babel. . . . The city is extremely populous and free; each ethnic group has the right to practice its own religion.”1 De Brosses’s picturesque depiction of the multiplicity of ethnicities living side by side in the Tuscan port evokes a pluralistic cosmopolitan city populated by a “mixed multitude” of indistinguishable nations mingling freely. But, as historians of Livorno and other port cities increasingly recognize, such an impression is misleading.2 The Livornese system allowed for the existence of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, but the boundaries of each nazione were carefully watched by early modern Tuscan, ecclesiastical, and communal authorities, including Jewish leaders. This organizational structure was not entirely different from the one devised for autonomous merchant colonies in early modern Ottoman society or from the corporate system of pre-partition Poland-Lithuania.3 The belief that the “cosmopolitan” arrangement of the port could only function if it maintained a clear separation between its corporate groups informed the norms regulating social behavior in Livorno. For most members of each ethnic and religious group, too, life expectations and activities were defined by belonging to their nazione and almost entirely delineated by such communal boundaries. While Livornese men and women frequently crossed them for business and leisure throughout the early modern period, these routine deviations were not harbingers of structural

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change, anticipatory of radical alterations of the Livornese social fabric or of modern forms of toleration. Working from the perspective of economic history, Francesca Trivellato has recently dubbed the Livornese system “communitarian cosmopolitanism,” an insightful definition that challenges the idea that trade among members of different ethnic and religious groups fostered the emergence of toleration and mutual respect. This framework helps further understand how the Sephardi Jews of Livorno were able to develop a certain familiarity and ease with strangers in order to do business with them, while remaining solidly ensconced within their community of origin.4 Trivellato’s conclusion is based primarily on legislative and administrative sources, a kind of documentation that, as she readily recognizes, reflects “boundary-making rather than fluidity.”5 Turning to the cultural practices of Livornese Jews and their social reality allows us to assess with added precision the tension between norms that emphasized separation, on the one hand, and the behaviors of Livornese Jews and gentiles that habitually crossed these boundaries, on the other. One of the venues where Jews and non-Jews interacted in the port, often crossing normative boundaries, was the coffeehouse. The study of coffeehouses opens up fresh vistas on the separation and integration of Jews living in a city such as Livorno, characterized by high religious and ethnic diversity. It allows us to consider if areas of fluidity existed and to investigate if these relatively new sites of entertainment, socialization, and exchange affected the structures of ancien régime Livorno. Historians traditionally depict the coffeehouse as an urban hub for informal exchange, which offered to its patrons more chances for social mingling than exclusive and selective sites, such as salons or academies. Customers not only went to the coffee shop to drink the fashionable dark brew, but also to get news. Gazettes and newspapers were frequently available for patrons to read, and the oral “information system” that gossips and rumormongers created flourished within the café, as Robert Darnton has shown for eighteenth-century Paris.6 The combination of printed and oral news circulating within the coffee­ house also generated many opportunities for political discussion. Scholarship on sociability and the public sphere additionally views coffeehouses as a novel form of social aggregation that fostered the diffusion of reformist values traditionally associated with the Enlight-

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enment among “bourgeois” social strata excluded from the primary nodes of power and information, such as the court.7 This understanding is based on Jürgen Habermas’s well-known depiction of the English coffee­house as the model of the democratic public sphere, conceived as the voluntary association of private individuals coming together as a reasoning public, in contrast to the absolute state.8 As this chapter makes clear, the Livornese situation complicates the Habermasian trope; by so doing, these pages contribute to a broader effort of historical revision of the significance of coffeehouses in the eighteenth century.9 The institution of the Livornese Jewish coffeehouse did not challenge or lessen existing power structures, but reflected them. Jews operated coffeehouses located within the Jewish neighborhood, for the enjoyment of members of the community. Such a site was meant to offer its clients a specifically “national” sphere for entertainment, controlled by the Jewish leadership and clearly distinct from the broader society. Vexed questions rooted in the Jewish legal tradition fueled concerns for separation and the control of leisure time among the members of the Livornese Jewish governing council. In his classic of early modern Jewish sociology, Tradition and Crisis, Jacob Katz suggested that Jewish leaders traditionally disapproved of social activity for its own sake, regarding it as “religiously and ethically dangerous,” and denied any legitimacy to leisure time except on certain days and specific events.10 Yet, the Livornese massari encouraged certain forms of male social recreation, which they viewed as a necessary and important part of Jewish life in the Tuscan port, while carefully attempting to shape and control them. Even the rabbinic authorities came to approve of some leisure activities. Similarly to the Livornese massari, an important factor informing the discourse of the Tuscan administration about recreation in Livorno was the separation of the different ethnic groups; ideally, each one should be equipped with a “national” site dedicated to leisure activities and licit entertainment. Regardless of the intentions of Christian and Jewish authorities, however, factual reality did not always match normative expectations. Coffeehouses certainly offered new opportunities for mixed sociability and recreation to Jews and non-Jews who deviated from communal regulations: as Jews patronized Christian establishments, so did gentiles visit the Jewish coffeehouse.

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Through a consideration of Jewish policies relative to coffee shops, this chapter additionally aims to continue exploring the ways in which the nazione ebrea adapted to reforms promoted by the Tuscan state. We saw in the previous pages that reformist efforts in the field of health care did not affect Livornese Jewry. Traditional concerns about spiritual devotion and piety continued to dominate the work of benevolent confraternities dedicated to healing the Jewish poor, such as the ­society Bikur Holim, which remained primarily outlets for a kind of sociability organized around traditional Jewish religious values and moral principles. In the sphere of leisure time, however, developments in the Jewish community paralleled those of the broader Tuscan society. Over the course of the eighteenth century, both the Tuscan government and the Livornese massari turned to popular sites of entertainment, such as coffeehouses, in the attempt to control social behavior and reform the experience of recreation. While Jews quickly embraced coffee as a favorite beverage, learned Jewish elites in eighteenth-century European communities perceived coffeehouses as problematic. Fulminating against their frequentation, Ashkenazi rabbis regarded gentile coffee shops as dangerous places of promiscuity, where reproachable relations between men and women might develop and vices such as gossip and slander could flourish.11 In centers such as Prague, rabbinical leaders worried about Jews visiting Christian coffeehouses on the Sabbath, and pondered the risks of having gentiles preparing the drink for Jewish customers.12 In Livorno, the massari did not explicitly discuss the risks of gentile coffeehouses or attendance on the Jewish day of rest, although such concerns must have been present. Instead, they repeatedly concentrated their attention on the forms of recreation offered by Jewish cafés, particularly card and board games, and adapted regulations in response not only to intracommunal concerns but also to policy changes enacted by the Tuscan state.

The Conquest of the Night: Coffee and Games in Eighteenth-Century Italy Brian Cowan has recently challenged the view of the coffeehouse as an “unfettered public sphere,” tracing the adoption of this novel venue

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by the English virtuosi as a site appropriate for learned sociability and reconstructing the informal means of class stratification within coffee­house society.13 Still, while correcting some of the tenets of the Habermasian model, historians of post-Restoration England have for the most part maintained the centrality of the coffeehouse for political culture—if not democratic, then elitist and oligarchic.14 Some anthropologists attempting to explain the reasons why the café became a center of informal relations between intellectuals have even suggested that the consumption of stimulants like coffee and tea “promoted the sobriety appropriate for the discussion of important subjects.”15 ­According to this view, the characteristic mental lucidity engendered by coffee became associated with a gentlemanly seriousness and purposiveness, and allegedly provided a new model of masculine gentility, divorced from unruly habits related to wine and beer drinking. Despite important revisions, in other words, the “critical” English coffee­house is still solidly inscribed within the historiographical discourse about Enlightenment cultural practices.16 But London coffeehouses, each of which catered to a particular profession, party, or nationality (thus rendering the social composition of each establishment unique), and required a small entry fee, were different from continental establishments. In France, Germany, or Italy, both the function and the perception of the coffee shop were more complex than is recognized.17 Far from being a venue for restrained masculine comportment, in the Italian states the coffeehouse, or bottega da caffè, was frequently related to alcohol drinking, thefts, and brawls, and more generally associated with idle behavior and laziness.18 While some large and luxurious establishments catered to an aristocratic clientele, smaller shops drew patrons from the urban working classes. Gossip thrived within these venues. Spirited discussions on current events were common as well.19 For these reasons, coffeehouses were routinely monitored by informants paid to sit among customers to observe and eavesdrop. Their owners also volunteered information to the police or the Inquisition if they happened to notice something curious or suspicious.20 Above all, Italian coffee shops were associated with prostitution and gambling. In Venice, where over two hundred coffee shops flourished at midcentury, police informants portrayed these sites as hubs of sexual promiscuity.21 Prostitutes mingled with patrons; some set up shop in

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rooms adjacent to coffeehouses (camerini), with the caffettieri acting as pimps.22 At nighttime, coffeehouse customers frequently enjoyed their drinks while playing board and card games, or a game of billiards if the coffeehouse was adequately equipped. Whether or not games were available in a public coffeehouse, players enjoyed coffee between games also in private venues.23 Although coffee is often described as a drink of sober moderation and efficiency, a symbol of middle-class alacrity and mercantile zeal,24 its stimulant properties could be put to radically different use. Coffee allowed gamblers to extend the hours of play well beyond what would have been possible under normal circumstances. The “conquest of the night” documented as a side effect of coffee consumption applied to leisure time too.25 Illegal coffeehouse gambling was a particularly serious cause of governmental concern: unregulated and impermanent, clandestine and secluded gambling spots arranged in coffeehouses defied the social and economic order.26 Because of their association with gambling and other crimes, Italian coffeehouses came increasingly under state scrutiny in the second half of the eighteenth century. A wide antigambling campaign swept Europe from the 1750s. Andrea Addobbati has shown that in Tuscany, as elsewhere in Italy, the Lorraine authorities embarked on vast reforms concerning leisure time and recreation, including festivals and holy days, and aimed at redefining licit and illicit games.27 This process was accompanied by a reflection on the spaces in which playing games was allowed or prohibited, which led to a conceptual redefinition of the nature of the coffeehouse. After directing their probing attention to these establishments, the Tuscan Grand Dukes Francis Stephen and Peter Leopold overhauled the state’s approach to issuing licenses for both gambling and ­coffee sale, aiming to centralize and rationalize the process. Initially, the Livornese administration intervened to control, centralize, and simplify the issuing of licenses in order to create a well-policed system and maximize profits. But in the 1780s the trend toward marketplace liberalization and competition fostered by Peter Leopold extended to coffeehouses and gaming sites, whose licenses were liberalized with dramatic results for Jewish-run businesses. Ultimately, because of these efforts, Jewish coffeehouses could not keep up with competition and disappeared from Livorno.

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For these reasons, the significance of the Jewish coffeehouse in Livorno should be assessed in the broader context of Jewish and Tuscan governmental attempts to regulate social behavior and reform leisure time. The nazione ebrea found itself debating whether Livornese Jews could be allowed to play card and board games for monetary stakes within a Jewish coffeehouse. This issue provoked a rift within the governing oligarchy, whose members displayed contrasting attitudes concerning games. Economic and pragmatic ­concerns ultimately trumped the reservations of both Livornese rabbis and more pious members of the governing board. As in other spheres of Livornese Jewish life, such as the Hebrew printing business examined in the next chapter, Jewish entrepreneurs involved in the coffee and gambling businesses actively bypassed the authority of the Jewish lay leaders to obtain permits by appealing directly to the Grand Duke and his ministers. For their part, Livornese Jewish gamblers, most of whom hailed from the local working class, continued to play in Livornese coffeehouses even when their actions defied both Jewish and Tuscan law.

Jewish Coffeehouses in Livorno Before 1737: The Challenge of Gambling Coffee arrived in Livorno in 1632, when a privateer found six containers of coffee on an Egyptian ship he had commandeered into the port of Livorno. It is likely that the consumption of coffee as a drink started soon after, putting the Tuscan city ahead of Oxford, where the first coffeehouse opened in 1650, and Venice, where coffee was sold as an expensive medicinal rarity by 1638 and as a drink by 1683.28 As in England, where a Jew named Jacob established Oxford’s first coffee shop, Jewish entrepreneurs were early marketers of the exotic beans in Tuscany.29 In 1665, Flaminio Pesaro secured a state monopoly for the coffee trade.30 In 1699, David Mendes Telles obtained from the Livornese dogana (customs office) the first exclusive contract (appalto) for the sale of coffee, chocolate, and tea in the port city for a two-year period.31 By the end of the seventeenth century there were a number of coffeehouses in Livorno separately managed by Jews and Christians.

Jewish Recreation and “National” Separation

While some female members of the lower classes frequented coffeehouses, they appear to have catered primarily to a male clientele.32 In Livorno, as in other Sephardi communities, Jews operated coffee­ houses located within the Jewish neighborhood already in the seventeenth century.33 Similarly to Amsterdam, where Sephardi owners ran coffeehouses patronized equally by Christians and Jews, in seventeenthcentury Livorno the clientele at Jewish coffee shops was often mixed.34 Livornese Jews also frequented the numerous coffeehouses managed by non-Jews throughout the city.35 The free mingling of Jews and Christians in coffeehouses and other public drinking spaces, such as taverns (osterie), displeased the local Tuscan authorities, but they could do little to prevent it. In 1692, the governor of Livorno, Alessandro dal Borro, published an edict forbidding Jews from allowing Christians into their coffeehouses, and vice versa, in order to “remove the grave scandals that ensued.”36 The edict was repeatedly disregarded over the course of the eighteenth century and coffeehouses continued to provide a social space for Livornese Jews and Christians to mingle, sometimes illicitly. Livornese coffee shops were at times frequented by Jewish men in the company of Christian prostitutes, while their crowded space allowed thieves to relieve unsuspecting customers of their valuables.37 As Robert Liberles and Maoz Kahana have shown, the introduction of coffee into eighteenth-century Ashkenazi communities raised significant challenges for rabbis and communal leaders. German rabbis were called to give their opinion on coffee’s permissibility during the holiday of Passover. They debated which blessing should be recited over its drinking. Most importantly, given the popularity of the drink, they legislated whether it could be permitted on the Sabbath, and, if so, how it should be prepared.38 Rabbinical authorities were especially hard pressed when it came to Jews drinking in public coffeehouses (as opposed to the privacy of their own homes). Jacob Emden of Altona (1697–1776) and Ezekiel Landau of Prague (1713–93) objected to the practice, fearing about moshav litzim (idleness), the risks of cooking by a non-Jew, and the potential use of nonkosher utensils.39 The Austrian Jacob Reischer (ca. 1670–1733) prohibited coffeehouse visits “because of the frivolous company there”; Zevi Hirsch Levin of London dubbed coffeehouse goers “Jewish rebels.”40 Rabbis prohibited drinking in a gentile coffeehouse on the Sabbath. Such a practice was so

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frequent, however, that the Prague bet din (rabbinical court), keenly aware of the popularity of coffee on the Jewish day of rest, attempted to promote an alternative to Christian coffeehouses by allowing controlled access to Jewish coffee shops on Saturday mornings, before or after prayer, but never at the same time as synagogue services.41 In Livorno, the question of the Jewish frequentation of coffeehouses on the Sabbath was not raised in the communal meetings. The concern was different. There, Jewish regulations about coffeehouses issued during the eighteenth century addressed game playing exclusively. Just like gentile cafés, Jewish coffeehouses in Livorno were not only an urban space of recreation and socialization, where merchants met to discuss commercial news or members of the lower classes enjoyed a morning coffee before going to the docks, but also a site where many Jews gathered to gamble. As such, the massari and the rabbis, along with the nazione ebrea’s entire governing council, were interested in controlling the nature of the entertainment that took place within their walls. Once coffeehouses became one of the main sites for card playing, with the risk that they could disrupt or challenge the established social order, they came under scrutiny. Already in the seventeenth century, board and card games were probably the most common form of recreation among the Jews of Livorno. As versions of checkers, backgammon, and various card games became increasingly widespread, the massari repeatedly prohibited Jews from gambling in public casini, on the street, and in Christian homes—an indication of the frequency of such practices—and only allowed them to play certain permitted games in Jewish homes. There, the host was required to take part in the entertainment and not to accept gifts or money from his guests, lest he be mistaken for a casino keeper.42 At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the question arose if playing could be permitted in Jewish coffeehouses. Based on the earlier regulations, the permissibility of games depended on the coffeehouse’s status. In a domestic space, such as a Jewish home, licit games could be allowed under certain conditions. In a public one, games were always forbidden. The Jewish authorities needed to determine whether coffeehouses constituted a public or a domestic space; their decision would determine whether or not games were allowed. This proved to be a protracted and difficult process that only concluded in 1766.

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In 1712, the massari ruled that it was permissible to issue written permits to “one or more Jews” to manage coffeehouses where it would be possible to play tavola reale, a popular game similar to today’s backgammon, as long as monetary stakes were not involved.43 This ruling created an ambiguous situation that was open to contrasting legal interpretations. On the one hand, Livornese Jews were barred from playing games in any public or clandestine cazas de Jogo (“gambling houses”), as well as in Christian homes. On the other hand, the ordinance of 1712 did not unequivocally rule out the possibility to play games in a Jewish coffeehouse; in fact, it rendered the massari free to give or deny permits to play games in coffee shops, based on their “prudent judgment” of each single case.44 The regulation created the precedent for a form of controlled social recreation in the Jewish coffeehouse, as an alternative to more dangerous kinds of entertainment in the gentile world.

The Jewish Casino for Entertainment The situation grew more complicated when a Jewish casino was established in Livorno in the spring of the same year. The casini were exclusive sites for conversation and game playing among the upper classes. Although in the seventeenth century the Jewish leadership had opposed them, by the second decade of the eighteenth century they allowed this one to open.45 Up to that point, most casini were outside of the Jewish neighborhood, but at least two unofficial sites served Jewish clientele. Since 1696, a certain Moise Molho had unofficially welcomed “some people of the principal families of the nazione ebrea” into the rooms of his haberdashery store for “honest conversation and entertainment.”46 Livornese Jews also gathered and played games for years in some rooms owned by Cesare Leone, but subsequent owners, the relatives Zacuto, had interrupted the conversazione e trattenimento (gathering and entertainment) of “honest Livornese merchants” in order to turn the rooms into a storage space.47 Forced to close by the massari around 1711, Molho appealed directly to the Grand Duke to keep his after-hour activity. The new group of lay leaders, possibly prodded by notable members of the governing board who were regulars at Molho’s, came to the conclusion that

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Jewish “rooms for entertainment” would be beneficial for the Jewish youth to prevent their participation in more dangerous activities. In April 1712, Molho’s distinguished customers were officially allowed to keep gathering in his space.48 The governmental approval thus sanctioned an already existing practice, setting in motion the process for the establishment of a community-controlled casino. The casino, unlike the coffeehouse, was explicitly intended “for the solace of the merchants and principal traders of the nazione ebrea of Livorno,” catering to a more exclusive, male clientele. But the extent of this exclusiveness, and the nature of the recreation offered, soon became problematic. In the summer of 1713 the Grand Duke ordered that the rooms be open to all people who qualified “without denying entrance to any civil person of said nazione,” that the entertainment be limited to the approved card games of minchiate and ombre,49 and the conversations held there be “honest [and] without competition” to avoid “damage and prejudice” to the guests. In order to maintain public order and decorum, the Tuscan authorities requested that the massari take over the casino’s supervision.50 The following year, the Jewish lay authorities established their control over the casino by renting the rooms on behalf of the community. They issued a number of regulations to ensure the proper and smooth functioning of the venue, set opening times,51 fixed the maximum stakes for the games, and appointed one Isache Zamero as their “agent and minister” to manage the space. Zamero, wishing “to do something agreeable to his nazione and assist in those rooms, keeping them clean, open all the time, furnished and well lit, pleasing the massari in all honest things,” promised to take care of the necessary tables, decorations, and lights, as well as provide a servant to assist the guests.52 Attendees, who volunteered a yearly contribution for admission, were exhorted to behave decorously and modestly. Class divisions were enforced. In order to keep propriety and order, servants were not allowed in the rooms to attend on their masters, unless they came to bring news. Smoking and eating were prohibited. Patrons were to dress appropriately; they were free to remove their wigs, but should wear “decorous head covers.” The rooms could be used to hold musical and literary gatherings. The casino was also explicitly associated with the circulation of news and written publications as well as political discus-

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sions, all permitted as long as they did not disturb the established Jewish social order. Guests were encouraged to engage in conversations regarding “commerce, gazettes, public news, and historical information,” but were told to avoid dishonest talk, brawls, and gossip.53 The casino evidently played a role in the formation of a male Jewish public opinion in Livorno, although, similarly to the London coffeehouses of the English virtuosi, it did not promote an “unfettered public sphere.” It was not an open space where different social groups mixed freely, nor a space devised in alternative to established power structures. Rather, it was subsumed into the framework of the community. By establishing these rooms, the Livornese massari created an exclusively Jewish sphere where polite conversation over a (licit) game of cards was encouraged. Significantly, they justified the new institution by considering its space as domestic. They ruled that the guests should be considered as padroni di casa (hosts) and could behave as they felt appropriate, as if the casino were actually their home.54 This distinction drew upon the idea put forth in the seventeenth-century regulations that Livornese Jews were only allowed to play games in Jewish homes, but not in public places.55 Soon after the establishment of the Jewish casino, two Jewish coffee­ house owners appealed directly to the Tuscan authorities, bypassing the decisional authority of the massari, and successfully secured game permits for their shops. In November 1715, Isaias Jesurun and his sons were granted an official license to keep tavola reale in their coffeehouse, “under the condition that it would not welcome young boys or scandalous individuals.”56 The following July the massari additionally granted Jesurun, described as an extremely indigent person, the management of the Jewish casino as an act of charity.57 The upkeep required a large expenditure of money, but it must have promised significant returns to its manager if the Jewish leaders thought of granting its license as a form of charity. A similar expectation for economic improvement led Rafael Lunel, whose request the Jewish lay leaders had initially turned down, to appeal to the Grand Duke in 1716, in order to keep the popular board games of “sbaralhino, tabuas, and damas” in his coffeehouse. When his plea was accepted by the Tuscan authorities, the Jewish government had little choice but to approve Lunel’s request to keep the games in his shop.58

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With the formalization of the casino and the acquisition of game permits by Jewish coffeehouse managers, the rabbinic authorities of Livorno faced a problem. Halakhic literature was traditionally opposed to gambling, denouncing it as a sin and robbery, but rabbinical positions on playing for monetary stakes varied greatly during the early modern period, depending on the occasion and type of game.59 It was only after a few years of operation that the Livornese rabbis challenged the decision of the community’s lay leaders to permit games in the Jewish casino. After much deliberation, in December 1720 they ruled that halakha did not allow games and players should be punished with excommunication (herem).60 Their ordinances did not address the traditional distinction, present in medieval Jewish sources, between games of skill (sometimes permitted) and games of chance (always prohibited); nor did the Livornese rabbis suggest exemptions on Jewish festivals, when other lenient authorities allowed the restrictions to be lifted temporarily. Since their main concern regarded uttering blasphemies during the play, they could not approve of any form of game playing, not even in the protected space of the casino.61 The massari accepted the rabbis’ recommendation and proceeded to revoke Jesurun’s gaming license, although the permit had been issued by the Grand Duke. This decision upset the delicate jurisdictional balance between communal, municipal, and state powers navigated by early modern Livornese Jews. The massari had not taken into consideration Jesurun’s entrepreneurial spirit. To safeguard his business, he was willing to sow discord between the Tuscan state and the Jewish communal leaders. When Jesurun turned to the Grand Duke to protect his gaming permit, the governmental response was harsh. Reprimanding the massari for their disregard of a “gracious privilege” conferred by the Grand Duke himself, the Tuscan authorities commanded that either the Livornese rabbis lift their excommunication, or that the massari find a way to reimburse the businessman for his monetary losses, lest the Grand Duke intervene “with greater damage for you [i.e., the massari] and lesser satisfaction.”62 The Jewish governing council promptly agreed to compensate Jesurun with the management of the Jewish bakery,63 and granted him another twelve pezze per annum, for good measure.64 The prohibition against gambling in the Jewish casino-cum-coffeehouse was meant to be temporary. The Jewish leaders proposed to

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contact other communities in order to see if there was a way to absolve the players from the herem;65 however, the problem was neither quickly addressed nor solved. For the time being, the Jewish casino was shut down and games were banned from Jewish coffeehouses.66

Game and Coffee Licensing Under Lorraine Rule By the late 1740s the governing board of the nazione ebrea recognized the need to define the legal status of the Jewish coffeehouse more clearly. They did not do so in a vacuum. Among the early reformist policies promoted by the Lorraine authorities after their arrival in Tuscany was the reorganization of leisure time and recreation. These efforts were part of a broader governmental attempt to reform leisure time in Tuscany with policies that applied to both Catholic festivals and popular forms of entertainment. Unlike the Medici administration, which had emphasized the importance of orderly spectacles at public festivals while fostering juridical reforms meant to improve public morality,67 Francis Stephen drastically reduced the number of religious festivals to be observed in Tuscany. A similar reformist will governed the Grand Duke’s approach to games, with policies aimed at redefining permitted types and at regulating the sites where they could be played. Soon after his ascent to the throne of Tuscany in 1737, Frances Stephen set in motion an attempt to turn game playing into a profitable, state-licensed activity that would benefit the dwindling Tuscan treasury, by instituting a system of official permits for businesses to legally keep licit games on hand.68 A law that set fixed tariffs for two classes of licenses was passed in 1744. During the course of the year, ninety-three licenses were secured mostly by coffeehouses and barbershops in the larger cities of the Tuscan state: Florence (thirty-nine), Livorno (nineteen), and Pisa (nine).69 The number of licenses acquired by Livornese businesses was large. The fluctuating population of travelers and young people, who came in search of economic opportunities, turned it into a hotbed for gambling and illicit leisure activities. When the newly appointed governor of Livorno, Carlo Ginori, arrived at the port in 1747, he noticed an extraordinary tolerance for gambling in local coffeehouses and other public venues. In Ginori’s opinion, giving out a large number of game permits in a

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commercial hub like Livorno, where “people’s substances consist mostly . . . of cash money,” was a liability for the port’s economy.70 But before Ginori or the central administration in Florence could take any steps, a small scandal erupted. At the end of March 1747, a man named Giuseppe Maria Monti turned up in the port city, claiming that the main judicial authority in Tuscany, auditore fiscale Giovanni Bernardo ­Brichieri Colombi, had authorized him to issue “game licenses to everyone he deem[ed] suitable . . . and to deny them to anybody who had obtained them from the Treasury until that moment.” Ginori opposed Monti’s claims, on the ground that his alleged assignment did not suit the spirit of Livorno, populated by many trading nations, each of which was entitled to a club “to play common games, or to talk and spend time.” Governor Ginori combined two concerns in his argument: the need to curb illicit gambling and the desire to keep the port’s nazioni clearly separated. According to Ginori, “cosmopolitanism” could smoothly and successfully persist in Livorno only if the different ethnic groups living in town remained distinct. A single individual should not be allowed to interfere in the social life of “numerous people of various nazioni and diverse ranks, and conditions, and religions,” Ginori asserted. Moreover, Monti was himself a well-known coffeehouse owner and a manager of various clandestine gambling spots, who would concentrate all game licenses under his control. As an undesirable outcome of such consolidation, argued Ginori, members of the different ethnic and religious groups would be forced to socialize in common spaces.71 Although, in reality, members of the Livornese nazioni did at times frequent the same recreational spaces, Ginori’s familiar rhetoric of separation drove the point home for the central Tuscan authorities. Hearing Ginori’s complaints, the Reggenza granted him powers to issue licenses for a limited number of games—the board game tavola reale, billiards and trucchi,72 and the popular card game of minchiate—and to farm the ensuing revenues on behalf of the treasury.73 Ginori did not stop there. In 1749, he helped shape a new legislation that abolished the exclusive monopoly on the sale of coffee that had existed in Livorno for the previous fifty years, with the goal of increasing revenues for the dogana while simultaneously reducing the number of coffeehouses, to make them more controllable. Under the old system, a single appaltatore (contractor) paid a yearly lump sum to

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the dogana that allowed him to give out licenses to subcontractors to run coffeehouses in the city. The new legislation decreased the number of coffeehouses in the port city from twenty-seven to thirteen, requesting each manager to bid individually in order to obtain a renewable coffeehouse license. The change brought an immediate financial benefit to the dogana. In 1749, the single appaltatore paid a yearly sum of 3,795 lire. Between 1750 and 1753, the yearly revenue had increased to 6,600 lire, with a further growth to 9,508 lire a year between 1754 and 1762, and to 9,508 lire and 12 soldi a year between 1763 and 1771.74 Out of these thirteen coffeehouses, in which games were permitted as long as customers kept to the licit options established in 1747, twelve were managed by Christian entrepreneurs. One, in the Jewish neighborhood, was to be run by a Jewish manager for a Jewish c­ lientele, creating in theory a “national space” where Livornese Jews could not only drink coffee and socialize but also enjoy those board and card games allowed by the state. In 1755, Jewish coffeehouse manager Aron Bolaffi was permitted to open his shop anywhere within the Jewish neighborhood. And, while he could not move it to the “streets of the Christians,” neither could the twelve Christian managers move their shops into the Jewish neighborhood.75 Thus, while the population of Livorno mingled freely in their daily chores and businesses, the Tuscan authorities hoped to reinforce lines of separation when it came to sites of entertainment such as coffeehouses, appealing to the corporate nature of the distinct nazioni in the port. The concern for safeguarding boundaries originated in part out of governmental fears of social disturbance that popular prejudice and hatred may cause, but a keen attention to local privileges also played a role. Ginori’s rhetorical emphasis on the need to protect Livorno’s “cosmopolitan” nature by keeping its nazioni safely distinct reflected the strong desire of local authorities to stress the city’s difference from the rest of Tuscany, in order to safeguard the port’s engrained legal prerogatives and avoid interference from the central powers. Livorno’s unique system served as an apt justification for local officials such as Ginori to push for policies tailored to the port and different from those imposed on the rest of the state. Still, the normative ideal of Livornese leisure time did not necessarily match reality. In 1759, for instance, the Jewish coffeehouse located

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on Via degli Ebrei was jointly managed by Aron Veneziano, a Jew, and Angelo Spalcioni, a Christian. The wait staff was equally mixed. ­Raffaello Romanino, a Venetian Jew, and a Christian man, Rocco from Empoli, took care together of the “shop’s affairs, namely the trucco, billiards, and other games,” and made “coffee, sorbets, chocolate, and all that was needed,” including receiving payments and keeping track of games; a young Jewish man, Ismachino Ottolenghi, served as busboy and pallajo (ball boy) for the billiards.76 Unlike the casino, the Jewish coffeehouse was an open venue, easily accessible from the street, that did not charge an entry fee. Extant evidence is insufficient to establish if it was frequented simultaneously by a mix of social classes and if it fostered mingling between the various components of the Livornese Jewish community. Although women were not explicitly prevented from attending this space, it seems unlikely that they did so, for fear of losing their respectability; “honorable” women customarily consumed coffee in the privacy of their home. In the broader Livornese society, as in other Italian and European cities, certain coffeehouses catered to different clienteles based on their location, their size and amenities, and also the time of the day. Given that there was a single Jewish coffeehouse in Livorno after 1749, a degree of mixing between upper and lower classes, as well as Sephardi, Italian, Ashkenazi, and Levantine Jews may have indeed taken place there. Nonetheless, the coffeehouse’s customers varied drastically between day and night. In 1759, one Abram Coen denied ever going to the Jewish coffee shop at the times when players—understood to be people of disrepute—met. Rather, he only drank one coffee there early in the morning, before setting off to work.77 It is also possible that the most prosperous merchants, highly conscious about status, did not sit in the same rooms or areas where porters and tailors gathered, if they visited the Jewish coffeehouse at all.

Jewish Debates About the Permissibility of Playing Games In May 1749, soon after the new Tuscan legislation on Livornese coffee­houses was approved, the Jewish lay leaders gathered to discuss once more communal regulations about games and coffeehouses. The

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state’s decision to set aside one coffeehouse within the Jewish neighborhood for exclusive Jewish use, at least in theory, with licit games officially permitted, of course did not take into consideration the halakhic concerns that informed the nazione ebrea’s approach to game playing set in 1720. The Tuscan ruling thus forced the massari to face the vexed issue again: should coffeehouses be equated with public spaces, where playing games was not allowed for Jews even if the state had ruled so? Or should they be equated with private, domestic spaces where Jewish individuals were free to play licit games? And if games were to be permitted, how were rabbinic qualms about blaspheming during play going to be addressed? The decision-making process proved lengthy and complicated. A limited degree of gambling was eventually approved because of pragmatic considerations. Nonetheless, the gap between communal recommendations and actual behavior remained wide, especially among the lower classes. The massari embraced the decision of the Tuscan authorities with the justification that past Jewish legislators had never considered Jewish coffeehouses as casas de jogo publicas (public gambling houses). After all, they argued, “their main purpose was the sale of coffee, chocolate and similar beverages,” while game playing was only a secondary form of recreation offered there. Similarly to the Prague bet din, which viewed Jewish coffeehouses as a safer alternative to gentile ones, even if that meant letting members of the community enjoy a freshly brewed cup of coffee on Shabbat, the Livornese massari preferred to allow a number of state-approved games in the Jewish coffee­house in the hope of steering young Jewish bachelors away from the more dangerous recreation practices available in the port, such as promiscuous mingling with Christian women. At the same time, they stipulated a limited tariff for games, to be placed on the permitted monetary stakes, which could be doubled during the middle days (half holidays) of Passover and Sukkot, Hanukkah, and Purim. Non-Jewish coffeehouses remained banned as sites for game playing, as were tennis courts, c­asini, billiard halls, and gentile homes.78 These ordinances were bound to fuel conflicts in the midst of the nazione ebrea. Although the rabbinic Issur ve-Eter commission had been consulted and did not oppose the resolution, doubts among exponents of the Jewish council resurfaced soon after it had approved

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the permissibility of controlled gambling. Unlike with the Jewish ­casino in 1720, the governing board repeatedly dealt with these concerns by deputizing some of its members to gather exhaustive information, including the opinion of rabbis from other communities, and report back their conclusions to the whole assembly. None of these task forces completed their assignments, effectively preventing the repeal of the new coffeehouse regulations. In September 1749, Isaque de Mose Attias suggested that a committee composed by representatives of the governing board, aided by the three rabbinical authorities of the Issur ve-Eter, gather to examine all the existing regulations concerning games and gambling.79 A precise memorandum was to clarify what was allowed in order to avoid any confusion. If need be, the committee should rely on rabbis from different Italian, Levantine, and “other” communities. For the time being, the May regulations stood valid, until further decisions could be made by the members of the Jewish government.80 The assignment undertaken in 1749 was never satisfactorily accomplished. In the meantime, Livornese Jews kept gambling. On an April evening in 1754, Emanuel Finz, a customer at the Jewish coffeehouse of Aron Bolaffi, was so engrossed in a game of tavola reale that Giuseppe di Salomone Coen, a fellow Livornese Jew, was able to steal a silver snuff box from Finz’s pocket without him noticing.81 In the absence of an explicit and final regulation, members of the Livornese governing council raised the matter again in 1756. The communal rulings did prescribe excommunication for those individuals who played cards and gambled in public: in light of this prohibition, was gambling to be tolerated in the Jewish coffeehouse “with possible detriment to individual conscience and religion”? At stake were both the integrity of the single individual and the moral status of the community. Saul Bonfil, Salomon Aghib, and Jeudà de Faro were to provide the members of the governo with all relevant rabbinic decisions and consultations.82 This task force was unable to come up with a final resolution, just like their predecessors. In 1759, card games and a billiards table were readily available in the Jewish coffeehouse of Aron Veneziano and Angelo Spalcioni. At the same time as they gave rise to rifts and ongoing conflicts of interpretation, the regulations of 1749 further reinforced the notion of

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a uniquely Jewish recreation, by once again tying the permissibility of playing games to the presence of a Jewish coffeehouse manager. The repercussions of this clause became evident in 1762, when Sebastiano Marcone, a non-Jew, obtained a license that allowed him to manage the Jewish coffeehouse for nine years. Marcone had been unable to find a suitable locale in the quarter where most Livornese Jews lived, and had therefore asked the massari for permission to move the coffee shop near the Aquila Nera hostel, behind the cathedral. After evaluating the potential risks of maintaining a Jewish coffeehouse outside the traditionally Jewish quarter, the massari rejected Marcone’s plea.83 The location of the coffeehouse was not the only problem; the fact that Marcone was not Jewish was an unheard-of novelty, disapproved of by the Jewish governing council, which requested that the shop stay within Jewish quarters and be managed by a Jew.84 Through the intervention of the Council of Finances in Florence, the Jewish coffeehouse remained within the boundaries of the Jewish quarter. However, a non-Jew was allowed to manage it. Four years later it was located in Via degli Ebrei, under the supervision of ­Daniele ­Guglielmi, a Christian, who ran two other coffee shops in town.85 While this solution averted the risk that the coffeehouse would migrate outside the traditionally Jewish streets of Livorno, it did not help Jewish players. The fact that the manager was a Christian rendered it “gentile space,” in which Livornese Jews were not permitted to play legally. In March 1766 supervision of the coffee shop was transferred to Beniamino Finzi, a member of the Jewish community, but not even this persuaded the massari to grant the coffeehouse manager a gaming permit.86 Finzi, like Jesurun in 1720, reacted by demonstrating entrepreneurial spirit, legal savvy, and the willingness to bypass communal authorities in order to secure economic benefits.87 Facing repeated difficulties on the part of the massari, Finzi and Guglielmi joined forces and appealed directly to Grand Duke Peter Leopold, requesting that he order the Jewish lay leaders to rescind their prohibition. The direct intervention of the governor of Livorno, Filippo Bourbon del Monte, persuaded the authorities of the nazione ebrea to finally issue an official permit to Finzi, allowing his customers to play licit games.88 This turn of events settled the question. The Jewish governing council not only permitted some card and board games in the coffee-

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house of the nazione ebrea, but also legally associated the drinking of coffee with games. From then on, a Jewish manager could run an entertainment room only if coffee was served. Monetary considerations, as well as anxieties about mixed socialization and sexual promiscuity, overcame the religious doubts that had surfaced intermittently between 1714 and 1766. Concerns regarding the economic well-being of Jewish caffettiere Finzi, who had disbursed a hefty fee to acquire his coffeehouse license, certainly played a role. Jewish leaders may have also chosen to disregard traditional moral and halakhic qualms about gambling to prevent frustrated Jewish players from visiting gentile establishments and to preserve group cohesion. Despite the massari’s efforts to control the leisure time of Livornese Jews and to encourage a form of “national” recreation, members of the nazione ebrea continued to indulge in tempting games prohibited by both the Jewish authorities and the Tuscan state. It is also clear that Christians in the port, probably those who lived and worked in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Livorno, occasionally visited the Jewish coffeehouse. One December night in 1772, the Livornese police (bargello) arrested seven Jews in the coffeehouse on Via degli Ebrei, run by Azzaria Finz and David Ottolenghi. The group was caught red-handed, playing the highly popular but forbidden game of tresette.89 They represented a slice of the port’s Jewish working class: two secondhand dealers, two porters, two tailors, and a butcher. Most of them were young. They were all of Italian (not Sephardi) origin. In their depositions, they disagreed over several details, such as the number of games played, as well as the composition of that night’s clientele, but two of them clearly recalled the presence of Christians together with Jews in the shop, watching and possibly betting on the games. Robert Liberles has suggested that, when German Jews and Christians sat in the same public venue, such as a tavern or a coffeehouse, they normally did so at separate tables.90 This must have customarily been the case in Livorno as well, although some Jews and Christians did drink and gamble at the same table in gentile taverns.91 But when it came to watching an exciting game of tresette, Christians and Jews had no compunction in standing side by side in the Jewish coffeehouse of the port.

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Peter Leopold’s Reforms on Coffeehouses and Games in Public Venues Just as the communal council of the nazione ebrea came to its conclusions on gambling in the coffeehouse, the Tuscan authorities were growing dissatisfied with both the current legislation on coffeehouses and that about games in public places. Peter Leopold arrived in Florence in 1765. After the Reggenza of Francis Stephen, who had ruled from Vienna for eighteen years, Tuscany became formally autonomous once again.92 Peter Leopold immediately began a comprehensive work of state reorganization and rationalization according to Enlightenmentinfused principles meant to ensure the happiness of his subjects, with the help of members of the Tuscan intelligentsia, such as Pompeo Neri, former secretary of the Consiglio di Reggenza during his father’s rule, Francesco Maria Gianni, and Angelo Tavanti. Collaborators trained in the Austrian administration, like Franz Orsini Rosenberg, functioned as the main vehicles of communication between Vienna and Florence for several years. The successful (yet not undifficult) synergy and crossfertilization between different governmental traditions and experiences turned Tuscany into one of the most interesting experiments in reforming government in eighteenth-century Europe. Many of the Hapsburg-Lorraine administration’s policies were informed by the determination to reduce traditional corporate interests and to curb protectionist practices and monopolies in order to foster market competition. The same antiprotectionist spirit was applied to the sale of coffee in the port of Livorno, while the government’s rationalizing intents led to the complete overhaul of the game license system. As we have seen, in 1749 the Tuscan authorities had limited the number of Livornese coffeehouse to thirteen establishments.93 In June 1771, Peter Leopold modified the existing legislation allowing anyone who wanted to open a coffee shop to do so, for a period of three years beginning in January 1772. The regulations that limited game permits to thirteen establishments were upheld until the formulation of a comprehensive law on gambling in April 1773, which banned all board and card games from Tuscan coffeehouses.94 When Peter Leopold issued such a legislation, which rendered quickly obsolete the decisions the Livornese massari had reached after such pro-

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tracted and difficult negotiations, the Jewish community once again had to revise its internal policies. As part of the Grand Duke’s ongoing politics of state reform, the new legislation on gaming replaced earlier piecemeal rulings, which had established its legality based on the time, the site, and the class and status of the player. Before 1773, Tuscan laws had generally addressed games from a pragmatic perspective. On the one hand, all games that could cause public disturbances were prohibited; on the other hand, playing in sites of public sociability, forbidden in theory, was reintroduced through privileges and licenses granted to specific areas and certain categories of people. While gambling was not banned completely, the state aimed at curbing its negative side effects, and relied on the self-selective nature of the casini dei nobili, which catered exclusively to the aristocratic elite.95 Since aristocratic players were reputed to be beyond reproach by their very nature and social status, literary academies and exclusive casini were privileged locales for gambling. Theaters too, customarily received “gracious concessions” on the part of the rulers, while coffeehouses, barbershops, and similarly popular enterprises paid in order to secure game licenses. In contrast to earlier regulations, the legislation of 1773 abandoned the criteria of personal status, monetary stakes, and the type of games, by officially limiting card and board games to domestic spaces. All games that involved cards and dice were banned, not only from streets and squares, as was already customary in Tuscany since the sixteenth century, but also from “taverns, inns, guest houses, all kinds of shops, whether they have a public access to the street or not, theaters, . . . entertainment rooms, casini, academies.”96 The new policies reflected a broader Italian trend. In the 1770s, many Italian states started promulgating restrictive legislation prohibiting gambling with cards and dice anywhere but in private residencies.97 The law issued in April 1773 was informed by the ideas of P ­ ompeo Neri, one of the most influential Tuscan reformers during the Reggenza and a close collaborator of Peter Leopold in the early stages of his rule.98 Like the early eighteenth-century Jewish legislators in Livorno, Neri believed that the fabric of society was best maintained by careful distinction between the public and the domestic sphere. In his opinion, card and board games could be safely allowed only in a

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private home, where an alert padrone di casa (host) would supervise them with his authority and vigilant presence—and be accountable for any abuse and fraud. Any other place, argued Neri, was to be considered as public and therefore unsafe for games, notwithstanding the social class of the attendees.99 While stemming from a similar conceptual starting point, Pompeo Neri came to a radically opposite conclusion to the one reached by the nazione ebrea in 1766. Departing from earlier Tuscan rulings, Neri asserted that coffeehouses (as well as barbershops and any other kind of bottega) were to be considered public, rather than domestic, despite the presence of a manager. In fact, the coffeehouse owner could hardly be expected to offer impartial supervision since it had a stake in the profits; after all, any coffeehouse owner would be interested in having more gambling clients. Deprived players who could no longer play ombre or tavola reale were mostly left with one solution: billiards. Billiards rooms, an expensive investment, were still allowed in coffee shops, as long as the extant legislation was respected and managers procured all due licenses.100 Thus, from April 1773 on, Livornese Jews were only allowed to satisfy their gaming needs by playing billiards, as long as the tables were located in a space run by a Jewish manager, where coffee was available. It is not known whether Finzi was able to equip his coffeehouse accordingly and obtain a gaming license, but in 1779, another Jewish casino di stanze per divertimento opened up on Via del Falcone, where coffee and other hot drinks were served and where Jewish patrons could play billiards.101

The Virtual End of Jewish Coffeehouses Coffeehouse managers, with the exception of a few prosperous individuals who owned the largest and most elegant shops in town—the Caffè del Bottegone, the Nettuno, and the Giappone, all on Via Grande, the port’s main street—were part of the Livornese working class and handled multiple jobs to make ends meet, like most of their customers. As a result of the antiprotectionist policies promoted by Peter Leopold, the number of coffeehouses quickly increased, but

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only individuals with solid finances and backing were able to stay in business. Although its goal was to liberalize the license system and increase healthy competition, Peter Leopold’s ruling in fact led wealthier caffettieri to acquire multiple shops and consolidate their commercial strength in town, while poorer and less savvy entrepreneurs were pushed out of business. The law of June 1771 stipulated that aspiring new coffee shop managers were to acquire the necessary permit for the sale of coffee directly from the port’s dogana.102 This required entering into a threeyear lease, which, once signed, could not be broken. Some managers were funded well enough that they could pay the entire triennial sum in advance. Guarantors were required to back those who did not meet this condition. The latter group was numerous. By 1781, twenty-seven coffeehouses were active in Livorno, the same number of establishments as before the reform of 1749. In some instances, the steep rise in competition or a sudden economic downturn led to the manager’s inability to pay his agreed fee to the dogana, resulting in the failure of the coffee shop, the ruin of its manager, and great financial pressure on the guarantors. This was the case with the two Jewish coffeehouses opened—and quickly closed down—by Caino (Haim) Levi and Emanuel Modena. The failure of these two businesses in 1782 spelled the end of Jewish coffeehouses in Livorno. The episodes shed light on petty enterprises in the port, where many businessmen lived modestly, almost indigently, and on the vagaries of the Jewish lower classes. Emanuel Modena had obtained his coffeehouse license from the dogana after Simone Dina, another Jewish coffeehouse manager, had ceded a permit acquired in 1775. His guarantor was a fellow Livornese Jew, Jacob Roques. This coffee shop, known as the Levantino, was shut down a few months after Modena and Roques had signed their three-year contract with the dogana. Because of their inability to pay and the fear of being jailed as debtors, Modena and Roques appealed, requesting that their lease be disregarded. The office of the dogana refused any request to forego current contracts, but its general administrator often helped supplicants settle their debts through low monthly installments, as long as somebody guaranteed for them. After Modena “had the disgrace to go crazy . . . and passed on to another life,” Roques was stuck with the financial burden of a coffeehouse license

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from which he had never profited. Yet another plea got the dogana to grant him a monthly payment of ten lire.103 Haim di Samuel Levi, after opening a coffeehouse named La Fama (Fame), shut his business because of too many expenses. His guarantors, Joseph Lampronti and Jacob Lenghi, paid Levi’s yearly fee of three hundred lire to the dogana and had him jailed as a debtor. He was released after languishing in prison for over a month, thanks to the help of the Jewish community, which allocated funds to rescue debtors from jail. Levi was ruined. He and his family had to rely on the community’s charity during the festival of Passover and in case of illness. For their part, Lampronti and Lenghi were stuck with the lease. Hoping that the dogana might rescind their obligation, they pleaded their case with sorry tales of near indigence. Lampronti had to provide for his mother, wife, and four small children with his job as a packer. Lenghi, a bookkeeper, depended on the financial help of his widowed mother. The office of the dogana was unmoved, until one Manuel Otto­lenghi stepped forward to serve as a guarantor and the two men were allowed to settle their payment in installments.104 After 1782, no other Jewish coffee shop manager or Jewish coffeehouse appeared officially on the lists kept by the dogana, although numerous Jewish guarantors continued to pledge financial backing for Christian coffeehouse managers. Since there no longer were Jewish-run coffeehouses in Livorno, Jewish players must have increasingly patronized Christian venues or visited establishments with undocumented Jewish involvement. For instance, a Jewish businessman, ­Simone della Bella, unofficially managed the small Caffè della Benignità, located behind Livorno Cathedral in a building owned by a fellow Livornese Jew, Jacob Bonfil. After the death of caffettiere Giuseppe del Frate, his widow Maria appeared as the official manager of the ­Benignità, although della Bella signed the relevant documents in lieu of the woman between 1790 and 1795.105 It is tempting to speculate that della Bella’s involvement made the Caffè della Benignità a place where Livornese Jews met to socialize and play the occasional game of billiards. Already in October 1789, he had made clear to the dogana that he “aimed to open a billiards room by way of the usual licenses,” but “the constitutions of the magistracy and governing council of the nazione ebrea forbade anybody

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to run a public ridotto di gioco (gaming site) . . . in the absence of a coffeehouse.”106 Billiards must have been the attraction also of the “temporary” Jewish coffeehouse located in Via degli Ebrei, run by one Moisè Lombroso for a month, in coincidence with the Jewish festival of Passover in 1794.107

The Jewish Coffeehouse Reconsidered: Norms and Reality This chapter has traced the emergence and development of a Jewish, “nationally” defined space in Livorno, devoted to lay, male recreation, over the course of the eighteenth century. The significance of this associative venue is threefold. First, Jewish policy concerning the coffee­ house, informed by concerns regarding the permissibility of gambling within its walls, shows that some Jewish communal decisions were increasingly determined by pragmatic and economic interests as the century progressed, and that in certain cases regulations were directly responsive to changes in the broader Tuscan political and social sphere. Moreover, contrary to Katz’s view of recreation in medieval and early modern Jewish societies, it seems apparent that in some centers, such as Prague and Livorno, Jewish leaders promoted leisurely activities for members of the community, which were completely devoid of religious associations, and embraced change in the hope of policing more dangerous behaviors and deviations. More generally, the emergence of the coffeehouse as a site of Jewish recreation tests some engrained scholarly assumptions about this venue. The Jewish coffeehouse of Livorno can be accurately described as a site that offered an alternative to the more traditional loci of Jewish social organization, encounter, and cultural production—the synagogue, the  bet midrash, and the hevrah. For Livornese Jews, congregating in the Jewish coffeehouse, to drink, talk, or play, amounted to a voluntary practice of association articulated in a secular space, situated between the individual, the Jewish community, and the state. Unlike the exclusive, short-lived Jewish casino, and other sites of eighteenthcentury socialization popular within the Christian world, such as literary academies or salons, in theory the Jewish coffeehouse constituted a space open to all social classes and ethnic groups within the nazione

Jewish Recreation and “National” Separation

ebrea. While the possibility that class barriers were broken after 1749 should not be dismissed, it is however reasonable to surmise that class stratification was maintained within this space and that throughout its existence it did not develop into an open, Habermasian public sphere. Extant evidence suggests that this new venue of sociability did not modify traditional Jewish life in Livorno in substantial ways. In fact, unlike the Habermasian model, the Jewish coffeehouse remained solidly part of the communal structures. Still, the careful policing on the part of the Livornese massari and their direct investment in the enterprise also indicates that the Jewish ruling oligarchy feared that the coffeehouse might turn into a locale that dramatically affected the established order or altered the status quo. Rumors and gossip flourished within coffeehouses. Patrons debated political news. It is thus possible that members of the nazione ebrea were exposed to political discussions within the Jewish coffeehouse, although other venues in the port may have equally served this role. Despite repeated attempts on the part of the Tuscan and Jewish authorities to limit mingling between Jews and non-Jews, Livornese Jews continued to patronize non-Jewish establishments throughout the century, and vice versa. It is likely that they discussed current events with both Jews and gentiles. As we will see in the last chapter of this book, for instance, the author of a pamphlet published in the port in 1784 used a Greek (not J­ ewish) coffeehouse as the backdrop for the fictional conversation between two Jews discussing the political status of the nazione ebrea. Finally, the very fact that the Livornese massari conceived the space of the coffeehouse as domestic, hence monitored and protected, complicates the prevailing understanding of the café as a key site in the emergence of the eighteenth-century public sphere. The Livornese Jewish coffeehouse cannot be described as a site of unregulated social mixing because of its “national” characterization and communitarian supervision. If mingling between Jews and non-Jews and the occasional mixing of different social classes indeed took place in the Jewish coffeehouse, it was despite the best efforts of the Livornese Jewish authorities, and not because of the inherent public and open nature of this new venue. In fact, this site was designed to strengthen specifically Jewish recreation and socialization—to create a Jewish space opposed to the public sphere of the larger gentile society.

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For most of the eighteenth century, “national” separation constituted the normative model in Livorno. In practice, the existence of a Jewish coffeehouse augmented the opportunities for recreation for Jews residing in the port, since the prohibition to drink and socialize with non-Jews in public places was routinely disregarded. But by the late 1780s, members of the Livornese mercantile elite began questioning the norms of separation in public sites prevailing in the port. Their ambitions to enter into a semineutral public sphere as a result of their wealth and acculturation, and their failures to achieve this goal, will be considered in the last chapter of the book. In the following pages, we turn to another area of state reform that directly affected Jewish life and culture in Livorno—the development of the Hebrew press—to investigate how changing state policies impacted the circulation of Jewish culture and to explore the aspirations and strategies of adaptation of Jewish printers and their reactions to the liberalization of printing promoted by the Lorraine-Hapsburg house.

S ev e n  Commerce and Jewish Culture The Business of Hebrew Publishing

By turning to the history of Hebrew printing in Livorno, we continue investigating the changes in the relationship between the Livornese Jewish community and authorities as enlightened reformist politics took hold in Tuscany. The Tuscan government’s belief in the nazione ebrea’s usefulness did not diminish after the house of Lorraine replaced the Medici dynasty in 1737. Nonetheless, the special status of the port city was critically reconsidered.1 At this delicate dynastic passage, the new administration came to associate the alterity of Livorno and its special privileges with negative connotations, such as the decline of the Medici house in its final years, its administrative shortcomings, and the alleged failure of its mercantilist aspirations.2 Although the freedoms and privileges granted to the nazione ebrea were routinely reaffirmed, some of the commercial reforms pursued by the new rulers in Livorno had a significant impact, not only on the life of the Livornese community, but on Jewish culture more generally. One of the areas in which this is most visible is the Hebrew book business.3 Tuscan economic policies, which had promoted Jewish resettlement under the Medici house, also affected the production and distribution of Jewish knowledge. Both the Medici and the Lorraine authorities were directly involved in fostering Hebrew printing shops. The establishment and growth of Hebrew printing in Livorno depended on the relationships, both real and imagined, between state, municipal, and ecclesiastical authorities, printers, and Jewish leaders, which were articulated in a system of exclusive licenses ( privative), informal appeals, and legal strategies. The authorities’ willingness to support these efforts stemmed from the utilitarian wish to further

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the productivity of the Tuscan Jewish settlement. They hoped for the development of a niche market, which, despite its small size in relation to the scope of Livornese trade, would benefit the local Jewish community and in turn the economy of the entire state. Indeed, although the beginnings of Livornese printing are far more complex than previously believed, this center of publishing and distribution became well known among Sephardi Jews living in the entire Mediterranean, and as far away as Cochin in India. Remarkably, unlike most other early modern Italian states, where Jews were not allowed to own and manage Hebrew printing businesses but only to serve as editors or compositors, in Livorno it was primarily Jewish printers who ran this business. During the Medici years, Livornese Hebrew printing (which only flourished between 1650 and 1657) was subject to the kind of protectionism that the central Tuscan authorities enforced in other areas of commerce. The same approach informed the policies relative to Hebrew publishing promoted by Francis Stephen. But when Peter Leopold began promoting the breakdown of corporatist and protectionist interests in the late 1760s, including the abolition of industrial monopolies, and pushed more aggressively for a free-market economy, the field of Hebrew printing came under scrutiny and its licensing system was overhauled. Until 1767, Hebrew publishing in Tuscany was regulated by a strict policy that allowed only one Hebrew publisher at a time to be active for a period of ten years.4 When this exclusive privilege system was dismantled by Peter Leopold’s administration, Jewish printers had to come to terms with the onset of competition from Christian printers and the end of protectionist prerogatives that dated back to the Medicean period. Whether the governmental free-market ethos that replaced the system of protectionist licenses significantly aided the progress of Hebrew printing is still an open question. By focusing on the development of the Hebrew printing business in Livorno from government control to a free market, this chapter explores the impact of governmental policies on the circulation of Jewish culture and the responses of the Jewish entrepreneurs at the heart of such circulation to the changes pursued by the Tuscan state.

The Business of Hebrew Publishing

Hebrew Printing in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany Hebrew printing has been singled out as a latecomer to Livorno.5 However, this reflected a more general trend, for printing in all languages was slower to take off in Tuscany during the last phases of the Medici rule than in other Italian states. The limits imposed by the Inquisition on the publication and sale of literary and scientific texts, and the high production costs, mostly resulting from the hefty price of paper, export taxes, and transportation expenses, resulted in the poor condition of the printing craft in Tuscany up to the last decades of the seventeenth century.6 The beginnings of printing activity in Livorno mirror the development of the city. The first imprints appeared in 1643, less than two generations after the promulgation of the Livornina, which triggered the expansion of the port of Livorno from a peripheral harbor to a major player in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Mediterranean economy.7 As soon as a publishing enterprise began its activity in Livorno, Hebrew printing followed, conforming to a well-known trend in the history of Hebrew publications in Italy.8 The presence of multiple printing shops in Livorno at midcentury, including Hebrew and Armenian ones, appears as a sign of vitality, in contrast to the cultural stagnation that characterized Tuscany at the end of Medici rule. 9 Yedidiah, son of Isaac ben Solomon Gabbay,10 opened the first Hebrew print shop in Livorno thanks to the support of the Grand Duke of Tuscany and his ministers, who favored him over a competitor, the Levantine Moses ben Judah Cassuto.11 The Tuscan authorities carefully considered the opportunity to back a Hebrew printing business managed by a Jewish owner, because in other Italian cities where Hebrew printing flourished at the time, such as Venice or Rome, only Christians ran these enterprises.12 Utilitarian considerations led the Grand Duke to decide in favor of Gabbay’s activity; Hebrew printing was unknown in Tuscany until that point and the limited number of Hebrew printing shops in the Italian peninsula led the ruler to believe that the entire nazione ebrea of Livorno, and hence the economy of the Tuscan state, would benefit from it, thanks to the community’s close relations with fellow Jews in

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the Ottoman Levant and North Africa.13 The authorities’ recognition that Hebrew printing would benefit the economy of the Tuscan state let them disregard potential qualms on the part of the Church. Exclusive privileges regulated printing as they did for any other business activity in ancien régime societies. In early modern Europe, the sovereign usually granted rights to a printer-bookseller to issue a given title or a given genre of works.14 This right enforced a de facto print monopoly over a title or groups of works for a number of years (usually, from five to twenty), to the exclusion of all other printers, ensuring a certain lack of competition, so that the heavy expenses that the printer incurred could be leveled out.15 In Tuscany, piecemeal privileges were routinely requested and granted, until the comprehensive law on printing issued by Grand Duke Francis Stephen in March 1743, to which we will return below, simplified publishing procedures. Thus, in January 1645, after paying the hefty sum of twenty-five ducati, Yedidiah Gabbay secured from Grand Duke Ferdinand II a fifteen-year exclusive privilege over the printing and selling of “tutti i libri ebraici o anche latini et volgari appartenenti all’Ebraismo [all ­Hebrew, as well as Latin and vernacular books pertaining to J­ udaism],” under the condition that they were not prohibited or did not contain anything forbidden. The provisions additionally stated that Gabbay should obtain the required written licenses from the appropriate government officials, as was customary for any printer.16 Though the establishment of a Hebrew print shop in Livorno counters the generalized decline of Tuscan printing in the second half of the seventeenth century, this enterprise encountered a number of difficulties from the start, and was short-lived. The press elicited immediate hostility from local ecclesiastical authorities and the Roman Inquisition, wary of the potential risks that a Jewish-run printing activity might represent.17 Discrepancies between the printer and the Jewish community’s massari also slowed down the business.18 It took five years after securing the privativa before Gabbay was able to print his first book, and the press ceased its activity in 1657, three years before the privilege would expire. After Gabbay’s departure the Hebrew printing activity in the Tuscan port practically stopped for eighty-three years, to reemerge only in 1740.19 As no other centers of Hebrew printing were established in Tuscany after 1657, local Jews had to rely on

The Business of Hebrew Publishing

manuscripts and imports. Hebrew books were acquired from outside of Tuscany for almost a century.

The Early Stages of Hebrew Printing in Eighteenth-Century Tuscany The renaissance of Hebrew printing in eighteenth-century Tuscany did not start in Livorno, but in Florence. The dynamics of tension and interaction between Florence and Livorno, the capital and the periphery of the Grand Duchy, find a parallel in the history of the Hebrew presses in these cities in the first decades of renewed publishing activity in Tuscany. It is only by paying attention to the relationship between Florentine and Livornese businessmen and printers, and to central and provincial governmental institutions involved in controlling the printing business, that we can fully appreciate the history of Hebrew printing in the age of the reforms initiated by the Lorraine dynasty. It was the Florence-based printer Francesco Moücke (1700–1758) who resumed Hebrew publishing in Tuscany with three liturgical works that appeared between 1734 and 1736.20 Moücke was primarily a publisher of poetical, antiquarian, and devotional works.21 His exploits as the first eighteenth-century Hebrew printer in Tuscany highlight his willingness to embark on a novel and expensive venture. The coincidence between Livornese and Florentine interests is evident from the Hebrew printing society that Moücke set up in 1733 and from the three liturgical works he published, all intended for a Tuscan Sephardi audience. The enterprise was sponsored by finances provided by the Florentine Giovan Agostino Ricci (a Christian) and by the Livornese merchants Joseph Gabbay Villareale and his brothers. Florentine and Livornese rabbinic authorities signed the approbations to the editions.22 Like Gabbay in the seventeenth century, Moücke had to secure a privilege granting him an exclusive right to Hebrew editions. Responding favorably to the printer’s supplication, the ministro delle ­Riformagioni Carlo Ginori granted Moücke a privativa to print Hebrew books in December 1734, on behalf of the Grand Duke Gian Gastone de’ Medici, against the payment of one golden fiorino.23 “L’introduzione di un [sic] opera nuova [The introduction of a new industry],” previously unknown

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to the city of Florence, convinced Ginori to concede the privilege.24 Once again, utilitarian interests led the authorities to legislate favorably over a question that would profoundly impact Tuscan Jewish culture. The monopoly was extended to Moücke’s legal heirs and dependents. It included the reprint of works already issued by Moücke, as well as future first editions and reprints of books published elsewhere. Additionally, it concerned the sale of Hebrew books, bound and unbound, printed by foreign presses. The privilege fixed a pecuniary fee for those who contravened the law.25 Unlike most privative, which covered a given title or genre, such as governmental edicts or devotional books, the right granted to Moücke concerned a general body of works, regardless of their actual content. The differences between the privilege that the Florentine printer was able to secure and ­Gabbay’s are worth considering. Gabbay’s exclusive right concerned “all Hebrew as well as Latin and vernacular books pertaining to Judaism,” while Moücke’s was defined formally, regardless of the books’ content, and legally applied to libr[i] Hebraic[i] et Rascenses. The discriminating factor was the nature of the types used in the edition, which were particularly expensive and difficult to acquire. Emphasis on types in exclusive privileges for Hebrew printers was not uncommon. The privativa granted in 1515 by the Venetian senate to Daniel Bomberg, the sixteenth-century Flemish printer known for his editions of the Rabbinic Bible and the Talmud, mentioned the heavy costs undergone in securing Hebrew types, barring any other printer from using Bomberg’s “cuneate” Hebrew characters.26 But in Moücke’s privativa, the explicit mention of “Rashi types” (the Sephardi semicursive type customarily employed to print rabbinic commentaries) appears as a novel element. From 1734 on, the employment not only of square Hebrew, but also of “Rashi” types legally defined the Hebrew printing business in Tuscany.27 Moücke and his partners dissolved their Hebrew printing society soon after 1736.28 Around the same time, the center of Hebrew printing migrated from the Tuscan capital to Livorno, where it was initially connected to the business of paper production and sale. The manufacture and trade of paper, crucial aspects of the book industry, were farmed out to private entrepreneurs in Livorno, who paid the state a hefty fee in order to enjoy this exclusive right (this was known as

The Business of Hebrew Publishing

appalto della carta).29 Since the beginning of the 1720s the appalto della carta also functioned as a publishing house in and of itself.30 The Genovese entrepreneur Clemente Ricci, appaltatore della carta (lit. “paper contractor”) in Tuscany since 1732,31 had several years of experience financing publications when he began a Hebrew printing activity in Livorno. As Ricci presumably did not have any Hebraic expertise, he made Livornese Jewish entrepreneur, Abraham Meldola (1705–55), a partner in his printing business. Abraham’s father was Rabbi Raphael Meldola, head of the Bayonne community and author of the responsa collection Mayim rabim. His brother David was a printer in Amsterdam by 1740. By the middle of the 1730s, Abraham Meldola was an established businessman in Livorno, who may have turned to printing as a way to invest or divert capital acquired through different commercial enterprises.32 During his partnership with Ricci, he was also involved in the sale of paper.33 The third key figure in the Livorno Hebrew press during its first years was Isaac de Pas, later a printer in Florence and Livorno, who served as the main compositor and editor for the works.34 The joint enterprise Ricci-Meldola put out at least seven imprints between 1740 and 1742; these included halakhic and polemical works by living or recently deceased authors, and a number of small liturgical editions. Most of their production aimed to serve the religious life of the Livorno community and other Sephardi congregations to which they would be exported. Due to heavy debts incurred with the management of the appalto and the limited success of the model paper factory Clemente Ricci had established near Prato, the entrepreneurial experiments attempted by the Genovese businessman in Tuscany turned into financial disaster. Prolonged legal disputes between Ricci and his associates ensued.35 Clemente Ricci broke off his partnership with Meldola in 1742, probably because of the large financial losses he had incurred around the end of his mandate as appaltatore della carta.36 Undeterred by the failure of the joint publishing enterprise with Ricci and by the debts he had accumulated, Meldola continued his printing activity alone between 1742 and 1748, publishing at least twenty fine imprints.37 The main editor and compositor at this stage was one of his brothers, Moses Meldola (1725–91).

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Control of the Hebrew Press Before 1743 In March 1743, the Lorraine government of Francis Stephen turned its reformist spirit to the printing business, with a comprehensive law that simplified publishing procedures and attempted to bring to an end ecclesiastical control over the press. This was a crucial step toward the laicization of printing in early modern Italy, as the law granted the power to issue printing licenses to lay authorities only. The Grand Duke declared that his main goal was to plan for liberty of press within the state and for liberty of trade in foreign-printed editions in order to “multiply information, spread knowledge, and sustain one part of the [Tuscan] People.” Yet, lest books contrary to religion and decorum be printed, the new legislation also introduced a censorship system that was deemed more efficient and practical than the previous ones, marred by confusing norms.38 The permission to print any work was now to be granted by the Consiglio di Reggenza in Florence or, alternatively, by the local authorities and governors for books published outside the capital. Government authorities relied primarily on a lay censor and only called upon ecclesiastical ministers to check a work’s religious integrity. Because the permit to print was ultimately given by the lay authorities, ecclesiastical censorship became effectively secondary to governmental approval, and the Tuscan law on printing of 1743 represented an important moment in the process of secularization in Italy more generally. Still, even after its promulgation, the struggle over laicizing the press continued in Tuscany. The Church relinquished its old prerogatives with great difficulty.39 Rome, which reacted against the new legislation forbidding any book printed in Tuscany that did not carry “the due authorization of the bishop and the Holy Office,” continued to maintain a strong grip over Catholic printers until the end of the century. The Florentine inquisition was especially concerned about possible abuses in the port of Livorno, fearing the clandestine introduction of prohibited books.40 When it came to the regulation of Hebrew printing, both the Tuscan and the Jewish authorities gave out licenses for individual works to be published, but the modalities of Catholic or Jewish censorship over Livornese Hebrew works remain somewhat unclear because of the loss

The Business of Hebrew Publishing

of documentary sources. As we will see, the dynamics inherent to the control of Hebrew printing in Livorno also shed light on the tensions between individual Jewish printers and Jewish authorities. Prior to 1743, the Tuscan ecclesiastical authorities were actively involved in censoring and controlling Hebrew printing. The Livornina allowed Jews to keep printed and handwritten books “in Hebrew and any other language,” as long as they were “checked by the Inquisitor or other [authorities] in charge.”41 Jews were thus required to obtain an imprimatur from the Inquisition in Pisa, which at times redirected such requests to Rome.42 In the early 1720s, two Tuscan authors submitted pleas, a sign that some Livornese and Florentine printers had begun considering Hebrew publishing during those years. In 1722, the rabbi and kabbalist Immanuel Hay Ricchi asked for permission to print three of his Hebrew works in Livorno, including commentaries on the Mishnah and the Bible. The Roman Holy Office did not concede the license.43 Two years later a Florentine rabbi requested permission to print a commentary on the Mishnah in the Tuscan capital. His request was similarly denied.44 As we will see, things changed greatly under Lorraine’s rule. Once the inquisitor issued the printing license, a Christian reader expert in Hebrew literature (often a convert) looked through the book to ensure that it did not contain anything objectionable.45 Aharon Hayim Volterra’s Bakashah hadashah, one of the first Hebrew editions to be issued in Livorno in 1740 by Ricci and Meldola, provides an apt example of ecclesiastical censorship. Apart from a license in Portuguese signed by the massari of the community and a rabbinic approbation signed by three Livornese rabbis,46 a printed note written by a Catholic censor appeared on the last page of the book. Ferdinando ­Ottavio Ximenes, a neophyte previously called “David di Abram di Joseph Sulema,” after reading the work “over and over” concluded that it did not contain anything opposed to the Catholic faith.47 The imprimatur was signed by both ecclesiastical and secular Tuscan authorities.48 After 1743, the local ecclesiastical authorities’ preoccupation with Hebrew books diminished significantly, as their concern for other kinds of “wicked” literature—Enlightenment philosophical texts and “freemasonic” books—increased. In 1744, pushing further his reformist policies, Francis Stephen stopped the activity of the Inquisition, which only resumed under very limited circumstances ten years later.49

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The Tuscan office of the Inquisition was ultimately disbanded in 1782 by Peter Leopold. My investigation of extant eighteenth-­century inquisitorial documentation in Rome and Pisa did not yield any evidence concerning imprimaturs for Hebrew books in Tuscany after 1743, suggesting that the priorities of the Holy Office shifted during Francis Stephen’s and Peter Leopold’s rules, and that the local inquisitors were aware of their dwindling authority in Livorno. As Livornese Hebrew publishing began to flourish, the inquisitor of Pisa did not try to curb the Hebrew editions coming out of the port’s presses, focusing his efforts on more urgent threats to the Catholic religion. The Livornese massari, aided by the community’s rabbis, also attempted to regulate Hebrew printing. Meldola’s edition of the Sefer ha-Rashbash (1742), a collection of rabbinic responsa by the Algerian rabbi Solomon ben Simon Tzemah Duran (1400–1467),50 includes one of the first examples of the procedure followed by the eighteenth-century Livornese Jewish authorities to grant permission for ­publication.51 First, the massari ordered the three communal rabbis of the publica Jesiba to check the text and see if they found it publishable. The rabbis then sent back their reply to the massari, agreeing to write a haskamah (approbation) to the text. Finally, the massari approved the rabbis’ decision, simultaneously giving permission to the printer to publish the work and to the rabbis to write their haskamah. In the case of the Sefer ha-Rashbash, this entire procedure took five days (August 31–September 5, 1741). As in other areas of Livornese Jewish life, the lay jurisdiction of the massari, not the religious jurisdiction of the rabbis, regulated this procedure and determined its outcome. The lay authorities retained control over the publication of Hebrew books, issuing the final permission for printing and approving the rabbis’ decision itself. ­Although the massari turned to the communal rabbis and publicized their opinion, rabbinic consent, while certainly very important, was secondary to the sanction of the lay leadership. For this reason, it can be argued that the process of laicization of print control—intended as the process whereby lay authorities issued printing licenses and retained the ultimate power to allow or refuse publication—started in the nazione ebrea independently from, and with a slight chronological advance over, Lorraine Tuscany.

The Business of Hebrew Publishing

For their part, Livornese Jewish printers showed a particular eager­ ness in seeking out the protection of the Tuscan state against the alleged interference of the Jewish governing board itself. The state’s protection was principally invoked as a defense against interference by Jewish officials when printers established their business. In May 1646, Yedidiah Gabbay requested that his activity be officially placed under the jurisdiction of the governor of Livorno and outside of the authority of the massari, noting that he had become involved in a fistfight with them; in another letter Gabbay referred to the Jewish lay leaders as “evil.”52 About a century later, Abraham Meldola, too, submitted a petition to the Grand Duke as he started publishing on his own in 1742. He asked for guarantees against the interference of Jewish authorities, explaining how in the past few years, thanks to the Grand Duke’s privilege that Moücke and Ricci handed over to him, [he] has printed and prints in this city of Livorno Hebrew books, through the explicit permission of the proposto of the vicario of the Holy Office and the auditore of this Government, as is customary with the other printers. Since the massari of his nazione ebrea additionally demand to give him permission to print, to the effect that without their approval he may not do so—and this would be a novelty unheard of before, and one of great damage to the petitioner, who would have to wait for months before obtaining the permission of the massari, of whom there are five who rarely get together, and for other worthy reasons, therefore, he petitions the Grand Duke to command the massari to give up their demands.53

While the Medici authorities ignored Gabbay’s pleas in 1646, Meldola’s request was approved by the governor of Livorno in June 1742.54 Later editions of Livornese printers included printed copies of the massari’s license. These documents do not undermine the import of Tuscan governmental protection or the fact that it was granted. Similarly to the Jewish coffeehouse managers we have encountered in the previous chapter, Abraham Meldola’s considerable entrepreneurial spirit led him to ask the Tuscan authorities to interfere in the jurisdictional autonomy of the nazione ebrea out of commercial reasons. ­Meldola even misrepresented the frequency of the meetings of the Jewish governing council to his advantage. The massari usually met every two or three weeks, but could meet more frequently if needed.

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With the invocation of economic reasons, Meldola hoped to obtain a political goal: to avoid Jewish communal control over the printing process. For this printer, individual entrepreneurship, established through a direct connection with the ruler and through the non-Jewish court, prevailed over allegiance to the Jewish authorities.

Building a Jewish Printer’s Legitimacy: The Sefer ha-Rashbash (1742) Another strategy by which Abraham Meldola constructed his authority as a printer in the early phases of his “solo” career, besides direct appeal to the Tuscan authorities, was through the paratexts and haskamot found in the Sefer ha-Rashbash. Introductory matter found in printed Hebrew books, whether approbations or other texts, was primarily designed to protect the work’s commercial value. Legal historian Nahum Rakover has suggested that rabbinic approbations established the first form of copyright for Jewish authors.55 Like governmental licenses in non-Hebrew books, approbations carried official privilege-like qualities. They were supposed to fend off possible competitors in all Jewish communities and protect both the printer’s labor and his profits. But the significance of these documents is not limited to the functions of economic protection and license. The haskamot also justify the printing enterprise; they establish the credibility and pedigree of the text’s author, the printer, and the workers involved in the process. In the case of Abraham Meldola, his Hebrew press, the first such Jewish enterprise after a hiatus of several generations, was praised and legitimized by connecting the printer directly to the highest political authorities in the state, the Grand Duke and his ministers, who had allegedly granted him exclusive privilege to publish in Hebrew in Tuscany. Meldola’s edition of the Sefer ha-Rashbash was accompanied by a much richer and more eloquent set of haskamot than any other work from his press, shedding light on the figure of the printer and the way he was presented to the community of Jewish readers. Various Livornese authorities signed the rabbinic approbations, including not only the three communally appointed rabbis, but also the respected scholars ­Malachi ha-Cohen and Immanuel Hay Ricchi. Other approbations were

The Business of Hebrew Publishing

prepared by the rabbi of Florence; authorities from the community of Amsterdam; the rabbi of Bayonne in France; and the rabbis of Venice, highlighting the network of Sephardi communities with which Livorno was connected. Most of these approbations contained standard praises of the author, the printer, and the owner of the manuscript given to print, Malachi ha-Cohen, along with the usual prohibition against reprinting for ten years under threat of rabbinic ban.56 Three of these approbations also emphasized the fact that Meldola was the first Jewish printer of Hebrew books in eighteenth-century Livorno. Immanuel Ricchi praised Meldola for his negotiations “with the most important ministers in the realm of Our Lord the Grand Duke, Sua altezza reale il Gran Duca di Toscana.”57 Meldolda had offered “a prayer and a plea to beg [the Grand Duke] to return the crown to its former splendor, by allowing what was once prohibited to the Jews, to print sacred books in the city of Livorno, as was customary in previous times. And his prayer was fruitful.”58 There is no evidence that Jews had ever been banned from printing in Livorno, and Ricchi’s comment does not seem to be grounded. However, the passage illustrates the historical memory among Livornese Jews and their perception of the absence of local Hebrew printing as a result of ancient anti-Jewish policies. Under­ stood within this framework, Meldola’s achievement in obtaining permission to print in Hebrew from the “most important ministers” of Tuscany became even more groundbreaking. A similar emphasis on the relationship between the printer and the Tuscan authorities appears in the haskamah composed by the Se­phardi rabbis of Amsterdam.59 They too stressed the printer’s negotiations with the ministers of the Grand Duke and, in an expression laden with messianic overtones, his role in restoring the “crown of Israel” to its past splendor through the printing press. The Amsterdam authorities praised Meldola for securing the permission to publish works that would advance the cause of Torah “because he toiled and labored in the desert,60 dealing with the ministers, the dignitaries of the land . . . in the kingdom of the Grand Duke, who is the ruler of Tuscany.” Meldola had found “a time of favor, to restore the crown to its past splendor . . . [receiving] the right and the royal patent to print whatever he desires in the city of Livorno, like in previous years, to increase Torah.”61

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The long prose preface in honor of Malachi ha-Cohen, the original owner of the manuscript, also points to the relationship between Meldola and the Grand Duke. This text, entitled Tehilah le-David, was composed by one of Meldola’s younger brothers, David, himself a printer in Amsterdam. At a time of financial losses and problems with his own enterprise, David learned that his own brother had contributed to the rebirth of Hebrew printing in Livorno: “So I heard this news and that the most important intermediary was my older brother Abraham, who came . . . into a land flowing with milk and honey before his highness the Grand Duke, in order to place the Torah on her own pedestal.” David highlighted the exclusive privilege that the Grand Duke had bestowed on his brother Abraham using technical, precise language: “Out of his great kindness, [the Grand Duke] benevolently gave him the license [to print] according to his own will and desire, and [to do so] by privilegio, so that in all the lands of his kingdom nobody else may print any Hebrew religious literature except with [Abraham’s] permission and with his printing press.”62 The mention of Abraham’s exclusive privilege on the part of his brother, a fellow printer, illustrates the protectionist concerns that prevailed among Hebrew printers in the early modern period, demonstrating not only a heightened awareness of the importance of governmental approval for the Hebrew book business, but also the desire to exclude potential competitors from this market. However, as we will see, there is no evidence that Meldola had obtained a brand new privativa from the Tuscan ministers, least of all the Grand Duke himself. The Hebrew texts that accompany the Sefer ha-Rashbash call attention to the active role of the printer and his initiative vis-à-vis the relevant Tuscan ministers; they also create a direct link between the printer and the Grand Duke who granted him the right to print. This claim may well be unique to this volume, as later Livornese Hebrew editions mention the ruler for a strategically different purpose: they pray for his well-being. Meldola’s special role as the first Jewish entrepreneur to bring Hebrew printing back to Livorno after almost three generations is connected in these texts to the “ministers closest to the Ruler.” From a rhetorical perspective, the approbations place the printer and his activity under state protection.

The Business of Hebrew Publishing

These literary motifs provide a variation on the well-known trope of the “royal alliance” in Jewish history. This idea, which historian Salo Baron derived from his study of medieval Jewish communities, maintains that Jews, depending for their protection on close bonds with the authorities, developed stronger relationships with political rulers than with other social groups.63 In Meldola’s case, the special governmental sanction not only provided protection, but also ennobled his enterprise, while connecting the Tuscan authorities, and in particular the Grand Duke of Tuscany, with the growth of Torah studies. At the same time as Meldola is portrayed as having received his legitimacy from the highest political authority, the Grand Duke is depicted not only as a benevolent protector who graciously grants the wishes of his Jewish subjects, but, more significantly, as a sponsor of Torah.

The Meldola–De Pas Affair The mercantilist and protectionist view of economy common up to the middle of the eighteenth century found expression in the establishment and development of printers’ guilds to safeguard the financial security of printing press workers all over Europe. Printers’ guilds protected workers’ interests, both vis-à-vis the central government and against potential competitors looking to start up new businesses in the field. In Italy, however, single states regulated printing activity in different ways. Many cities did not have printers’ guilds;64 Livorno was one such case. The port was also traditionally protective of its unique commercial privileges that distinguished it from the rest of the Tuscan territories, and it was resistant to governmental attempts to control its dynamic economic life.65 Regardless, even in the absence of a guild, production difficulties and the workers’ inability to break free from a protectionist mentality led printers to act as members of an informal association, routinely asking for support from the central government for relief from taxes and tolls, and mobilizing against competitors.66 The development of Hebrew printing in the Tuscan port conforms to such a trend. After the first two years of collaboration with Ricci and Meldola, Isaac de Pas moved to Florence. There he edited Hebrew works for a Christian printer, Giovan Battista Stecchi, in 1744.67 The books he

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published in the Tuscan capital were liturgical imprints conceived for the immediate use of the communities of Livorno or Florence. The printing effort was locally driven and circumscribed. The coincidence of Florentine and Livornese interests evident in these Hebrew works is similar to that discerned in the publications by Francesco Moücke earlier in the century. With Meldola and de Pas printing at the same time, the question arose as to whether two Hebrew print shops could be active simultaneously in Tuscany, one in the capital and the other in the port city. A court case between Meldola and de Pas, former coworkers, opens a window onto some of the larger forces at play when Hebrew printing was reborn in mid-eighteenth-century Tuscany. Their legal altercation was not simply an example of business animosity. It illuminates the protectionist concerns of workers involved in the Hebrew book industry and their desire for governmental backing and support. At the same time, it presages an emerging conflict between the interests of printers and the intentions of the Tuscan authorities. In August 1748, Eliau de Pas appeared in the Livorno court of law on behalf of his brother Isaac, who was at the time active in Florence as a printer, and Isaac’s (non-Jewish) business partner Giovan Battista ­Stecchi. The target of Eliau’s complaints was the Livornese Jewish printer Abraham Meldola, Isaac de Pas’s former colleague.68 Eliau claimed that Stecchi and his brother Isaac held a privativa over the printing of “Opere in carattere ebraico e Rascì [works in Hebrew and Rashi types]” in the entire state of Tuscany,69 and that Meldola’s business was infringing on their exclusive right.70 De Pas produced documentary evidence to prove that the privilege over Hebrew printing in Tuscany held by his brother Isaac and by Stecchi had been granted by the central government in Florence, and was for all purposes similar to the right granted to Francesco Moücke by the Grand Duke in 1734.71 Eliau de Pas therefore requested that the judges take action against the Livornese printer and prevent him from publishing any Hebrew works.72 A few weeks later, Meldola appeared in front of the same court with an elaborate legal strategy, and with his own set of permits issued by local Livornese authorities. The privativa trumpeted by de Pas, he claimed, was based on misrepresentation, since it had been asked for and obtained when his own print shop, having received all the neces-

The Business of Hebrew Publishing

sary permits, was already in business. Since Stecchi must surely have been aware of Meldola’s successful enterprise, he had deliberately failed to mention its existence to the Tuscan authorities. If the Florentine printer had let the Grand Duke know that there was somebody else printing Hebrew works in Livorno, the argument went on, the ruler would never have granted him the monopoly over Hebrew printing. Rather, he would have granted the privativa to Meldola himself, as he was “the first to return the art of printing in Hebrew and Rashi types to these most happy States after many and many years.”73 In fact, both Stecchi and Meldola were well aware of each other’s business. Unlike his competitors, Meldola seemed more open to the simultaneous output of Hebrew works in Florence and Livorno and to a suitable accommodation with Stecchi and de Pas. Meldola himself had alerted the Reggenza after Stecchi’s privativa was granted. Initially, the ruler had “ordered sig. Stecchi to either find a [monetary] solution with the defendant or to allow him to keep printing as well.”74 By 1748, however, the situation had changed; Meldola’s business had become the victim of competition and lack of communication between center and periphery in the Tuscan administration. In July 1749, the Consiglio della Pratica Segreta (Council of the Secret Commission) in Florence, to which Isaac de Pas had appealed, pronounced a sentence in favor of de Pas and Stecchi.75 As was customary for all Livornese printers, Meldola had originally obtained his original permissions from local ecclesiastical and lay authorities.76 These had been confirmed by the governor of Livorno in May 1743, as required by the new legislation on printing.77 However, when compared to the printing privilege granted by the Grand Duke to ­Stecchi, Meldola’s Livornese permits seemed insufficient to the Florentine judges. Even the claim that he had rightfully acquired the privilege over Hebrew editions issued by the Grand Duke from “Moücke and Ricci” did not help Meldola’s fortune, most likely because he was unable to back it with official papers.78 This reference may even have weakened his case, for the awareness of Moücke’s Hebrew imprints undercut his claim to have been “the first to return the art of printing in Hebrew and Rashi types to these most happy States after many and many years.” The judges of the Pratica Segreta ruled that the privativa held by the Florentine printers Stecchi and de Pas was valid, and they

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ordered Meldola to shut his shop, stop selling works printed by his rival, and pay him 246 lire to cover damages and legal expenses.79 By the end of the month, Meldola had made the necessary payment and closed down his business.80 As a result, Hebrew printing stopped again in Livorno for five years. Taking full advantage of his exclusive privilege, Isaac de Pas resumed his activity in the Tuscan capital in 1748, no longer as an editor, but as a full-fledged printer. A steady flow of mostly liturgical works came out of his presses until 1760. From 1753 to 1758, de Pas also brought out Hebrew editions in Livorno for the publishing house of Antonio Santini; in 1753, for Giovanni Paolo Fantechi;81 and in 1768– 69, for Carlo Giorgi.82 De Pas was the chief worker responsible for the Livornese Hebrew editions of the 1750s. In 1753, de Pas remarked that he owned “brand new types,”83 and referred to himself as “printer” (baal defus).84 His printing selections incorporate Ladino and bilingual publications for Sephardi Jews and ex-conversos who were more familiar with Ladino, Spanish, and Portuguese than with Hebrew; this included educational literature for children and religious works for women. As a teacher in the Livornese Talmud Torah, de Pas must have been particularly interested in publishing editions for the use of students.

The Production of Livornese Editions in Hebrew Types, 1740–89 The de Pas–Meldola affair illustrates how crucial governmental backing was to Hebrew printing in the Tuscan state. Perhaps Hebrew printing was, at the beginning, a niche market that needed particular protection and governmental intervention against potential competitors to guarantee workers in the industry some financial security. The impression of the fragility of this enterprise in its early years is partially corroborated by a quantitative study of Livornese Hebrew imprints between 1740 and 1789. Still, a comparison with equivalent data relative to Livornese Latin editions significantly complicates this picture, showing that during the 1740s Meldola’s printing press produced more books than all Latin presses combined.

The Business of Hebrew Publishing

Comparative View of Hebrew Printing in Sephardi Centers On the one hand, a bibliometric analysis of Hebrew printing, described in the appendix, demonstrates that the production of Hebrew books in Livorno was slower and more discontinuous in its first forty years than previously thought. Based on my calculations, the Livornese printers put out approximately 222 editions between 1740 and 1789, although we should allow for a small margin of error.85 Between 1780 and 1789, the printing shops of partners Castelli and Saadun and that of Giovan ­Vincenzo Falorni put out almost as many editions as their colleagues had in the previous four decades (Figure 7.1). A comparison with contemporary production in other centers shows that during the same period, 449 editions appeared in Amsterdam, 278 in Venice, 149 in Mantua, 124 in Salonika, and 110 in Istanbul (Figure 7.2).86 Only around the 1780s did the Livornese production surpass the Venetian one (Figure 7.3). Additionally, from 1740 to 1780, the production in Mantua and in Sephardi centers, such as Amsterdam, Istanbul, and Salonika, surpassed Livornese output (Figure 7.4). 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

1740–1748

1749–1762

Ricci and Meldola; Isaac de Pas Abraham Meldola (Fantechi and Santini)

1760–1767 Moses Attias

1768–1773 Carlo Giorgi for Santini

1774–1779

1780–1789

Falorni and Giorgi and Castelli-Saadun Gio. Vincenzo (simultaneously) Falorni (simultaneously)

Figure 7.1. Livornese editions, 1740–89, by printer. Analysis based on BHB and Vinograd.

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500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0

Amsterdam

Istanbul

Livorno

Mantua

Salonika

Venice

Figure 7.2. Hebrew editions, 1740–89, by city. Analysis based on BHB.

160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0

1740–1749

1750 –1759

1760 –1769 Venice

1770 –1779

1780 –1789

1790 –1799

Livorno

Figure 7.3. Hebrew editions in Venice and Livorno, 1740–99, by decade. Analysis based on BHB.

The Business of Hebrew Publishing 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0

Amsterdam

Istanbul

Livorno

Mantua

Salonika

Venice

Figure 7.4. Hebrew editions 1740–80, by city. Analysis based on BHB.

Genres Between the middle of the 1740s and the French Revolution, the period that roughly corresponded to the phase of state reforms initiated by the Lorraine house in Tuscany, Livorno was a center of production and distribution of enlightened ideas in Italy and abroad thanks to the open support, or silent approval, of the ruling dynasty. It was in the port city that the Milanese thinker Cesare Beccaria was able to publish his groundbreaking legal essay Dei delitti e delle pene (On Crimes and Punishments), in 1764, and Livorno was home to the second Italian edition of Diderot’s and D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie (1770–78).87 At the time when Livorno established itself as a center for radical printing in Italy, the local Hebrew presses issued primarily texts designed to serve the religious needs of the nazione ebrea and other Sephardi communities. Neat categorizations are not always possible, as we often deal with miscellaneous texts. Nonetheless, the majority of the editions are legal and liturgical (halakha makes up for one-third of the total imprints), followed by occasional literature (poems for wedding, eulogies, etc.), and sermons. Although Livorno is remembered as a center of mystical studies, local kabbalists relied mainly on manuscripts. Less than ten

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kabbalistic works were printed between 1740 and 1789; most of them came out only after 1780.

Latin and Hebrew Books An analysis of the annual production of Hebrew editions yields additional important results when compared to the output of works in Latin characters. While Hebrew printing was initially slower in Livorno than in other contemporaneous centers of production, considering the context of local printing the production of Hebrew works surpassed that of vernacular and Latin works in several years (1740; 1742–46; 1748; 1790, 1793–94).88 The data for the initial decade of renaissance of Hebrew printing are especially striking. A year-by-year comparison shows that Abraham Meldola put more Hebrew works on the market in the 1740s than all the other Latin-character presses combined (Figure 7.5).89 General printing took off in Livorno in 1752: after that year, the Livornese presses usually put out no less than ten books in Latin char30

25

20

15

10

5

Hebrew types

1797

1794

1791

1788

1785

1782

1779

1776

1773

1770

1767

1764

1761

1758

1755

1752

1749

1746

1743

0 1740

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Latin types

Figure 7.5. Livornese editions in Hebrew and Latin types, 1740–99, by year. Analysis based on BHB and CEDL.

The Business of Hebrew Publishing

acters per year, reaching a peak of twenty-seven books in 1766. Up to 1783, the Hebrew production varied greatly depending on which year we consider. During certain years, the ratio of Hebrew to Latin editions ranges between 20 percent to more than 50 percent. From 1780, and more markedly from 1783 on, the output of Hebrew texts increased to levels similar to those of the midcentury production of vernacular editions, between ten and seventeen prints per year, with a peak of twenty-five editions in 1790.

Book Distribution While the bibliometric analysis shows an initial discontinuity in the production of Hebrew books in Livorno, these difficulties must have been tempered by expectations of high profits from exporting Hebrew editions throughout the Mediterranean and among Sephardi communities. Livornese Jews were not subject to custom duties, an element that aided this business, and the port turned into a primary hub for the diffusion of Jewish culture in the Mediterranean, especially in the Maghreb region.90 Livornese Jewish booksellers vied with each other for the attractive North African markets.91 Indeed, if Livorno became a center for the production of Hebrew books only relatively late in the eighteenth century, the port played a major role in the distribution of Hebrew texts among other Jewish communities as early as Meldola’s time. The possibility to enjoy a potentially lucrative market alone may have thus compelled Isaac de Pas to sue his competitor in 1748.

The Abolition of the Privativa over Works in Hebrew and Rashi Types The bibliometric analysis shows that it took about forty years for Livornese Hebrew printing to become a full-fledged business, one which operated under a moderately competitive system. Eight publishers issued Hebrew books between 1740 and 1789, but most of them could not operate at the same time until 1767, when the recently appointed Grand Duke Peter Leopold officially abolished the privativa system over texts in Hebrew and Rashi types printed in Livorno. What

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was the reason for the abolition of this exclusive printing right, and what were its repercussions? As we have seen in the previous chapter, Peter Leopold’s reformist government aimed to diminish the prerogatives of traditional corporate groups, to abolish old monopolies and erode Medicean-style protectionist practices, in order to promote a liberalization of the market and greater competition. One of the first steps taken by the new government was therefore to curb, and finally abolish, all professional associations and guilds (arti), depicted as the vestiges of an antiquated, declining economic regime condemned by modern production systems,92 with two edicts issued in February 1770.93 Already before the promulgation of the new set of regulations, the Grand Duke had turned his attention to the arti and the monopoly system, with an official inquiry ordered in 1766. Throughout the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century, historians of liberal leanings, often animated by a strong polemical vein, unanimously embraced the Hapsburg-Lorraine claims that privileges curbed liberty and economic development and that only abolition of the arti in Tuscany would remove unnecessary barriers to the forces of capitalism. Today’s more nuanced historiography reveals the problematic and complex relationship between production and market forces, and recognizes that the abolition of the arti and the corporate order did not supply immediate relief to the deep-seated causes of the decline of Tuscan manufacture.94 But Peter Leopold’s administration assumed that the elimination of corporative restrictions, coupled with the free-market system and technological innovation, would naturally promote productive growth. In 1767 this approach came to be applied to Hebrew printing, which the Tuscan authorities considered as much an aspect of commerce as any other.95 A plea submitted by a Livornese paper seller, Giuseppe Corsani, prompted the decision to abolish the exclusive printing right over works in Hebrew and Rashi types. In August 1766, Corsani asked permission to open a Hebrew press in the port of Livorno together with a Jewish partner, Isaac Achris.96 At that time, another Jewish printer of Hebrew works, Moses Attias, was active in Livorno, having acquired the privativa from Isaac de Pas.97 The Grand Duke accepted Corsani’s request and informed his officials that a form of accommodation should be found, in order for both Attias’s and Corsani’s Hebrew print

The Business of Hebrew Publishing

shops to coexist in Livorno.98 Ultimately, the governor of Livorno, Filippo Bourbon del Monte, suggested that the Grand Duke declare null Attias’s privativa in the port of Livorno, while maintaining its validity in the rest of Tuscany.99 Peter Leopold obliged.100 The following year, Bourbon del Monte recapped the situation concerning general and Hebrew printing in an eloquent letter.101 This document underscores the free-market spirit that animated Bourbon del Monte’s decisions, and his belief in the importance of competition for the development of the Livornese printing presses, including those that employed Hebrew types. The governor harshly criticized the custom, followed by previous governors, of conceding exclusive privileges over certain manufactures or commercial enterprises, including printing. As he put it, The natural liberty pertaining to everybody, to pursue any profession or craft they like . . . is always valid in this Free Port, whose constitution does not admit limitations as to the pursuit of crafts and professions. The privileges of 1591 declared . . . that in Livorno anyone may pursue whatever profession they like, without any limitation . . . and without paying taxes or matriculation to any guild. Therefore, . . . strictures and exclusive privileges are not compatible with the system of the Free Port of Livorno. No less than in other crafts, this is true for the printing press.

The governor greeted favorably the decision of the Grand Duke to do away with the printing restrictions and monopolies in the port, “to favor liberty and coherently with the system of Livorno.” In fact, he could not understand “why printing, which is a branch of commerce like any other, should be restricted in a Free Port.” Although it was only a fraction of the general traffic of the port, he claimed, “if things were pursued in a certain way one would obtain considerable profits from it, as it happens in Venice and Lucca.”102 Bourbon del Monte’s letter displays an ideological and polemical interpretation of the Livornina in line with his own reformist beliefs. Although the charters allowed Livornese subjects to pursue whichever activity they desired, (theoretically) without restriction, manufactures and enterprises had been customarily subject to privative and the concession of privileges in the previous two centuries. Regardless

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of established practices, the governor brought the reformist spirit that characterized Peter Leopold’s rule to bear over his appreciation of the Livornese system and its history. Protectionist requests, he maintained, were “contrary to the good economic rules of a state, according to which it is desirable to multiply manufacturers and craftsmen of any kind, as this is the way to expand traffic and industries.” “If craftsmen in any other profession requested to prevent any similar shops to open up,” Bourbon del Monte concluded, the government “would not heed them, at least in Livorno, where everybody is promised a boundless liberty.”103 Yet, such “boundless liberty” and competitive fervor, as promised to Livornese inhabitants by the statutes of the Free Port, were not always as welcome as Bourbon del Monte believed. Printers, Jewish or not, adjusted to the new competitive system with difficulty. In 1777, the governor received another request for an exclusive privilege over Hebrew printing.104 Once again, he confirmed his antiprotectionist stance. Such monopolies could no longer be accepted. Rather, he argued, “if the person who submitted the plea believes that he can set up a much better print shop than the others, he will sell more, as it is usual when one does a better job, without depriving the Public of those benefits that the concurrent activity of numerous competitors produce, who strive to provide it with a better service in order to gain its favor.”105 Despite the governor’s best intention, the abolition of a monopoly over Hebrew printing does not seem to have brought immediate benefits. True, two printers, Carlo Giorgi and Giovan Vincenzo Falorni (both non-Jewish), were able to operate in the Hebrew printing business simultaneously from 1774 on. However, the actual production did not increase significantly for another decade; only after 1783, and more forcefully from 1790 on, did the production of Hebrew works considerably surpass the editions published in the years of the privativa. The fact that Peter Leopold abolished the Holy Office in 1782 is a coincidence hard to ignore, but I could not find explicit evidence that the end of the Inquisition had direct consequences in the development of Livornese Hebrew printing in the 1780s. Surely, an effective change took place in the Livornese Hebrew publishing activity approximately fifteen years after the Grand Duke’s elimination of protectionist restric-

The Business of Hebrew Publishing

tions over printing, and Livorno became a main center for the production of Hebrew books in the Mediterranean only in the 1790s, and more fully during the nineteenth century. In conclusion, whether or not the presence of a printing monopoly between 1740 and 1767 proved advantageous to Livornese Hebrew printing; whether it hindered competition or safeguarded production in times of generalized economic crisis, remains an open question. Certainly, it is significant that the governor of Livorno put Hebrew printing on the same level as non-Hebrew printing. Free distribution and commerce of knowledge, including Jewish knowledge, were justified as market forces. Peter Leopold’s decision of 1767 formally recognized the link between Hebrew printing activity, financial gain, and public good suggested by Bourbon del Monte. Even if Hebrew printing represented a relatively tiny portion of Livornese trade, the Tuscan government believed that the liberalized production and commerce of Jewish culture would ultimately benefit the state. Commercial utility—the original reason why Jews had been allowed to settle in Livorno with the promise of generous liberties—also gave the government reason to take away the protectionist privileges enjoyed by individual printers like Moses Attias, and to ultimately change the system of production of Hebrew books in Livorno—once more in the name of liberty.

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E i g h t  Economic Utility and Political Reforms The “Jewish Question” in Livorno

208

Despite the challenges, failures, and disappointments that we have investigated throughout this book, thanks to the Livornina system Livornese Jews did enjoy freedoms unparalleled in any other Italian center in the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century. Even when new economic and political trends challenged mercantilism, the framework that had allowed the nazione ebrea to flourish, Tuscan observers never questioned or doubted Jewish usefulness to the state (the underlying principle of the Livornina), but rather emphasized it. This situation, on the one hand, safeguarded the existing status quo, to the mutual satisfaction of the Tuscan authorities and of the conservative oligarchy governing the Jewish community. On the other hand, it prevented the development of an articulated discourse on the Jewish condition in Tuscany in the 1780s, the period in which the “Jewish question” was publicly “discovered” in other countries such as France and Prussia, and it slowed down the political emancipation of individual Livornese Jews. After the publication of Christian Wilhelm Dohm’s work Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden (On the Civil Improvement of the Jews) in 1781, and the promulgation of Joseph II’s Toleranzpatent the following year, debates in western European Enlightenment circles increasingly focused on concrete political questions regarding the integration of the Jews into the larger society.1 The Jewish condition, conversely, did not represent a major theme of discussion in Tuscany. But the absence of a Tuscan public debate about the Jewish status was not a manifestation of disinterest.2 In fact, the specific situation of the port of Livorno did raise a set of questions and responses, but they differed from those that preoccupied Prussian and French reformers and maskilim.

The “Jewish Question” in Livorno

This chapter takes a two-pronged approach to illuminate the perceptions and facts of the Jewish condition in late eighteenth-century Livorno and suggests that the Livornese example provides an alternative to prevalent examples of Jewish integration. The first part of the chapter concentrates on the peculiarities of Livornese Jewish integration vis-à-vis Prussian and maskilic models, claiming that the diffused perception of the nazione ebrea’s utility prevented the emergence of a debate over the Jewish status in the port city and that the “regenerationist” attitude that informed the bulk of the debates in western and central Europe did not strike roots in Tuscany. Moving from this consideration, the second part of the chapter addresses the concrete obstacles that the Livornese Jewish elite, despite its socioeconomic integration, encountered along the path of inclusion in the late eighteenth century and the reasons for the stunted political emancipation of individual Livornese Jews in the 1780s.

Les Juifs : Two Livornese Jews Walk into a Coffeehouse Les Juifs, a curious pamphlet in French published in Livorno in 1786, allows a comparison between the different Tuscan and Transalpine takes on the Jewish question in the 1780s.3 The action of Les Juifs takes place in a Livornese coffeehouse, the Caffè del Greco, managed by “an honest Greek” named Stephano.4 This was not coincidental. By the 1760s, the coffeehouse had developed into a literary trope in Italy, idealized as a space that facilitated critical reasoning.5 This trend was immortalized in the Milanese periodical Il Caffè (1764–66), which despite its short life became the most influential voice of the Illuminismo.6 Deliberately modeled after Addison and Steele’s Spectator, Il Caffè was the brainchild of brothers Pietro and Alessandro Verri, and other intellectuals from northern Italy, most notably Cesare Beccaria.7 The articles were presented as conversations held in the coffee shop of the Greek Demetrio, an optimal center for intelligent discussions thanks to its excellent coffee, the availability of international and local periodicals, and the flow of its customers.8 Les Juifs appropriated Il Caffè’s conceit in order to discuss the position of the Jews in Livorno. Stephano would have reminded any lettered Italian reader of the char-

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acter of Demetrio. Stephano’s café, just like Demetrio’s, was depicted as a cosmopolitan meeting place, inviting learned discussions and political conversations.9 This witty work, full of comic flourishes, captures the fictional conversation between two learned Livornese Jews, Jeremie Pouf, le pleureur (“the whiny”), and Jonas Gay, l’enjoüé (“the enthusiast”), who exchange literary and political opinions at Stephano’s coffeehouse. The object of their conversation is the recent Italian translation of Die Juden (The Jews), the earlier of the two Jewish plays by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81).10 The Italian translation of Lessing’s play, entitled Gli ebrei, Commedia in un atto del Sig. Lessing (The Jews, Comedy in One Act by Mr. Lessing), appeared in Livorno in 1786.11 It was published by Giovan Vincenzo Falorni and translated from the French by Luigi Migliaresi,12 a bookseller and publisher later known for his revolutionary sympathies.13 Soon after the appearance of M ­ igliaresi’s translation, the Falorni press published Les Juifs.14 The author claimed to be a certain François Gariel. The identity of Gariel remains somewhat of a mystery. He dabbled in theater; simultaneously with Les Juifs he published a comedy entitled Les esclaves livournois a Alger.15 We may never know whether he was in fact Parisian, as the frontispiece of Les Juifs claims,16 or something altogether different.17 Needless to say, the identity of Gariel and his provenance ultimately bear on the pamphlet’s interpretation. ­Because of elements internal to the text and the historical circumstances of Livorno at the time, I suggest that this author was residing locally and that most likely he was not Jewish.18 His intimacy with Migliaresi’s Italian translation of Lessing, and the fact that Les Juifs was published almost concomitantly with that work, suggests that he must have sojourned in or visited the port city some time in 1786. There is no evidence that Gariel had any direct involvement with the nazione ebrea. Regardless, his informed treatment of Lessing’s play and of its Italian translation was sympathetic to the Jewish community. “François Gariel” may have been the pseudonym of an author in Migliaresi’s circle. A possible candidate is the French-born poet, translator, and literary critic Salvatore de Coureil, a man known for his biting essays on Italian theater.19 Both Migliaresi and de Coureil were associated with the Accademia dei Polentofagi (Academy of the

The “Jewish Question” in Livorno

­ olenta Eaters), a literary academy founded in Pisa in 1785, later known P for its Jacobin sympathies.20 De Coureil considered Hebrew poetry favorably and admired Jewish contributions to commerce and to education.21 Another possibility is that “Gariel” hid the identity of Giuseppe Aubert, an influential publisher of Enlightenment texts of French origin, who was friendly with Livornese Jewish literati and frequented Migliaresi’s circles.22 A more remote possibility is that “Gariel” was a pseudonym of the Livornese Jewish merchant and poet Salomone Michell,23 who traveled in the same literary circles as several members of the Accademia dei Polentofagi.24

Lessing’s Die Juden Les Juifs offers a critical review of Lessing’s play, couched as an ironic philosophical dialogue. Lessing first published Die Juden in 1754.25 This comedy in one act takes place on the estate of a baron, whom a mysterious, unnamed traveler has just saved from the assault of two bearded highway robbers.26 At this point in Prussian history, any man with a long beard was assumed to be Jewish. In the summer of 1748, Frederick the Great of Prussia had promulgated a law that prohibited Jews from shaving their beards, designed to prevent them from passing as Christians and to facilitate the identification of Jewish thieves.27 Lessing’s play does not refer explicitly to the “beard law,” but the plot should be understood in light of that context; by alluding to their bearded chins, Lessing presented the robbers to the audience as presumably Jewish. In reality, the thieves are none other than Martin Krumm, the baron’s bailiff, and Michael Stich, the village headman, who had disguised themselves as Jews by wearing fake beards. The play moves along through twists and turns. During the course of the action, the traveler engages in several conversations displaying his generosity of spirit and enlightened views, while the baron and most other characters express harsh judgments about Jews and their alleged greed. Krumm accuses all Jews of being cheats and thieves, worse than the plague, a race cursed and hated by God.28 Talking about his attackers, the baron complains that Jews are “people so intent on making profit” that they do not care whether they do it fairly

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or by cunning. The baron, who thinks himself a fine physiognomist, claims that something in the features of Jews predisposes one against them: “A treacherous look, a lack of conscience, a self-seeking quality, deception and perjury.” The stranger, for his part, asserts that he is much opposed to generalizations and rather believes that there are good and bad individuals in every nation.29 Eventually, the traveler catches Krumm with two “Jewish” beards in his pocket. The baron soon discovers the true identity of his attackers and, overcome by gratitude, decides to reward the traveler with property and with the hand of his daughter. At this point, the stranger is forced to reveal his identity. He is a Jew! When the baron insists that he at least accept his property as a gift, the traveler refuses, but asks the baron to be less sweeping in his judgment of Jews, adding that he always considered the friendship of another human being, be he Jewish or Christian, precious beyond measure.30 Meanwhile the traveler’s servant Christoph is shocked to learn that his master is Jewish, accuses him of having offended the whole of Christianity by taking “an honest Christian” as his servant, and decides to quit. The traveler replies that he “can’t expect [him] to think more highly of [the Jews] than do the common run of Christians.” He does, however, agree to let the servant go and offers not only his wages, but also a gift. Touched by such generosity, Christoph replies that he will stay with him. As the scene ends, the baron tells his new friend that Jews would be very worthy of respect if only they were all Jews like him; the traveler replies that Christians would be lovable, if only they all possessed the baron’s qualities.31 It has been repeatedly noted that Lessing’s traveler was not only the first educated Jew in German literature, but also one who was thoroughly acquainted with the basic tenets of the Enlightenment.32 An attentive eighteenth-century German audience might have recognized him as a traveling businessman, characterized by his affable manners and diplomatic skills, and would have granted him the status of a hero because of his perspicacity and courage.33 As a member of the middle class, presented as rational, brave, and literate, the Jewish traveler was the sole character in the play with whom most contemporary German readers could have identified. The playwright cast him in a better light than the baron, described by a critic as “ineffectual . . . and parochial,”

The “Jewish Question” in Livorno

and the other lower-class characters. Lessing’s novelty and daring in casting a Jewish character as the only role model are remarkable.34 As we will see, however, the innovative import of Lessing’s choice was lost on the Livornese characters of Les Juifs.

The Livornese Critique of Lessing’s play The author of Les Juifs introduces himself as the faithful spectator of a conversation of such philosophical worth that he could not help but publish it. Gariel alludes to the fact that a Livornese audience will find in the text “things that they know by heart,” as if to advise that the unusual privileges of the eighteenth-century nazione ebrea are the filter through which the conversation between Jeremie and Jonas should be read.35 But since a small “bagatelle” may sometimes have greater fortune than a “perfect work,” the dialogue might also entertain readers unfamiliar with the port’s situation. The ironic tone of Les Juifs, signaled from the beginning by a mention of Voltaire’s Candide, warns the reader that the text abounds with semiserious twists and ambiguities.36 In the course of their conversation, Jeremie and Jonas express several qualms about Lessing’s play, the first being its lack of credibility. This perspective echoes a well-known eighteenth-century reaction to Die Juden. J. D. Michaelis, orientalist and biblical scholar at the University of Göttingen, had criticized as unbelievable Lessing’s characterization of the traveler. This Jewish character, maintained Michaelis, was too noble to be real.37 Lessing rebutted the accusation, claiming that such nobility would be just as rare among Christians. Jeremie, however, turns Michaelis’s claim on its head: he is displeased that most of the Christian characters lack credibility.38 The two beard-wearing assaulters are especially troublesome, he observes.39 Jeremie does not believe that respectable officers like a bailiff and a village headman could ever behave as they do in the play. The fact that Lessing portrays two Christians as wicked in order to exalt the commonly oppressed Jews is particularly bothersome.40 The ironic twist of this statement is not lost on the reader. In Lessing’s play, the Jewish character expressed his love for all of humanity, and demonstrated his noble nature by helping a fellow human being in

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trouble. Principles of universality and reason shaped the traveler’s behavior in Die Juden. Jeremie, however, questions Lessing’s own understanding of the “law of nature” and the “rights of peoples.” According to him, Lessing violated the sanctity of religion by having his characters behave as they do, for whether the characters of the play are “Calviniste, ou Luthérienne,” Christianity has the same principles as Judaism.41 Jeremie’s perspective is that of a Jewish humanist who believes that all faiths have the same principles; the wrong done by Lessing to Protestantism horrifies him. Speaking from a place of entitlement and safety, Jeremie is different from Lessing’s traveler, who hid his identity knowing of the baron’s aversion to Jews.42 For the Livornese character, that Judaism is a rational religion is taken for granted.43 The second large thematic area addressed critically in Les Juifs is the depiction and treatment of Jews. The interlocutors begin with a jibe at the fake beards that allowed the two villains to pass as Jews.44 Jonas points out that he has just shaved his beard, to Jeremie’s initial surprise, and makes a case for shedding this alien sign of Jewishness, recommending that “all our brethren in Germany, Holland, Alsace, Lorraine, Poland, and Prussia” do the same. After all, Jonas states ironically, there is always the option to paste on a fake one, should one miss his facial hair. Only the Levantine and North African Jews do not have to worry, because everybody around them is bearded, and there is no risk that someone would wear a fake beard to pass as Jewish.45 Toward the end of the conversation, Jeremie informs his friend that he, too, has decided to shave off his facial hair.46 The beard was indeed foreign to Italian and Sephardi Jews during the eighteenth century. In Italy, it carried a “distinctly Oriental flavor” not only for Christians but for Jews themselves.47 Very few Western Sephardi Jews were bearded, as the Amsterdam notable Isaac de Pinto observed in his Apologie pour la nation juive; ou, Réflexions critiques (Apology for the Jewish Nation; or, Critical Reflections; 1762), a reply to the anti-Jewish observations of Voltaire’s essay Des Juifs (1756). The Sephardim’s beardless chin was, for de Pinto, an indication of their fundamental distance from unrefined Ashkenazi Jews.48 Jeremie is also displeased by the numerous ostensibly anti-Jewish passages in the play, voiced by Krumm, the baron, and Christoph. At the beginning of Die Juden, Krumm complains that all Jews are crooks and thieves, a race worse than plague and cursed by God. Jeremie describes

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this representation as “impertinent.” Jonas acknowledges the existence of deep anti-Jewish prejudices among the populace, without further comment.49 Jeremie agrees that it is impossible to uproot all ancient prejudice, noting that this is imbibed with mother’s milk. He goes on to assert that one must be content with the protection and privileges the rulers grant Jews. However much the rabble yell, Jews demonstrate their gratitude to rulers wholeheartedly and zealously, in both good times and bad.50 He later wonders whether the wish expressed by the baron at the end of the play, that all Jews would be like the traveler, reflected a belief on Lessing’s part that there are no honest people among Jews. Finally, he thinks Christoph’s disrespectful comment at the end of the play simply absurd. Jeremie suggests that the Italian translator should have altered this remark, given his familiarity with the Livornese situation. After all, notes Jeremie, in Livorno there is no Jewish house without Christian domestic help, wet-nurses, or teachers, all of whom are very well treated. Besides, Jeremie adds, what is common in Livorno is common elsewhere, because the Jews cannot use Jewish help during the Sabbath.51 Jeremie’s remark points to a passage in the Livornina, which allowed Jewish settlers in Livorno to hire “Christian servants and wet-nurses, as need occurs, to feed [their] children” and permitted them “to keep them in [their] homes, freely.”52 Still, canon law had always prohibited Jews from hiring Christian domestic help, although there were exceptions to the rule granted by episcopal l­ icense.53 It is thus ironic that Jeremie’s comments, by calling attention to the privileges of the nazione ebrea, could also remind readers of the Jews’ alleged power over Christians in the port city.54 Yet a third complaint voiced by the interlocutors of Les Juifs refers to the play’s lack of literary quality. Both Jeremie and Jonas agree that the play lacks the subtlety of good theater; Lessing, they claim, deploys commonplaces and tricks worthy only of a circus or of a charlatan.55 Given that the text is so faulty, Jeremie asks his friend what even prompted its translation from French into Italian, and its publication. After some sarcastic quipping, Jonas admits that its publication occurred thanks to the massive subscription campaign among the members of the Jewish community of Livorno.56 His irony does not spare the nazione ebrea. The Jews of the port city “adopted” this deformed child of Lessing’s, despite the ugliness of the work.57

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The conversation concludes with praise of the Livornese Jewish community, articulated by Jonas on several levels. First of all, the notion that there could be such a thing as a Jewish highwayman is mistaken. The Jewish community takes care of its poor; Jews also give alms to poor Christians, because, rich or poor, they regard gentiles as their brothers. Moreover, their industriousness has put Livornese Jews at the head of the commercial elite, not only in the Levant but in the rest of the world, and it has caused their wealth to accumulate in the commercial capitals of Europe and the Levant (“à Londres, à Paris, à Amsterdam, à Strasbourg, à Metz en Prusse,58 à Constantinople, à Smyrne, etc., etc., etc.”). The rulers who benefit from this commerce allow Jews to practice their trade widely and peacefully, and treat them in the same way as their other subjects. Jews are grateful for the esteem that honest people show them, and do not care that the rabble does not love and even despises them. They do not despise anybody, and always forgive those who offend them.59 On this note, the two men decide to leave the coffee shop and go for dinner in the countryside in order to “philosophize” together. As Gariel watches on, the two friends exit, but not before ordering themselves two lemon sorbets.

Perceptions of the Jewish Condition in Livorno at the Time of the Enlightenment Les Juifs’ ironic commentary highlights the diversity of the Livornese Jewish model compared to the tropes of discrimination and toleration familiar to us through German Enlightenment literature. Jeremie and Jonas find Die Juden disturbing and cannot relate to Lessing’s ideological goals. The two friends’ displeasure at Lessing’s negative observations about Jews demonstrates a radically different understanding of Jewish status and condition from that of Prussian thinkers. That the two fictional interlocutors’ focus on negative details and ostensibly anti-Jewish comments underscores the stipulation of European bureaucrats, such as Dohm, that Jews could be considered equal human beings and citizens only if they underwent a process of civil and moral improvement. The Livornese situation contrasts with the perceived inferiority of Ashkenazi Jews in the German lands.60

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The sense that Jews are inferior to Christians or that their social and moral condition needs to be improved is nowhere to be found in the dialogue. Jeremie and Jonas do not dwell on the overall message of toleration that Lessing meant to convey in Die Juden. It is evident that the two Jewish protagonists do not conceive of themselves as members of community in need of toleration. While Jonas and Jeremie readily acknowledge that the masses are hostile to Jews, the conditions they enjoy in the port city are equal to those of the other Livornese residents. Thus, Les Juifs does not promote Jewish toleration nor emancipation. Instead, it proceeds from the assumption that the authorities under whom Livornese Jews live treat them like other subjects because of their crucial contribution to the state’s economic growth. To borrow a concept introduced by Lois Dubin, the two friends see themselves as participating in a condition of privileged “subjecthood.”61 The status of the Livornese community is a matter of pride for Jonas, who rhetorically links Jewish economic importance and the privileges bestowed on the nazione ebrea by the Tuscan authorities.62 The observation is grounded in real facts. Unlike the other foreign corporate bodies that resided in Livorno, the Jewish community was legally recognized as a “subject nation” by the Tuscan authorities because of its economic merits; hence, it was treated as a special political body, autonomous yet dependent on the government of the city.63 As mentioned above, the Jewish condition did not represent a major theme of discussion for the Tuscan Enlightenment. Even after the promulgation of the Toleranzpatent in 1782, which fostered an international debate over the concession of civil rights to Jews,64 Florentine periodicals, such as the Gazzetta Universale and Novelle Letterarie, published few notices of Jewish interest, primarily offering information about developments in Hapsburg lands and drawing attention to translations of relevant German-language works.65 Les Juifs helps shed light on the reasons for such a difference with contemporary Transalpine preoccupations. The relative silence of Tuscan reformers and ideologues concerning the Jewish status in the Grand Duchy stemmed from the fact that the Tuscan elite did not consider the nazione ebrea as a parasitic and morally dubious group in need of reform or of better integration into civil society, as Prussian and French reformers regarded the bulk of Ashkenazi Jewry in their countries. Instead, Livornese Jewry is com-

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parable to the “port Jews of Trieste” examined by Lois Dubin, whose economic usefulness, and ensuing moral virtue, was publicly recognized. The utility of Livornese Jewry was evident to educated nonJewish observers in late eighteenth-century Tuscany. This rhetorical constant appeared, not only in government policies and secret reports, but also in literature circulating in the public domain. And because of its perceived positive role, both the Enlightenment critiques of Jewish society and the calls for Jewish self-improvement that characterized the Haskalah did not apply to the Tuscan case.

Livornese Jews and Economic Utility: A Comparative View Les Juifs could be understood as a late eighteenth-century variation on the rich discourse about Jewish utility that had emerged in the previous century.66 As Jonathan Karp has argued, starting in the 1630s the wider process of Jewish readmission to western Europe functioned as a catalyst for moralists and philosophers to begin reexamining “virtues and defects” of the Jews in light of new economic theories and realities. Since Jews were usually invited to settle precisely because of their perceived positive economic role, “their place within the host societies came to be redefined in light of existing and ongoing debates over the political relevance of new economic phenomena.”67 As these debates evolved over the following two centuries with the emergence of new economic theories—some of which, like physiocracy and cameralism, were in contrast with mercantilism—the changing discourses on “Jewish commerce” and Jewish status can serve us now as a litmus test to assess not only the complexity of attitudes toward the Jewish presence in western Europe, but more generally European approaches to trade itself.68 The argument for the toleration of the Jews on the grounds of their commercial, and hence social, usefulness was first employed by two seventeenth-century Jewish apologists, the Venetian Simone Luzzatto (1583–1663) in his Discorso circa il stato de gl’Hebrei et in particolar ­dimoranti nell’inclita Città di Venetia (Discourse Concerning the Status of the Jews, Particularly Those Dwelling in the Noble City of Venice; 1638); and the Dutch Menasseh ben Israel (1604–57), in his Humble Addresses to the Lord Protector (1655), concerning the readmission of the

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Jews to England. Luzzatto was the first Jewish thinker to invoke economic utilitarianism as a framework for Jewish toleration, an argument that would become a staple of the absolutist discourse about the Jews in western Europe. In his view, the doge and the Venetian government should allow Venetian Jews, threatened by a decree of expulsion, to remain in the city because they performed mercantile tasks that greatly benefited the Venetian economy without undermining the socio­political status quo. Jewish enterprise was morally justified and necessary within the context of the state’s development and economic growth.69 The perceived usefulness of Jewish merchants was precisely the reason why the Medici government had invited Ponentine and Levantine Jews to settle in Livorno and granted them extensive privileges, hoping that their presence would expand the port’s economy.70 We have repeatedly seen that, after 1737, under the rule of Grand Duke Francis Stephen and, even more so, his son Peter Leopold, Medicean mercantilism came under criticism, while different economic doctrines gained popularity. As an international hub, the Livornese port had entered a period of decline in the wake of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–47).71 It did not take long for Francis Stephen to assess the situation, a realization bolstered also by the doctrine of physiocracy, which posited, against mercantilism, that the source of a nation’s wealth rested on agricultural labor.72 Still, the governmental belief in the ­nazione ebrea’s usefulness did not diminish, even as the special status of Livorno became the object of critical reconsideration.73 Whenever the authorities were called upon to legislate on matters concerning Livornese Jewry, Jewish privileges were reaffirmed, backed by governmental memoranda reiterating the economic utility of the n ­ azione 74 ebrea and its long-standing prerogatives in the port. In the 1750s, at a time of general economic decline marked by the Tuscan government’s desire for structural economic reforms, the notion of Jewish utility appeared prominently in Livornese public discourse. While Tuscan economic thinkers increasingly focused their attention on agriculture, land reform, and the export of agricultural produce,75 Livornese journals defended commerce in general and the port’s economic specificities. The two main Livornese periodicals of the middle of the eighteenth century, the Magazzino Italiano (1752–54) and the Magazzino Toscano (1754–57), modeled after English examples

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and aimed at a nonspecialist public of merchants,76 readily co-opted the figure of the Jewish merchant in support of their argumentations in favor of trade.77 In the third volume of the Magazzino Italiano, a short note reporting on the Purim celebrations in Livorno referred to the Jewish community of the port city as “meritorious . . . both because it promotes and increases trade, and because it brings benefits to the common people by creating jobs.”78 In the same volume, ­readers also found a praise of commerce commending all trading nazioni, portrayed as bringing happiness and wealth to all levels of society.79 These positive comments about the Jewish presence in the port city exemplify a Livornese variant of the late “mercantile philosemitism,” in Karp’s definition, which characterized the 1750s in England, France, and the German lands. During this decade, authors as different as ­Josiah Tucker (1713–99), the French adventurer Ange Goudar (1708– ca. 1791), and the Berlin early maskil Aaron Salomon Gumpertz,80 expressed favorable sentiments toward the Jews, inviting toleration of this minority in light of its recognized economic usefulness.81 Influenced by the arguments first promoted by Luzzatto and ben Israel, echoed at the beginning of the eighteenth century by Joseph Addison in The Spectator (1712),82 and by John Toland in his Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland (1714),83 these proJewish views did not, however, last long after the 1750s, as new anticommercial doctrines spread in central Europe. In western and central Europe, critical voices emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century, focusing their anxiety primarily on Ashkenazi Jews.84 These critics, both Jewish and Christian, did not view “Jewish commerce” in positive terms, but instead depicted Jewish prominence in trade as distorted, a historical accident in need of remedy.85 Starting with the publication of Dohm’s essay On the Civil Improvement of the Jews (1781), Jews were encouraged to give up older modes of life stifled by centuries of restrictions and persecutions, and expected to reform their moral, physical, and above all economic condition before they could receive the same rights enjoyed by non-Jews, and fully become “happy and useful” subjects of the state.86 Dohm insisted that Jews become farmers or soldiers. Influenced by the German doctrine of cameralism, which aimed to increase agricultural productivity, he ignored Jewish commercial contributions and the mercantilist dis-

The “Jewish Question” in Livorno

course of Jewish utility.87 A similar distaste for traditional Jewish economic activities appears in the entry that Henri Grégoire submitted to the essay contest devised by the Metz Société Royale des Sciences et des Artes, on the subject of how to make the Jews more useful and happy in France (1785).88 For non-Jewish observers such as the civil servant Dohm or the abbé Grégoire, the historically determined Jewish concentration in commerce was one of the main causes of Jewish degeneration. If their sorry condition were to change, the state should allow Jews to pursue activities such as manufacture and above all agriculture.89 The proponents of the Haskalah in Prussia also subscribed to the notion of Jewish self-regeneration, pointing to the Jews of Italy as the ideal embodiment of the much-needed Jewish improvement.90 Ironically, this kind of reformist ideology, posited on the notion that Jews should busy themselves with economic occupations other than trade, did not strike roots in Italian cities with strong Jewish mercantile communities.91 In Tuscany, the commercial success of the nazione ebrea provided ample proof of its social utility to the government, not of the Jews’ degeneration. Trade itself never came to be viewed suspiciously, as in German lands; instead, Grand Duke Peter Leopold fostered laissez-faire liberalism. These factors led the Tuscan state to continue promoting the traditional Jewish engagement with commerce in the second half of the eighteenth century and to continue protecting Jewish privileges. While Peter Leopold simplified and dismantled corporate liberties in the rest of the Grand Duchy in the 1770s and 1780s, including confraternities and professional associations (arti), he endeavored to accommodate Livornese privileges to the principles of a free-market economy championed by his government.92 As for the nazione ebrea, his rule upheld the prerogatives of the Livornina, which were rooted in mercantilist ideals, even as he sought to abolish those very principles in the broader Tuscan society through his reforms. As a result, the corporate existence of the community was guaranteed. Thus, the engrained “discourse of Jewish commercial utility” hindered the development of a discussion on the Jewish condition in Tuscany in the 1780s and the formulation of encompassing proposals for a transformation of Jewish status, while it encouraged a view of the Jews as a corporate collectivity protected by the continued benevolence of the sovereign. By the last decades of the eighteenth century, observers like Gariel

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took for granted the commercial utility of Livornese Jews and the resulting governmental protection that came with it. Jonas’s perspective, while stemming from the by-then conventional absolutist theme of Jewish usefulness, is remarkable as it turns on its head the premise of Simone Luzzatto’s older arguments. The end of the dialogue celebrated global Jewish wealth and commercial success, facilitated by wise and benevolent rulers. It emphasized Jewish industriousness and success, demonstrated by far-reaching networks of trade. It will not be lost on the reader, however, that Jonas’s statement about Jewish industriousness, commercial prowess, and global wealth could also trigger Christian fears of excessive growth of Jewish power. Simone Luzzatto, and Toland with him, had attempted to allay Christian suspicions about Jewish accumulation of riches by arguing that Jewish merchants were unable to maintain their capital for more than three generations; Christian law prevented them from acquiring real estate and they were likely to succumb to the adverse turns of fortune.93 The forfeiture of any claim by Jews to civic and political participation was a feature of both Luzzatto’s Discorso and ben Israel’s Humble Addresses. According to Luzzatto, the Jews were not interested in politics and did not want to rule over gentiles through the acquisition of land, titles, or offices.94 But the situation of Livornese Jews was different; they could buy property, in the port city and its countryside, and thus safeguard their wealth. Indeed, property ownership was the crucial element in the discussion of political participation for Livornese Jews.

Jewish Property Owners and Gianni’s Reformist Project Starting in the early 1770s, Peter Leopold attempted to rationalize municipal governance as part of an extensive program of administrative reforms, a project in which advisor Francesco Maria Gianni (1728–1821) played the most significant role. Gianni championed policies shaped by new ideas of “citizenship” and political participation, informed by seventeenth-century natural law theories, based on the belief that selfinterested property owners would be ideally suited to manage the res publica, conceptualized as a business.95

The “Jewish Question” in Livorno

The reform focused on the nexus between three elements: property ownership, taxable wealth, and representation. Since all property owners contributed to the costs of administration through their tax quota, they were viewed as interested political participants who should become candidates eligible for political representation, along with the members of the Tuscan aristocracy. The names of eligible proprietors who met the required minimum for taxable wealth were to be placed in a bag, from which a group of names (usually three) would be randomly drawn. If selected, they were to sit in the general councils and magistracies of their municipalities, next to nobles and cittadini, and cast their ballots to decide questions concerning public administration. The first step of this sweeping reform was limited to local administrations, but a later stage was envisioned in which ownership would become a prerequisite to contribute to state government. The role of the sovereign was imagined to evolve from that of a protector to that of a mere supervisor of well-regulated and well-administered communities.96 This general principle challenged engrained practices of power and aristocratic oligarchies. Gianni’s reformist plan met with varying degrees of opposition all over Tuscany and required several modifications. The same principle, taken to its logical conclusions, was also to be extended to eligible Jewish proprietors, whom Gianni viewed as subjects fit to participate in the administration of the res publica—just as any other eligible Tuscan property owner.97 Local interests and governmental concessions to traditional political powers, however, thwarted the revolutionary import of the Tuscan reformist plans to grant “­active citizenship” to all Jewish proprietors. In Livorno, in particular, the progress toward active political inclusion experienced by members of the nazione ebrea was incomplete and partial at best, as we will see.98 The Tuscan government’s proposal to give Jews political representation in local administrations developed along lines that had nothing to do with the ideas underlining the projects for Jewish integration advanced in France and Prussia.99 In western and central Europe, Jews were expected to change, either by improving their condition or by shedding their particularism, in order to become worthy of civic inclusion. In Tuscany, where the Jewish condition was not an issue, Gianni’s approach to Jewish proprietors did not stem from a comprehensive plan for Jewish emancipation, but developed ex post facto, as a reaction

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to practical questions raised by his ideal plan. The principle of “selfinterested property ownership,” understood as a universal and natural basis for active political participation, bypassed the beliefs and concerns that informed the debates over Jewish emancipation in France and Prussia during the 1780s.100 Based on this principle, Jewish proprietors were deemed worthy of contributing to local administration because they were subjected to taxation according to the amount of property they owned; therefore, they deserved to express their interests in the forum of the municipal administration.101 Additionally, Gianni did not engage with the vexed question of Jewish particularism and autonomy, which was to be a crucial element in the French discussion of Jewish emancipation at the Paris National Assembly. Jewish communal and juridical autonomy were not an obstacle for the application of the principle of property ownership as a basis for political representation. For Gianni, the corporate, autonomous status of Tuscan Jews could coexist with the possibility for individual Jewish proprietors to hold the same rights of political representation as their non-Jewish counterparts. Unprecedented by Western standards, the implications and results of Gianni’s project should be compared also with the reforms championed by Empress Catherine II in Belorussia in the 1780s, which stemmed from her reorganization of trading and manufacturing estates in the provinces (1775). In 1780, urban Jewish traders endowed with sufficient capital were allowed into the ranks of the merchant estate (kupechestvo), a status which equated them with Christians of the same profession and income. In 1785, they were included under the provisions of the Charter to the Towns, which permitted them to run for municipal office and to serve if elected.102 Belorussia and Tuscany were the only two European regions that officially admitted Jews to local elections in the early 1780s. As in Tuscany, the granting of significant rights to Belorussian Jews was not part of a comprehensive plan, but rather the result of legislative steps taken for different purposes. But the rights promised by the empress were undermined by strong opposition on the part of the Christian urban population. The system quickly proved untenable, as townspeople protested vociferously and forcibly excluded Jews from elections.103 Catherine’s decrees thus went mostly unapplied and were ignored in later

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legislation.104 Within a few short years, the “period of civic equality” for Russian Jews had come to an end.105 Gianni’s pioneering legislation, too, went largely unapplied for similar reasons.

The Municipal Reforms and the Nazione Ebrea The import of Gianni’s ideas could have been truly revolutionary— in his Ricordi, the political advisor remarked that “equality is not a French invention, but exists among us in many parts of our government.”106 The practical application of his reforms to Tuscan Jews, however, varied greatly. Extant documents point to significant differences depending on local circumstances and power hierarchies; the transition from ideal proposal to practical policy proceeded with difficulty. In July 1778, Peter Leopold decreed that, should individual Jewish property owners of Florence and Pisa be elected, they could sit in the general councils of their municipalities.107 They were the first Tuscan Jews to gain access to political rights as municipal office holders, but there is no trace of their actual political participation. In Siena, Jewish proprietors gained representation in 1786, although the legislation did not find concrete application for a long time.108 In smaller Tuscan centers, Jewish proprietors fared better. The Jews of Monte San Savino, it would seem, were elected to offices.109 The Jewish property owners of the village of Pitigliano regularly participated in its municipal council.110 In Livorno, thanks to the Livornina, there existed a sizable number of small and medium Jewish house owners, alongside a few prominent Jewish proprietors.111 When it came to the practical application of ­Gianni’s tolerant values in the port, protracted negotiations led to a final policy that reflected prejudice and fear against the Jews, rather than their full acceptance as political actors qua proprietors.112 In fact, Livorno was a unique case in Tuscany, in that, until the middle of the nineteenth century, the authorities kept denying individual Jews the possibility to run for office within the municipality, considering the nazione ebrea only as a collective, corporate group.113 An initial proposal drafted for the Livornese municipality in August 1779 was rejected due to disagreements between the representatives of the Livornese aristocracy, the central authorities, and the Jewish com-

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munity. The final decision of the Tuscan administration, promulgated in March 1780, reflected an interpretation of political participation informed by ancien régime principles and hierarchies. The new legislation created a fixed seat for the inclusion of a single Jewish representative into the Livornese municipal government, on behalf of the proprietary interests of the entire nazione ebrea, selected by the Grand Duke from a list of eligible candidates submitted by the Jewish lay leaders.114 The selection of the Jewish representative mirrored precisely the process by which the Tuscan sovereign appointed the Livornese massari. Between 1780 and 1790, the selected representatives stemmed from the well-established, wealthy merchant families Recanati, Aghib, Franco, and Bonfil.115 In examining the steps that led to the 1780 decision, the different perspectives championed by the representatives of the Livornese noble elite and members of the local government, on the one hand, and by those of the nazione ebrea, on the other, illuminate broader legal questions. The Livornese aristocracy regarded the nazione ebrea as a corporate community—a body whose members could not enjoy rights of representation as individual owners of real estate, but who were deemed worthy of collective representation through Catholic substitutes. For their part, Livornese Jewish proprietors considered themselves worthy of individual political rights because of their utility to the state and their established privileged status as a corporate community, as well as for their singular importance as property owners in town. In both cases, the innovative notion of property ownership as the sole universal and natural basis for active political representation—Gianni’s idea that all property owners are equal and should therefore hold equal rights and duties, regardless of their religious and ethnic identity—was lost on the interested parties. The initial proposal drafted for the municipality of Livorno in 1779 had devised a two-tiered system, composed of a higher magistrato comunitativo (communal magistracy) and a lower consiglio generale (general council) that included sixteen members. Eligibility for the higher public offices was strictly regulated by census and social class, but everybody who owned real estate in the territory of the commune was eligible for imborsazione (i.e., names of candidates were placed in a bag and randomly selected) for a place in the general council.116 Jew-

The “Jewish Question” in Livorno

ish property owners would be included among the eligible candidates, but if their names were selected, they would not be admitted to sit in the councils. Instead, they would be offered the option to appoint a Catholic substitute to represent them, albeit without voting rights, or to refuse the office altogether, with exemption from the monetary penalty usually applied in cases of refusal. While this procedure was approved for other non-Catholic minorities, the nazione ebrea and the representatives of the local Livornese elites, dissatisfied with this plan (albeit for different reasons), came up with correctives. The primary goal of the Livornese aristocracy was to keep all nonCatholic and small property owners from attaining political rights, fearing that the large Jewish community and the petty proprietors (Catholic or not) would take control of the city’s administration.117 Pompeo Baldasseroni and Ferdinando Sproni, deputies of the Livornese noble governing class, recognized that among Jewish proprietors there were “rich and respectable” elements who could honorably sit in the municipal council, though most of them were “small and miserable property owners, who are scoundrels in their appearance, sentiments, and works.”118 Still, the deputies conceded that “such a respectable body of property owners should have an influence in the administration of those affairs that concern it,” suggesting therefore that three Catholic procurators paid by the Jewish community represent the interests of the entire nazione ebrea in the council and the magistracy.119 In this case, the admission of individual Jewish proprietors to both the general council and the magistracy could not be allowed. If the ­nazione ebrea “were to be considered as a body,” and as such enjoy permanent representation, the deputies remarked, it would be “necessary to take away from individual [Jews] the right to sit” in the municipal organs.120 Livornese Jews, in their view, could enjoy (indirect) rights of representation only qua Jews, that is, as members of a protected corporate body—not as human beings in their capacity as proprietors. Baldasseroni’s and Sproni’s understanding countered Gianni’s enlightened notion that property ownership alone was a sufficient, universal, natural condition to access political rights. Their comment reflects the traditionally corporatist view of political activity that defined ancien ­régime societies. Within this tradition, originating in the medieval period, the subject does not enjoy abstract equal rights, but holds a lim-

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ited set of rights and duties commensurate with his or her position within the political community, conceived as a body (corpus).121 Baldasseroni’s and Sproni’s striking observation also evokes the well-known statement to the opposite effect, uttered by Count Clermont-Tonnerre at the French National Assembly in 1789: “One should deny the Jews as a nation everything and grant them everything as individuals; they must not be either a political entity or a caste in the state.”122 Underlying Clermont-Tonnerre’s sentiment was the belief, widespread among the French revolutionaries intent on destroying the corporatist society of ancien régime France, that Jews should shed their juridical and communal autonomy. If they wanted to enjoy equal rights as French citizens, Jews should renounce any national distinctiveness and assimilate into the new French republican nation.123 The comment of the two Livornese aristocrats did not, however, imply that if Livornese Jews shed their particularistic, corporate identity—if the nazione ebrea abandoned its status as an autonomous yet integrated body, which protected the interests of its members within a society of bodies—individual Jews would become worthy of equal rights as other proprietors. To the contrary, by pitting corporate collectivity as the conceptual opposite of individual representation, the Livornese aristocrats exploited the conventional understanding of the Jewish minority to their advantage, in order to prevent the risk that individual Jewish proprietors gain political power. Thus, their memorandum reinforced the preexisting, traditional notion that the nazione ebrea could only be treated as a corporate community enjoying special privileges because of its size and economic importance. For their part, the representatives of the nazione ebrea, Jacob Aghib and Daniel Nunes, championed a “mixed” approach to political representation in which older and newer worldviews coexisted, combining corporatist interests with individualist concerns. Livornese Jews insisted that the 1778 decision remain valid in Livorno as well. Remarkably, Aghib and Nunes’s memorandum advocated the right to Jewish individual representation based on the engrained notion that the ­nazione ebrea enjoyed a privileged, unique status in the entire Tuscan state: “Because of the [higher] number of its members and its much wider commerce, the Livornese nazione has always deserved the sovereign’s benefits and privileges more than the other [Jewish communities] of

The “Jewish Question” in Livorno

the Grand Duchy.” Therefore, Livornese Jewry should not be discriminated against and treated less favorably than the smaller and less prosperous communities of Florence and Pisa, where Jewish proprietors enjoyed (in theory) the right to individual political representation.124 Aghib and Nunes, proceeding from a corporatist understanding of rights and obligations very similar to that of Baldasseroni and Sproni, came to the opposite conclusion. In their view, the protection that the Livornese nazione ebrea enjoyed in Tuscany as a privileged corporate body should be reason enough for the Tuscan government to extend equal rights to its individual members qua property owners. In attempting to achieve individual political representation in the municipal council by reminding the Grand Duke of Jewish special privileges, Aghib and Nunes exemplify the fact that toward the end of the ancien régime various understandings of political participation could coexist without being necessarily perceived as contradictory.125 This combination of concepts, which to us, heirs to the legal turning point of the French Revolution, may seem conflicting, demonstrates the presence of multiple ways of thinking at that time of transition.126 In many respects, this Livornese case lends itself to comparison with late eighteenth-century France, right before and during the revolutionary period. Ronald Schechter has argued that in 1789 learned representatives of both French Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews advanced their plea for active citizenship before the Paris National Assembly, not only on the basis of the “universal rights of man,” but also of historical corporatist privileges that they had obtained in the previous centuries thanks to their recognized useful services to the state.127 By wishing to be “included as Jews in the otherwise indivisible French nation,” Sephardi and Ashkenazi representatives, despite different motivations, all championed an apparently paradoxical argument, precariously poised between the discourse of universal, abstract rights and that of historically determined privileges.128 Similarly to the Jewish pleas in revolutionary France nine years later, Aghib and Nunes combined the older, absolutist notions of Jewish utility to the state, and the state’s resulting protection of Jewish prerogatives, with a budding discourse of abstract rights that implied a changing understanding of the Jewish role vis-à-vis the political order. In the nazione ebrea’s memorandum, the discourse of Jewish economic util-

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ity coexisted d ­ ialectically with the discourse of property ownership as condition for equal political rights. The comparison with late eighteenth-century France can be extended even further when we consider the issue of Jewish communal autonomy, closely related to the preceding observations. Frances Malino has shown that in prerevolutionary France, like Tuscany a hier­archical society of corporate bodies and privileges, there existed a multiplicity of views relative to the continuation of Jewish autonomy vis-à-vis civil inclusion. Most non-Jewish observers advocated the erosion of Jewish communal autonomy, on the one hand. Sephardi and Ashkenazi spokesmen continued regarding autonomy as compatible with the acquisition of citizenship rights, on the other hand, even after the promulgation of the Malesherbes edict (1787), which recognized Christian non-Catholic minorities in France, while prohibiting them from forming a “group, community, or particular society” within the kingdom.129 Similarly, in eighteenth-century Tuscany, Livornese Jews conceived of and desired active civic engagement beyond their ­nazione, in the broader municipal sphere, while remaining solidly inscribed within the community’s boundaries. But Aghib and Nunes also demonstrated a keen understanding of the burgeoning concept of political participation based on self-­interest and property ownership. Livornese Jews posited that the presence of individual Jews in the new magistracies was necessary, because the ­nazione ebrea owned not only a sizable quantity of buildings in the countryside, but more than one-quarter of the city’s real estate, and “except for public buildings, it owns certainly more real estate than all other Livornese and foreign nationals together.” To exclude Jews from voting in support of their own interests in town would mean placing them “under the perpetual care and government of the Livornese nationals and other property owners, which not only the nazione [ebrea] reckons as a great prejudice to its own interest, but also as a cause of great dishonor.”130 Such a decision, the memorandum concluded, was absolutely contrary to the intentions and spirit of the new communal regulations, if the commune, conceptualized as a business, was to be administered by accountable individuals representing their interests. Since the proprietary interests of Livornese Jews were the most important issue at hand,

The “Jewish Question” in Livorno

nevertheless, they were willing to come to a compromise—either by replacing elected individual Jews with eligible candidates who held governing positions within the Jewish community (and were therefore known to the Grand Duke and of proven distinction), or by at least guaranteeing a yearly fixed seat in the magistracy for a Jewish representative approved by the government, with full voting rights.131 The Jewish request for individual representation was rejected by the final governmental resolution issued in 1780, which instead adapted restrictively one of the suggestions put forward by Aghib and Nunes. Limited Jewish representation was guaranteed in Livorno in the form of one deputy sitting in the general council of the municipality (not in the magistracy) with voting rights, selected by the Grand Duke, among ten names submitted by the massari.132 This conclusion strongly reinforced the notion of Livornese Jewry as a separate corporate entity. In contrast to Florentine or Pisan Jews, the Tuscan authorities opted to continue regarding Livornese Jews as a collective body and to keep relying on its oligarchic ruling class, even as Peter Leopold and his advisors attempted to dismantle the privileges of other Tuscan corporate groups. The final decision officially recognized the significance of Jewish property ownership in Livorno by guaranteeing a constant Jewish presence in the communal administration, beating the odds of random elections. By virtue of their strong presence in town as proprietors, the Jews as a community gained what could be called a “group right” for one of its members. At the same time, the Tuscan authorities allayed the fears of the old Livornese aristocracy by severely confining and controlling the extent of Jewish political participation. The Livornese case suggests a deep disconnect between Jewish expectations and non-Jewish anxieties regarding Jewish active political participation. The governing class of the nazione ebrea expected that its significant size, vast property holdings, and commercial success would grant eligible individual owners access to political participation. In fact, the very size and importance of the Jewish minority in Livorno, seen by the old Catholic elite as a threat to its established power, hindered the ability of its eligible members to participate in the administration of the res publica. The Catholic upper class feared precisely the consequences of allowing a large, deeply rooted, and reputedly powerful non-Christian group into the seats of municipal power.

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Engrained practices of political pragmatism led the Tuscan authorities to support the Catholic elite against the appeal of the nazione ebrea. An additional explanation for the governmental decision is that the notion of Livornese Jewry’s commercial utility, encapsulated in the Livor­nina and routinely reiterated in administrative memoranda over the course of almost two hundred years, reinforced the inclination of the Tuscan authorities to preserve the corporate status of the community out of concerns for social, economic, and political stability. As a result of the port’s history, the new “equalizing” notions of citizenship and political participation based solely on property ownership that Gianni propounded and that were applicable to the rest of the Tuscan state, were irrelevant in Livorno. The situation lasted well into the nineteenth century. In 1789, Peter Leopold rendered non-Catholics and Jews politically equal to all other subjects in Tuscany, allowing them to hold municipal office.133 The Livornese case, nevertheless, proved yet again exceptional; the special regulation of March 1780 was reiterated, and remained valid with no modifications. Thus, while in the rest of the Grand Duchy individual Jews could gain access to existing municipal offices, in Livorno they could only rely on their single national representative chosen by the Grand Duke. This discriminatory situation persisted until 1860 (with minimal variations introduced in 1845), when Tuscany was annexed to the Kingdom of Sardinia—the following year, it would become the unified Kingdom of Italy—and Jews were emancipated.134

Jewish Property Rights and Public Life at the End of the Eighteenth Century The Tuscan governmental decisions of 1780 and 1789 regarding Jewish participation in the municipal administration of Livorno stressed the corporate nature of the nazione ebrea above the rights of its members as property owners. Even so, some Livornese Jews viewed the 1780 legislation as sufficient reason to reclaim a wider set of participatory rights in the public sphere, based on their self-interest as shareholders in a business.135 A prolonged court case that took place in 1790 sheds light on Jewish perceptions of civil rights and participation in the city’s

The “Jewish Question” in Livorno

public life, ten years after the municipal reforms pursued by Peter Leopold.136 Although the case did not have direct political implications, it further illuminates the impact of the 1780 communal regulations on the nazione ebrea, and should be evaluated within the context of Livornese Jewish property ownership. The episode pitted the merchants Moise and Isach Aghib, together with Josef, Abram, and Isach Abudaram, against the theater association Accademia degli Avvalorati. Moise and Isach were brothers of Jacob Aghib, who had championed the cause of Jewish political participation in 1780. Both the Aghib and the Abudaram families were among the most respected and influential members of the nazione ebrea’s mercantile and political elite, and active members of the governing oligarchy. Abram, Isach, and Josef Abudaram had served on a variety of communal offices in the 1780s, including the post of massaro. So had Moise and Jacob Aghib. Jacob had also served as appointed Jewish representative in Livorno’s municipal council in 1782, before his death; his brother Moise had completed his term.137 It is well known that Livornese Jews enjoyed dramas and comedies in Italian and Spanish performed in the port city during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries.138 Some were actively involved in producing or financing plays.139 A substantial number of Jews also owned boxes in the city’s theaters, particularly among the wealthier layers of the community. Since 1658, Livornese audiences had enjoyed plays and opera at the Teatro San Sebastiano, a simple building far from the city center. At the end of the eighteenth century, the need arose to build a larger, more central theater to accommodate the Livornese passion for the stage.140 The new theater, located close to the Armenian Church and initially dubbed Teatro degli Armeni, was inaugurated in 1782;141 the building was magnificently decorated, with a frescoed ceiling, five tiers of boxes, and a ballroom for banquets and feasts.142 After 1788, the property changed hands twice, until the idea of a society of shareholders emerged.143 In 1790, the newly founded Accademia degli Avvalorati, initially composed of thirty-six members, acquired the theater. Since then, and until its destruction during World War II, it was known as Teatro degli Avvalorati. In February 1780, at least eight boxes in the San Sebastiano theater were owned by Livornese Jews.144 Whether Jewish or gentile, owners

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of boxes in the city’s theaters were invested in defending and protecting their property rights; like any other type of real estate, theater boxes too could be sold or transferred.145 When the idea of building a new theater in the port city took shape, Jacob Aghib, together with fellow box owner Gasparo Chiesa, was deputized on behalf of all other box owners to ensure that their interests would be protected during the sale of the theater and the construction of the new building.146 Once it was ready, many prominent members of the Jewish community, including the brothers Aghib, Eliezer Recanati, Jacob Bonfil, and David Franco, acquired twenty-four boxes, which amounted approximately to one-fourth of the total sum of the extant boxes.147 Because of a curious coincidence, the Jewish ownership of boxes in the new theater was comparable to the portion of Livornese real estate owned by local Jews. When the Accademia degli Avvalorati was formed, an unexpected configuration presented itself. A few months prior to its official establishment in August 1790, four of the academy’s founding members decided to sell their shares, two of which were acquired by the brothers Aghib and Abudaram.148 Once the news about the new Jewish shareholders spread among the rest of the members, the academy declared invalid all share transfers without prior authorization, insisting that the two shares be repossessed by the society itself.149 In March 1790, the brothers Aghib and Abudaram were denied membership in the academy and invited to return their shares. After initial resistance, at the end of May the five businessmen decided to comply. The Jewish situation in Livorno had worsened considerably. On May 31, a day devoted in the Catholic liturgy to Saint Julia, protector of Livorno, Christian mobs attacked Jewish homes and properties.150 The riots were part of a wave of violence and popular demonstrations that most Tuscan centers experienced after Peter Leopold’s ascent to the Hapsburg imperial throne and his departure for Vienna in February 1790. The ecclesiastical and economic reforms promoted by Peter Leopold had not met with popular favor, but the opposition from the discontented clergy and the lower classes became increasingly vociferous only after the Grand Duke’s departure, turning into violent popular outbursts that also targeted Jewish interests in Livorno and Florence.151 While Livornese Jewry suffered no casualties, the monetary losses were high and the nazione ebrea had to pay a large sum in order to secure protection and avoid further consequences.152

The “Jewish Question” in Livorno

After the riots, as a measure of precaution, the brothers Aghib and Abudaram agreed to the Accademia degli Avvalorati’s request. Soon after, they reconsidered their decision and appealed to the Grand Duke requesting that their rights be honored. To begin with, they expressed the concern that not only their rights as property owners had been offended, but that the Avvalorati also violated the decorum of the entire Jewish community, contrary to “all laws.” The academy, they feared, had excluded them, out of “pure animosity, against the privileges of toleration emanated by His Imperial Majesty.”153 Hence, they argued that their admission into the academy would be “an act of justice,” which would “free the nazione from hatred amid the Public.” Indeed, the segregation of the Jewish community meant that “the educated people of this City [do] not care for this nazione’s friendship.” Instead, “they prefer its exclusion from any civil gathering, whereas at those times when [Jews] trade or because of their particular public interest they are extremely zealous in order to entertain business with it.”154 The legal strategy of the brothers Aghib and Abudaram mirrored the lobbying that the nazione ebrea had conducted ten years prior to secure Jewish representatives for the new municipal administrative bodies. Exclusion from the Accademia degli Avvalorati hurt the pride and status of the influential Aghib and Abudaram families; they transformed their individual instances as shareholders into a larger matter of principle, taking on the role of defenders of the honor of the whole nazione ebrea and fighting for the legitimate admission of all eligible Jews into one of the principal institutions in town. The very fact that Livornese Jews owned almost one-quarter of the theater’s boxes meant that they had a right to be also part of the academy, they claimed, just as Jacob Aghib had argued ten years earlier, when campaigning for the admission of individual Jews into the Livornese municipal offices. Considering the familial ties between Isach, Moise, and the late Jacob, it is tempting to speculate that the two brothers Aghib knew well the nazione ebrea’s memorandum of 1780. But these arguments did not persuade the city’s authorities. ­Giuseppe Pierallini, auditore (chief juridical liaison) for the governor of Livorno Francesco Seratti, presided over the case. Pierallini rejected the request of the five businessmen to be admitted into the Avvalorati. Not only had they legally renounced their rights as shareholders, but Jewish membership “may cause fuss, and even hateful behavior among

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ignorant people, that could bring about pernicious consequences, whereas it is a nazione so useful to commerce and the public good.”155 Similarly to Ginori, who in 1747 had emphasized the need to keep the different ethnic groups living in Livorno separate, for their own good, in sites of recreation, Pierallini excluded the Jews from the academy in order to protect them from possible popular discontent and “disadvantageous discourses on the part of the Public.”156 Exposing such useful members of the port society to the insults of the rabble would cause great anxiety to the local authorities.157 While Pierallini’s decision was connected to the recent riots, he also discounted all precedents of Jewish political participation as irrelevant to the cause of the supplicants. True, a deputy representing the interests of the nazione ebrea was admitted to the general council because Livornese Jews were “great proprietors of real estate.” However, he was elected by the ruler and only dealt with matters concerning the interest of property owners; moreover, whereas their economic role made it “convenient” for Jews to sit on offices dealing with commercial matters, there was no necessary relation between Jews and theater.158 Finally, Pierallini concluded, the massari did not seem to share the preoccupation of the brothers Aghib and Abudaram, “seeing well the annoying consequences that might ensue from the mixing of Jews in a theater academy, and in a city like Livorno, where the common people harbor a certain disgust for them and look for occasions to harass and displease them.”159 The argument was disingenuous and not a little threatening. The massari’s role was to liaise with the authorities, protecting existing Jewish prerogatives and maintaining the status quo. Even if they had shared the complaints of the five brothers, they would not have risked to displease the Tuscan government at such a delicate moment of political transition. The divide between the interests and goals of the Jewish mercantile and political elite and the local government’s positions was considerable. The appeal submitted by the brothers Aghib and Abudaram demonstrated awareness of previous legal conquests, regardless of their limitation, and a sense of entitlement. Still, Pierallini refused to recognize the inclusion of a Jewish representative in the general municipal council both as a legal precedent and as a major step in the direction of civil equality for Livornese Jews more generally. Instead, he kept

The “Jewish Question” in Livorno

relating to the Jewish minority in line with the spirit of benevolent protection and segregation that had traditionally characterized Tuscan policies vis-à-vis the nazione ebrea. The drastically changed political climate of 1790 also contributed to their failure as champions of the participatory rights of Livornese Jews.

Conclusion With the exception of Trieste in the second half of the eighteenth century, the liberties of Livornese Jews had greatly surpassed those of all Italian communities during the early modern period. The emphasis on its utility and economic worth gave the nazione ebrea a distinct standing among other Jewish communities, fostering its reputation as a powerful and integrated group among gentiles and Jews alike, and fueling a sense of safety and identification with its Tuscan motherland and its “benevolent Ruler” for its members. Still, these liberties, a product of ancien régime privileges, ultimately failed to translate into greater political and participatory rights for individual Livornese Jews. In fact, the Jews’ privileged and protected condition, depending directly upon the ruler’s favor and the lasting status of the nazione ebrea as a corporate body, worked to their disadvantage at the onset of the age of individual rights. In the 1780s, the decade when many European governments began considering in earnest how to integrate legally and politically their Jewish subjects, the opportunities of Livornese Jews for greater civil inclusion fell behind those of smaller, less conspicuous, and less emblematic Jewish communities. The stunted political development of such an influential and “beneficial” community as Livorno is rich with implications for our understanding of processes of Jewish integration and complicates current historiographical assumptions. Some historians have associated Jews of Sephardi or Italian origin who lived in hubs of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic seaboard with a particular process of political inclusion.160 In a suggestive scheme on regions of emancipation, David Sorkin has proposed that these “port Jews” experienced a smoother progress to emancipation compared to Jewish communities in the German states and the Hapsburg Empire.

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Unlike western and central European Ashkenazi kehillot of medieval origin, these new communities were organized as “voluntary religious associations” or “merchant corporations.” The ports where these Jewish individuals settled were built upon the importance of trade and pragmatism. As a result of these combined factors, these Jews, reputed to be commercially useful and productive, gained liberties and rights that Jews elsewhere did not possess, short of political inclusion; the “port Jew” model posits that emancipation was a direct continuation of such a preexisting situation and that privileges were transformed into full equality with the removal of political disabilities.161 The Livornese, like the Sephardi Jews residing in ports of the Atlantic seaboard, are accurately defined as acculturated Jews who were granted special privileges on the grounds of their economic usefulness. In this sense they were “port Jews.” Without any doubt the dense population, relative security, and commercial success of the nazione ebrea point to a very different experience from that prevalent in central European centers, where relatively smaller and poorer Jewish communities were perceived as an alienated minority in need of moral and socioeconomic amelioration. Although the Catholic populace was at times hostile to Livornese Jews, the authorities provided them with steady protection and praised their contribution. As Les Juifs shows, unlike French or Prussian Askhenazim, Livornese Jewry was viewed as a “subject nation” essential for the economic development of the Tuscan state. But the retention of the old corporate privileges prevented Livor­ nese Jews from experiencing the process of political inclusion associated with “port Jews.” The commercial utility of Livornese Jews was not sufficient to bring about substantial political change in the 1780s; to the contrary, it fostered the maintenance of the corporate status quo. In the early modern period, the nazione ebrea had reaped great benefits from the successful mercantilist policies that defined the port of Livorno. At the onset of “modernity,” however, its privileged status as a useful mercantile Jewish community, encapsulated in the Livornina and repeatedly reaffirmed by the Tuscan state, turned out to be a force for conservatism that, while preserving time-honored structures and norms, prevented the full application of reforming and equalizing policies.

Conclusion Enlightenment and Emancipation: Privilege and Its Discontents

After exploring the processes by which privileged and acculturated eighteenth-century Jews, members of the nazione ebrea of Livorno, interacted with Enlightenment culture, and the community’s responses to state-driven reforms at the peak of its economic and demographic prosperity, there are several conclusions to be drawn about the significance of the Livornese example. While the specificity of Enlightenment Tuscany and the system of the port of Livorno account for its distinctiveness, this case study has larger implications for Sephardi and Italian Jewish history. The Livornese model of engagement with eighteenth-century culture offers an alternative to the Anglo-Jewish Enlightenment and to the Haskalah in both its early and later phases. For individual Livornese Jews, the encounter with new scientific and philosophical ideas, in the early part of the century, and with mature Enlightenment notions, in its second half, took place in Tuscan cultural sites and institutions, such as Joseph Attias’s library and the University of Pisa. Such a process was mediated through multiple European languages, but not Hebrew. It did not aim to change or reform individual Jews or the Jewish community, but was predicated on the optimistic belief that Jewish scholars could participate in the public domain thanks to their education and professional training. Engaging with ideals of dispassionate critical thinking and reformist progress, they aspired to deploy their reason to advance the fate of humanity. These scholars were not primarily concerned with reconciling new scientific and philosophical impulses with Jewish tradition. Thus, they differed from the time-honored Italian and Sephardi model illustrated by Judah Messer Leon, Azariah de’ Rossi, and Menasseh ben

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Israel.1 Italian, rather than Hebrew, was the language in which they expressed new ideas, setting them aside also from early maskilim.2 The meaningful encounter between Livornese Jewish scholars and the Enlightenment did not give rise to phenomena of self-reflection on the Jewish condition in the Tuscan port comparable to the mature Prussian Haskalah. Unlike the protagonists of the Anglo-Jewish Enlightenment, Livornese thinkers did not engage in a defense of Judaism from modern threats, nor in a cultural (and literal) translation of the Jewish tradition into the vernacular.3 Rather, Joseph Attias, Angelo de Soria, Joseph Vita Castelli, and Graziadio Bondì participated in the culture of the times, not in their Jewish capacity, but as members of “the human family.” Like the Jews of Hapsburg Trieste studied by Lois Dubin, or the English Jews studied by Todd Endelman, the eighteenth-century ­nazione ebrea did not need to draw on an ideological program of modernization in order to acculturate into the broader society. But despite their similarity to the Triestine “port Jews,” there is no evidence that the ongoing social reality in which Livornese Jews lived predisposed them in any way to support and sympathize with calls for Jewish self-transformation propounded by the Haskalah. Unlike northern Italian Hapsburg Jewry, which geographically belonged to the orbit of the central European Haskalah, and unlike the communities of Venice, Ferrara, Ancona, and Reggio, which supported the maskilic message, albeit without fully participating in it,4 Livornese Jews were oblivious to or actively ignored the maskilim’s efforts in the 1780s. The nazione ebrea had little reason to view Jewish life as being in need of improvement, which further set it apart from its Ashkenazi contemporaries. Approximately two centuries of uninterrupted Tuscan protection endowed Livornese Jews with a sense of safety and privilege and provided them with a strong incentive to maintain the status quo. While many no longer conceived of their lives within an exclusively Jewish cultural framework, their attachment to Jewish communal life and conventions did not weaken. They did not criticize ancient patterns of life, nor did they wish to reduce their Jewish distinctiveness, or to desert the organized community, which guaranteed their status within the Tuscan state and abroad. If they were critical of the governing oligarchy, Livornese Jews did not express their objections vocally

Enlightenment and Emancipation

before 1796, when political changes under Napoleonic rule created enough room for dissent. These circumstances help explain why the Livornese scholars’ embrace of Enlightenment ideals was not accompanied by disregard for Judaism or the institutions of the nazione ebrea. Jonathan Israel has suggested that the adoption of lay, individualistic values on the part of some Jews around the middle of the eighteenth century was a byproduct of the secularization and cultural decline of western European Jewries, a sign of deep spiritual crisis and of the “increasing rejection” of Jewish intellectual culture and tradition.5 The Livornese situation nuances this claim considerably. In fact, it appears that educated members of Livorno’s lay class, along with some rabbinical figures such as Abraham Isaac Castelli, did not find the dual pursuit of Voltaire and Torah either questionable or in need of justification. These thinkers upheld their Judaism and embraced Enlightenment ideals without reservation. If the Enlightenment, as some maintain, removed the God of Israel from the stage of history and was a key factor in the cultural degradation of European Jews after 1700, Livornese Jews did not openly address, or understand, these implications of Enlightenment rationalism. Although Christian scholars continued to single them out as Jews, the intellectual elite of the nazione ebrea considered themselves on a par with their non-Jewish colleagues. Livornese scholars differ in this sense from contemporary Sephardi thinkers, such as Isaac de Pinto, the Amsterdam notable who took an apologetic stance concerning his Jewish origin in his well-known exchange with Voltaire.6 While Amster­dam, like Livorno, hosted a prosperous community of acculturated Sephardim, their cultural integration and economic success were not sufficient to promote a self-perception among Jewish scholars as rightful members of an enlightened intellectual republic. The specificity of Livornese and Tuscan reality helps explain further the sense of optimism of some Livornese Jews. The Italian Enlightenment, as a movement with civic aspirations to improve social and economic conditions, did not encourage radical assaults against established religion—a model that worked to the advantage of Jewish thinkers. Moreover, the detailed privileges of the Livornina, combined with the progressive Tuscanization of the community over the course

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of the eighteenth century, played a role in shaping the intellectual security and eclectic sensibilities of Jewish scholars. Few other Sephardi communities experienced a similar level of sanctioned state protection and jurisdictional autonomy, together with high acculturation and linguistic proximity with neighboring non-Jews, outside of the Italian peninsula. In Bordeaux, Jews adopted French and were granted lettres patentes that allowed them to organize as a corporate community, but they did not enjoy jurisdictional autonomy.7 While English became the language of Anglo-Jewish culture in the eighteenth century (Spanish, rather than Dutch, remained the Sephardi vernacular in Amsterdam, while communal documents were written in Portuguese until the nineteenth century), the Jewish community was deemed a voluntary religious association in both England and Holland, not a political body.8 Still, despite their optimism, the fact that Livornese scholars hardly ever referred to their Jewish identity in their non-Jewish works is symptomatic of the significant challenges posed by their encounter with the Republic of Letters and Enlightenment culture. In aspiring to be recognized as part of an intellectual community that bypassed the boundaries of the nazione ebrea, these savants had to negotiate a new balance between Jewishness and “sciences of the gentiles.” One of the strategies of acculturation that they displayed entailed the distinction and compartmentalization of Jewish and non-Jewish spheres—an important shift from trends of harmonization found among Italian and Sephardi Jews in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. While active in the non-Jewish world, they silenced their “otherness.” As a result of their focus on universal scientific themes, they moved away from the polemical and apologetic modes of Jewish scholars active in the broader cultural sphere in earlier periods. Even though the individual Livornese Jewish encounter with Enlightenment thought did not result in a programmatic movement, the cultural compartmentalization it fostered foreshadowed trends common among Jewish intellectuals, not only in the period of emancipation, but also in the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But intellectual engagement with Enlightenment ideas was not the only way in which Livornese Jewry experienced novel principles and transformative impulses. Political reforms provided another crucial venue for this encounter. A key channel for the nazione ebrea’s engage-

Enlightenment and Emancipation

ment with Enlightenment principles was the confrontation with the reforming absolutism that defined eighteenth-century Tuscan policies. Historians point to the impact of enlightened absolutism on European Jewish communities as an important factor of modernization. It is also commonly understood that, by including Jews in general laws and lifting restrictive “Jewry laws,” reforming absolutist states gradually eroded Jewish communal autonomy. In this case, too, the Livornese case offers a different perspective on the relationship between the state and the Jewish community. After Francis Stephen and his ministers began promoting reforms with the aim of rationalizing administration, enhancing Tuscan economic productivity, and altering the relationship between state and Church, segments of the nazione ebrea of Livorno were directly confronted with state-driven modernization. The Lorraine’s early push for a clear separation of lay and ecclesiastical spheres of activity, for instance, resulted for Jews in a greater level of protection from the probing eyes of the Inquisition. Other reformist endeavors championed by the Lorraine and Hapsburg rulers challenged entrenched Tuscan social structures and economic mechanisms. As Peter Leopold retreated from the mercantilist positions that characterized Medicean rule, and that justified the Jewish presence in the port of Livorno, Livornese Jews too had to reckon with changes in economic policies. These transformations affected the nazione ebrea at both the individual level and the communal level, as reflected in the responses to the question of gambling in public spaces, the demise of Jewish coffeehouses, and the reactions to the laws on printing. The Jewish leadership, confronted with a number of Tuscan reforms, repeatedly demonstrated an ability to adapt internal regulations to the simultaneous demand of communal supervision and state requirements, especially when the economic life and order of the community were concerned. The governing oligarchy strove to produce ever clearer communal legislation, implicitly addressing policy changes enacted by the Tuscan government. As demonstrated by the protracted discussion on coffeehouse gaming, the community was not merely a passive recipient of state-imposed reforms, but an actor in an ongoing dialogue with municipal and central authorities, which aimed to maintain social control and to guarantee internal order. At the same time,

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other trends advancing in the broader society, such as the increasing secularization of public health, made little stride in the nazione ebrea, where confraternities inspired by spiritual concerns continued to care for the sick. Individual Jews—particularly small businessmen—were also personally affected by policy changes. For their part, they continued to rely on protectionist and utilitarian models of political dealings characteristic of ancien régime societies. The direct relationship with the “benevolent Ruler,” depicted as a protector and guarantor of Jewish privileges, remained the choice political step for the individual member of the nazione ebrea to obtain legal satisfaction in the social, economic, and political spheres, circumventing the Jewish government. But in spite of recurrent individual attempts to bypass the Jewish authorities, the firm corporate system of the Livornese Jewish community, based on the Livornina and on the incorporation of the nazione ebrea into the bureaucratic machinery of the Tuscan state, preserved its administrative complexity and juridical autonomy, allowing the governing oligarchy of international merchant families to remain entrenched as political leaders. The continued importance of the corporate nazione ebrea is especially significant when comparing Livorno with contemporary Italian examples. Jews living in such different communities as Trieste, Rome, and Mantua took an equally active role in negotiating their legal and political situation during the course of the eighteenth century. They attempted to get tax breaks or more favorable treatment from the local gentile authorities, and they made frequent use of Christian notaries and courts.9 Based on this evidence, historians have argued that during this time period Italian Jewish communities turned progressively into religious institutions aimed at providing charity and education to their members, even before being granted official emancipation in the nineteenth century.10 But this picture does not fully apply to the Livornese case. Despite the direct appeals to the Grand Duke and the frequent use of Christian courts on the part of Livornese Jews, the n ­ azione ebrea maintained its political and corporate integrity throughout the century and beyond. At a time when the Tuscan authorities were endeavoring to dismantle the corporate prerogatives of confraternities, religious orders, and professional associations, both the state and the

Enlightenment and Emancipation

Jewish leadership in Livorno were instead invested in maintaining the old “national” framework for Jewish privileges, viewed as the best guarantee, respectively, of order and stability, and of a privileged juridical status, to the detriment of newer, individualist tendencies. The investment of both the Tuscan authorities and the Jewish leadership in maintaining the status quo shows that the encounter between western European Jews and enlightened absolutism did not necessarily result in the erosion of Jewish communal autonomy, nor did it always bring Jews closer to emancipation. While reforming absolutist states developed Enlightenment-infused programs meant to improve the condition of Jewish minorities in the 1780s, exemplified most notably by Dohm’s On the Civil Improvement of the Jews in Prussia and the Patent of Toleration of Joseph II in the Hapsburg Empire, Tuscany did not consider Jews as an unproductive and immoral group in need of change. In this respect, an obvious term of comparison for the Livornese case is again Hapsburg Trieste, with which the nazione ebrea shares similarities but also important differences. Like Livornese Jews, the merchant enclave of the port of Trieste was reputed by the state, and considered itself, economically useful and therefore morally virtuous. As in Livorno, there was no discourse of Jewish regeneration in late eighteenth-century Trieste. Unlike the nazione ebrea, however, ­Triestine Jews were directly, and positively, affected by Joseph’s program of toleration, which promised them even greater occasions toward civil inclusion.11 Peter Leopold, conversely, never developed a set of reforms specifically aimed at the condition of Jews, and when Gianni’s reform was extended to the port of Livorno, its potentially revolutionary implications were limited by denying individual rights of participation to eligible Jews and reasserting the community’s corporate nature. As a result, Livornese Jews did not gain all the civil and political privileges that they demanded between 1780 and 1790. Finally, the joint Tuscan and Jewish interest in preserving the distinct corporate status of the nazione ebrea raises promising questions about processes of emancipation in Western Sephardi merchant enclaves. These Jews had enjoyed a vast range of freedoms in early modern societies of corporate-estates, thanks to their recognized commercial utility; in some European ports, their privileges were trans-

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formed into full equality with the removal of political disabilities, either as a result of the French Revolution (as in Bordeaux, 1790, and Amsterdam, 1796) or the gradual emergence of civil society (as in England).12 But the example of Livorno underscores the fact that the progression from ­absolutist-corporate civil inclusion to emancipation had little to do with the recognized usefulness of the Jewish community, and more with external political circumstances. Moreover, in communities that held a charter of privileges, Jewish leaders often demonstrated remarkable attachment to older absolutist-corporate legal frameworks and a wariness of French-style legal parification. In the Tuscan port, the halted application of French-style ­equality and the ongoing importance of the Livornina resulted in a non­linear path of emancipation. The Livornese transition to parity entailed a prolonged process of reorientation of legal and political structures, articulated over the course of several generations. The corporate condition and attending privileges of the nazione ebrea encapsulated in the Medicean edict preserved the community as a distinct group well into the nineteenth century, even as the juridically unequal society of corporate estates gave gradually way to a society of rights. The Livornina was suspended during the Napoleonic rule over the port, but after the Restoration the leaders of the nazione ebrea petitioned Grand Duke Ferdinand III—a moderate who retained numerous French laws on civil and economic matters—to reinstate the old charter, instead of seeking to maintain the legal parity they had enjoyed under French control. Only in 1848 did the port’s Jewry, living in times of burgeoning liberal aspirations, develop a strong taste for equality. The short-lived Tuscan constitution of 1848, which granted Jews legal parity, was repealed four years later, but times were ripe for change. When Tuscany was annexed to the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860, the Piedmontese constitution (­statuto albertino) finally emancipated them.13

Reference Matter

Appendix: Bibliographic Data

I have primarily relied on the Bibliography of the Hebrew Book (BHB), supplemented by the Vinograd Index.1 The BHB is a comprehensive, online database of approximately 90 percent of books printed in the Hebrew language between 1470 and 1960, now accessible through the National Library of Israel. It is based on the actual examination of extant copies; hence, it does not include lost copies and does not include bibliographical variants. The Vinograd Index is a “bibliography of bibliographies,” based on classic nineteenth-century catalogs and modern library holdings: it provides higher estimates than the BHB and contains a small margin of error, acknowledged by its author. Like the BHB, it does not include bibliographical variants, although it does account for copies no longer extant, as well as dubious imprints. This approach requires a number of methodological explanations and caveats. The list includes works in Ladino, as they were equally printed with Hebrew and Rashi types; it includes books as well as broadsides, when they were listed. It is likely that many more imprints were produced than what is recorded in the databases available to us: fragile imprints such as broadsides, printed letters and approbations, and calendars must be greatly underrepresented, but there is no way to estimate the extent of what was lost. While this quantitative research cannot provide data as comprehensive as one might wish, and does not illuminate the trade and distribution of Livornese imprints, it is nonetheless as accurate a description as possible based on our records. Furthermore, this research focused on the “manifestations” of a work and the number of projects completed by single printers. Accordingly, I decided to count titles, and not volumes. I have counted as a single bibliographic unit some editions that included multiple volumes. There are limitations to this method that need to be emphasized. Counting by titles provides a description of the reading materials offered to the readers. This legitimate system, however, fails to indicate correctly the actual activity of the presses since each item, whether it is a broadside or a multivolume collection, is counted as a single unit of equivalent meaning. In addition, it cannot provide precise data on the scale of the Livornese printers’ business, as we do not know the edition sizes for each item (that is how many copies were printed),

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Appendix and how much paper was used for each imprint. The only way to overcome this impasse and the differences of format and number of volumes, in order to supply information on the actual production of each printer, is a sheet count: counting by sheets of paper was however impracticable for the purpose of my research.2

1650–57: 13 Gabbay [Gabbay holds an exclusive privilege] {BHB: 11//Vinograd: 13 [2 titles not in BHB]}

1701–3: 2 [?] {BHB: 1//Vinograd: 2 [1 title not in BHB]}

1740–48: 32, Meldola [Meldola holds an exclusive privilege] {BHB: 27 [7, Ricci-Meldola, of which 1 not in Vinograd; 20, Meldola]//Vinograd: 30 [7, Ricci-Meldola, 1 of which not in BHB; 24 Meldola [4 titles not in BHB]}

1749–51: 3 [?] {BHB: 1//Vinograd: 2}

1753–62: 22, Fantechi and Santini [Isaac de Pas holds an exclusive privilege] {BHB: 20 [1 not in Vinograd/3 for Fantechi, 17 for Santini]//Vinograd: 21 [2 not in BHB]}

1760–67: 19, Moses Attias [Attias holds an exclusive privilege] {BHB: 15 [1 not in Vinograd]//Vinograd: 18 [4 not in BHB]}

1768–73: 16, Carlo Giorgi per Santini {BHB: 14//Vinograd: 16 [2 not in BHB]}

1774–79: 27, Giorgi and Falorni are active simultaneously {BHB: 24//Vinograd: 25 [3 not in BHB]}

1780–89: 103, Falorni and Castelli/Saadun are active simultaneously {BHB: Falorni 10 [2 not in Vinograd] / 14 unsigned [7 not in Vinograd] / CastelliSaadun 69 [4 not in Vinograd] = 93//Vinograd: 91 [10 not in BHB]}

Summing estimated results from BHB and Vinograd for period 1740–89: 222 {BHB: 194//Vinograd: 203}

Bibliographic Data

Livornese imprints in Hebrew types and Latin types, 1740–1799 Year 1740 1741 1742 1743 1744 1745 1746 1747 1748 1749 1750 1751 1752 1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 1759 1760 1761 1762 1763 1764 1765 1766 1767 1768 1769 1770 1771 1772 1773 1774 1775 1776 1777 1778 1779

Hebrew types 6 1 6 4 3 3 2 0 2 1 0 0 0 7 0 0 1 0 4 3 4 2 4 1 1 4 2 2 1 2 3 4 1 3 4 2 6 5 4 3

Latin types 1 1 5 2 2 0 1 3 1 0 1 7 10 12 12 18 17 20 7 11 14 15 7 17 19 19 27 20 7 10 10 8 12 10 21 15 9 12 13 16

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Appendix Year 1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789 1790 1791 1792 1793 1794 1795 1796 1797 1798 1799

Hebrew types 7 4 7 11 9 10 12 13 11 10 25 21 16 22 17 17 9 14 5 5

Latin types 21 21 13 11 13 12 21 21 26 15 17 12 18 16 16 20 15 14 15 27

Notes

Abbreviations AAP ACDF ACEL ASFi ASLi ASPi BEUM BHB BLL CL DdG

Archivio Arcivescovile, Pisa Archivio della Congregazione della Dottrina della Fede, Vatican City, Rome Archivio della Comunità Ebraica, Livorno Archivio di Stato, Firenze Archivio di Stato, Livorno Archivio di Stato, Pisa Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena Bibliography of the Hebrew Book Biblioteca Labronica “F. D. Guerrazzi,” Livorno Catalogo della libreria (Attias’s library catalog) Deliberaçoims do Governo, Toaff Collection

Introduction 1. Shohat 1960; Endelman 1979; Rosman 2008: 63. 2. Feiner 2010: 21–23, 38–63, 142–60. 3. Marcus 1998: 11. 4. Ibid.: 12. 5. For a summary of the state of the field on Jewish modernization, see Rosman 2008: 56–81; Ruderman 2010: 207–26; Bregoli and Francesconi 2010: 237–38. 6. Baron 1937: 164; see Barzilay 1960–61 for an elaboration of this theory. 7. Shulvass 1955; Roth 1959. 8. Bonfil 1988 and 1994. 9.  Y. Kaplan 1991, 1992, 2000. 10. Luzzati 1986: 39. 11. Endelman 1979; Ruderman 2000; Feiner and Sorkin 2001; Feiner 2010. 12. Dubin 1999: 216. 13. Rivkind 1929. 14. Gori 2006: 130.

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Notes to Introduction and Chapter One 15. Dubin 1999: 124–33. 16. Hertzberg 1968; Sutcliffe 2003: 4–6; Schechter 2003. 17. Ruderman 2000. 18. Dubin 2005: 33 19. Graetz 1975: 37, 41, 117–24; Katz 1973: 3; Dubnow 1958. For a classic overview of periodization in Jewish history, see Meyer 1975. 20. Malino and Sorkin 1990; Frankel and Zipperstein 1992; Birnbaum and Katznelson 1995; Hyman 1995. 21. Dubin 1999; Y. Kaplan 2000; Berkovitz 2004; Hundert 2006; Sorkin 2010. 22. Sorkin 1999; Dubin 1999. 23.  On the importance of studying enlightened absolutist regimes from a national perspective, see Scott 1990. 24. Bernardini 1992; Caffiero 1997; Mori 1994; Grassi 1994. 25.  For the seventeenth century, see Cooperman 1976: 248–413; R. Toaff 1990; and Frattarelli Fischer 2008. For a gendered perspective, see Galasso 2002a, 2002b, 2003, and 2004. 26. Filippini 1980 and 1999; Schwarzfuchs 1980; Trivellato 2009.

Chapter One: The Nazione Ebrea and the Tuscan State 1.  BLL, Prato 1770–71 (vol. 5): 14, 19–20. The celebrations took place between February 7 and February 15, 1770. 2. Ibid.: 29. Ventura Velletri was baptized on March 11, 1770. 3.  Her case, though unusual, was not isolated. Based on Prato’s chronicle, between 1764 and 1790, fourteen Livornese Jews (mostly women and young men) converted. 4. Radcliffe 1794: 331. 5. Mangio 1978: 316; Curreli 2004: 56, 60, 66, 70. 6.  R. Toaff 1990: 119–29; Filippini 1997: 1054. 7. Aron-Beller 2011: 90–105; Simonsohn 1977: 115–17, 160–63. 8. ACDF, St. St., HH 2 c: 391r–422v, 626r–633v. 9. Trivellato 2009: 71; Pera 1888: 317. 10. Sonnino 1937: 23–29; di Porto 1984: 807–11; Turi 1969; Mangio 1974: 1–36. 11.  BLL, Prato 1774 (vol. 8): 121; 1776 (vol. 10): 285; 1781 (vol. 15): 66–67. On Jewish prostitutes and Jewish criminals in the seventeenth century, R. Toaff 1990: 315, 323–26. 12.  In the second half of the eighteenth century, Isaac Hayim de Medina of Livorno was portrayed wearing an elegant cloak and a periwig, his finger pointed at a small table topped with a music score, a recorder, and an oboe: Mann 1989: 60. 13. Benayahu 1959: 59–60. 14. Euchel 1790: 173 (letter 4), 174 (letter 5). On Euchel’s travelogue, see Meyer and Brenner 1996: 316–17; Pelli 1979. 15. Dubin 1998. 16. Lehmann 2005.

Notes to Chapter One 17.  Benbassa and Rodrigue 2000: 46; Milano 1949: 186–87. These merchants, who had established businesses and family ties in Constantinople, Salonika, Smyrna, and Aleppo, were legally protected by European consuls while maintaining a profound attachment to their Tuscan roots. 18. Lehmann 2007: 19–20. Livornese Jews established ties with North Africa as early as 1601: see Avrahami 1984 and 1997; Ayoun 1984; Boccara 2000; Filippini 1980, 1984b, and 1999; Rozen 1984; Taieb 1999. 19. Mangio 1978: 315, quoting M. Guyot de Merville’s travelogue, published in 1729. This appellation was repeated by later authors: Radaelli 1939: 316. 20. Curreli 2004: 70; Encyclopédie 1765: 600. 21.  Lattes and Toaff 1909: 23. 22. Mangio 1978: 315–18; Curreli 2004. 23. Gorani 1794: 121–7. 24. Milano 1963: 322–28. 25. Ravid 1991: 138–62. 26. Trivellato 2009. 27. Israel 1998; Karp 2008: 12–16. 28.  R. Toaff 1990: 41–51 (see ibid.: 419–35 for the complete text of the 1591 and 1593 charters); Milano 1968; Cooperman 1976: 248–378. 29.  Ferrara degli Uberti 2007: 33. The Livornina was suspended during the Napoleonic rule of the port; after the Restoration the leaders of the Jewish community opted to reinstate the charter. In 1836, the Tuscan state abolished the Livornina clause that extended legal protection to individuals who had committed crimes before moving to the port. The last ballottazioni took place in 1858. 30.  R. Toaff 1990: 419. 31.  Frattarelli Fischer 1983. 32. Ravid 1991; Segre 1991. 33.  Among the rich bibliography on Sephardi Jews in sixteenth-century Italy, see the recent additions by Leoni 2011 and Ruspio 2007. 34.  R. Toaff 1990: 421 (Livornina 1593, ch. 3). The charter prevented any “inquiry, investigation, denunciation or accusations” to be brought against the new immigrants, even if they had lived as Christians outside the Medici state, and it permitted them to revert to Judaism and practice freely Jewish “ceremonies, commandments, rituals, ordinances, and customs.” Only New Christians officially voted into the community were protected: Laras 1978a and 1978b. 35.  R. Toaff 1990: 427 (Livornina 1593, ch. 26). 36. Caffiero 2004. 37.  Frattarelli Fischer 2008: 216–36. 38.  R. Toaff 1990: 422, 427, 428 (Livornina 1593, ch. 7, 29, 31). 39. Bonfil 1990: 207–46. 40. Stow 2001: 99–126. 41. Cooperman 1976: 341–42; R. Toaff 1990: 211–28, 426 (Livornina 1593, ch. 25). See also Loevinson 1937a; Milano 1967b; Colorni 1945: 320–24.

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Notes to Chapter One 42.  R. Toaff 1990: 427. On Jewish property ownership in Livorno, see also Frattarelli Fischer 1983. 43.  Pisa, like Livorno, did not have a ghetto. In 1571, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany began the ghettoization of the Jewish populations of Florence and Siena: Siegmund 2006. 44.  Fantozzi Micali 1995: 149–83. The term ghetto was used to describe this site, though Livornese non-Jews also lived or worked there: Filippini 1997: 1057. 45.  R. Toaff 1990: 135–40; Frattarelli Fischer 2008: 188–94. The streets defining the area were Via della Sinagoga, Via degli Ebrei, Via S. Martino o dietro la Scola, Via S. Maria degli Ebrei, and Quattro Canti degli Ebrei. 46.  Frattarelli Fischer 2008: 195–200. 47. Pera 1899: 318–20. 48.  BLL, Prato 1766 (vol. 2): 130; 1768–69 (vol. 4): 163; 1775 (vol. 9): 263; 1782 (vol. 16): 126; 1785 (vol. 19): 167, 179. 49.  Wealthy families also owned private chapels, though their admissibility was routinely questioned by the massari. 50. Filippini 1998, vol. 1: 122–24. 51. A. Toaff 1955; A. Toaff 1962b; Herselle-Krinsky 1985: 352–56; Karwacka ­Codini and Sbrilli 1995. 52.  On the development of the port of Livorno during the seventeenth and eighteenth century see the classic works by Baruchello 1932; Braudel and Romano 1951; Sonnino 1909. 53. Fettah 2004: 182. 54. Diaz 1976: 188–91. 55. Ibid.: 259–60; Diaz 1978: 16; Castignoli 1978. 56. Ravid 1991: 155–56. 57. Nuti 1978. 58. Diaz, 1978: 15–23; Fettah 2004: 179–80. 59. Diaz 1976: 301–3, 395–98. 60.  Fasano Guarini 1978. On the role of the city in the early modern Mediterranean basin, see A. Cowan 2000. 61. Mangio 1995b: 11–12. It was common for Jews and New Christians of Portuguese descent to refer to their community as naçao (nation), thus suggesting ethnic, rather than religious identification. In Livorno, of course, Christian trading groups were also known as “nations.” 62. Castignoli 1978: 37–38. 63. Fettah 2004: 185–86. 64. Montesquieu 1950, vol. 1 (Lettres persanes): 86–87. 65. Mangio 1978. 66. Israel 1998: 93; Cassandro 1983: 57–112. 67. Israel 1998: 144. 68. Trivellato 2009: 3. 69. Filippini 1997: 1057–58.

Notes to Chapter One 70. Ibid. 71.  R. Toaff 1990: 260–62. It is possible that the peculiar name of this confraternity reflected the converso origin of its initial founders. 72. Ibid.: 262. 73. Ibid.: 263–68; Galassso 2002a: 123–30. 74. R. Toaff 1991: 22. It is not known whether this punishment was ever enforced. 75.  For a study of eighteenth-century rabbinic culture in Livorno, see Lattes and Toaff 1909: 1–25. A detailed survey of the rabbis active in Livorno during the seventeenth century is found in R. Toaff 1990: 348–58. 76.  Ergas was particularly vocal against Nehemiah Hayon, an itinerant kabbalist accused of Sabbateanism: Friedman 1966: 597–602; Carlebach 1990: 76–78. On Ergas’s kabbalistic thought, see R. Goetschel 1980, 1998, and 1999. 77.  Lattes and Toaff 1909: 25–87. 78. Ibid.: 16–18; A. Toaff 1937. 79. Gori 2006: 130. 80. Ritter-Santini 1997: 332–33. 81.  Quoted in Berliner 1898. 82.  R. Toaff 1990: 47; Mangio 1995b: 12. 83.  Livornese Jews referred to their communal assembly with the Portuguese word governo, which is a reflection of the autonomy of this institution. I translate that term interchangeably as “government,” “council,” or “lay leadership.” 84.  R. Toaff 1990: 41–108, 155. 85. Swetschinski 2000: 10–25. 86. Endelman 1979: 16. 87. Trivellato 2009: 97–99. 88. Cooperman 1976: 353–59. 89. Ibid.: 318–19. 90. Ibid.: 313–15. 91.  Y. Kaplan 2000: 108–42. 92. Endelman 1979: 119–20. 93.  R. Toaff 1990: 428; Cooperman 1976: 319–26. Not all foreign Jewish immigrants to Livorno were ballottati. The procedure was popular among those who had incurred crimes and debts prior to their move to the port, and among the wealthy elite who saw it as an important step to establish their status within the community (R. Toaff 1990: 415). For ballottazione in the eighteenth century, see Filippini 1998, vol. 3: 73–140. 94.  R. Toaff 1990: 63, 121. 95. Ibid.: 119–29 and Filippini 1997: 1054; census statistics compiled between 1737 and 1790 show that Jewish population of the port numbered 3,476 souls in 1738, 3,687 in 1758, and 4,327 in 1784. The Jewish community of Amsterdam, which counted approximately 17,000 individuals by 1750 (including Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews), was the largest in western Europe. The Sephardi communities of

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Notes to Chapter One Bayonne and Bordeaux were smaller than that of Livorno, counting respectively about 3,500 and 3,000 individuals; the communities of Venice and Rome numbered approximately 2,000 individuals each during the eighteenth century (Israel 1998: 196–98). The community of London was smaller than that of Livorno in 1750, but grew to approximately 15,000 individuals by 1800. 96.  According to a study released by the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York, the Jewish population in the five boroughs of New York City amounted to 1,086,000 individuals in 2011 (about 13 percent of the ca. 8.1 million individuals living in New York City, according to the 2010 census): UJA-FedNY 2013: 45. 97.  R. Toaff 1990: 172–74. 98. Ibid.: 178, 180–82. The powerful Recanati family of Italian descent had lobbied for Italian Jews to be admitted to political office. See also Filippini 1997: 1051–52. 99.  Two ballots took place per year, one in late March or April, and one in September or October. Between four and six names were extracted each time. 100.  R. Toaff 1990: 182. In 1769, Peter Leopold formally abolished the governors’ hereditary position. However, he gave the massari the right to select new governors, a decision that maintained the Sephardi oligarchy’s power. 101. Ibid.: 415; Filippini 1998, vol. 1: 116–26, 214–53. 102.  In Italy, preachers started composing their sermons in the vernacular in the sixteenth century (printed collections remained in Hebrew). There is no evidence that Hebrew or Ladino were used for preaching in Livorno, where most Jews were only at home in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. A few bilingual editions of educational works in Ladino and Hebrew were published for Livornese readers during the eighteenth century. 103.  R. Toaff 1991: 23. 104. Bodian 1997: 85–95. 105. Ibid.: 95. 106.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 325. 107.  A. Toaff 1933: 375 and 1955: 419. 108.  A. Toaff 1962a: 10–12. 109.  A. Toaff 1933: 375–77. 110.  To communicate among themselves, the Jewish lower classes used the bagitto, a Judeo-Livornese vernacular rooted in the Italian language and enriched with Iberian, Hebrew, and other Mediterranean elements. 111. Trivellato 2004. 112.  On the relationships between Portuguese Jews in Livorno, Amsterdam, and Tunis, see Levy 1999: 23–95. On Livornese Jews in the Levant, see Milano 1949: 186–87. 113.  On Sephardi networks and circulation, see Oliel-Grausz 1997, 2000, and 2004. On Jewish emissaries, see Yaari 1950. 114.  On Azulai, see Benayahu 1959. 115. Trivellato 2009: 71.

Notes to Chapter One 116. Ibid.: 96. 117. Milano 1967a: 107–9; R. Toaff 1990: 317–19; Frattarelli Fischer 2008: 238–40. Sexual encounters between Jews and non-Jews (“Christians, Turks and Moors”) were explicitly forbidden in the Livornina: R. Toaff 1990: 423 (Livornina 1593, ch. 11). 118. Trivellato 2009: 73. See Chapter 6, below. 119. Wyrwa 2003b argues for a limited impact of Enlightenment culture on the life of eighteenth-century Livornese Jews, but it does not address documents internal to the community. 120.  For an overview of distinct national Enlightenment traditions, see Porter and Teich 1981. 121. Venturi 1969: xv. 122.  Recent trends in Italian Enlightenment studies emphasize both international influences on eighteenth-century Italian culture and the importance of regional contexts for reformist thinkers, who were preoccupied to improve local conditions: Wahnbaeck 2004: 2–4. 123.  For an overview, see J. Robertson 2009. 124. Angiolini 1999: 153–64. 125. Ibid.: 153–58; Contini 1999. The most renowned ministers were Giulio Rucellai (1702–78), Pompeo Neri (1706–76), Angelo Tavanti (1714–81), and Francesco Maria Gianni (1721–1801). 126.  On Tuscan culture during the eighteenth century, see Cochrane 1961; Venturi 1969: 54–58, 299–354; Pasta 1997; Verga 1999a. 127.  Physiocracy was a French school of economics. The physiocrats believed that a nation’s land was the only source of wealth and maintained that industry and commerce should be excluded from state intervention. On physiocracy, see Fox-Genovese 1976. 128. Anderson 1990: 65–68. 129. Rosa 1999: 88. 130. Verga 1999a: 149–50. 131. Agulhon 1992; D. Goodman 1998. 132.  This included the publication of an Italian translation of The American Gazetteer (London, 1762) under the name Il Gazzettiere Americano (1763). On the periodical press in Livorno, see Gremigni 1996. 133. Venturi 1969: 704–12. 134. Angiolini 1999: 160–62; Lay 1973; Mangio 1993 and 1996. 135. Diaz 1978: 19. 136. Ibid.: 21–23 and Fettah 2004: 186–87. On the decline of Tuscany during the last decades of the Medici government see Diaz 1976: 466–545. 137.  On the rule of Francis Stephen, see Diaz 1997. On Peter Leopold, later Hapsburg Emperor Leopold II, see Mascilli Migliorini 1997 and the classic Wandruszka 1963. 138.  Lattes and Toaff 1909: 23.

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Notes to Chapters One and Two 139. Diaz 1978: 21–22. 140. Fettah 2004: 187. The free and neutral status of the port was confirmed in 1778.

Chapter Two: Balancing Acts 1. Benayahu 1978; Bonfil 1990; Ruderman 1995: 100–117. 2.  Lattes and Toaff 1909: 11. The heirless Gian Gastone de’ Medici had initially designed Don Carlos as his successor. Because of the war of Polish succession, Francis Stephen of Lorraine received the Tuscan throne instead. 3. Ibid.: 17–18. 4.  A. Toaff 1962a. 5. Salah 2007: 94–97. 6.  Aghib Levi d’Ancona 1989: 188. 7. Mann 1989: 58–60. 8.  BLL, Prato 1770–71 (vol. 5): 19. 9. Trumpy 1967: 9. 10. Colbi 1980: 181. 11. Gencarelli 1962; Rotta 1971: 80–82. See also Bregoli 2007a; Frattarelli Fischer 2003a: 295 and 2008: 307–38; Wyrwa 2003b: 39; di Porto 1984: 805. 12. Provasi 1940: 296–97. Attias’s letters to Magliabechi are held at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence, VIII-SIII-T.22, and reproduced in Mascagni 1967: 123–25. 13. BEUM, Muratoriano 52.3; Attias’s letters are published in di Campli and Forlani 1995: 305–28. See also Viola 1999: 427–28, 429, 431, 449–53, 455–56. 14.  For Attias’s correspondence with Vico, see Vico 1929: 55–56, 61–62. 15. Montesquieu 1950, vol. 2: 816–17, 1087, 1091. 16.  Jewish attendance was permitted at the University of Pisa from 1738 on. 17.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 327. 18.  Joseph Attias was born on May 2, 1672 (Iyyar 5, 5432) and was buried on March 4, 1739 (Adar 24, 5499): ACEL, Nascite: 11v; Tumulazioni: 65v, 44. 19.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 325. 20.  Frattarelli Fischer 2008: 311–12. 21.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 325; Lieberman 1999. 22.  Reigner Gemma Frisius (1508–55), Dutch mathematician and cartographer. 23.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 325. 24.  Frattarelli Fischer 2008: 312. 25.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 325. 26.  G. de Soria 1773: 13–15; Pera 1867: 151–57 and 1888: 226–33. 27.  Attias composed some manuscript notes on carpentry, of all subjects, and he inserted extensive marginalia in his own books. All his handwritten glosses are now lost. 28.  Thus Samuel Johnson referred to eighteenth-century Britain. 29. Goldgar 1995: 152–54.

Notes to Chapter Two 30. Rosa 1994. 31. Goldgar 1995: 153. The Bibliothèque Italique was a French periodical aiming to promote Italian science and culture. 32.  G. de Soria 1773: 13–15. On de Soria see Venturi 1969: 346–54; Ferrone 1995: 266–73. 33.  G. de Soria 1773: 13. 34. Ibid.: 15. 35. Brockliss 2002: 327. 36. Provasi 1940: 297. 37.  I am grateful to David Sorkin for suggesting this term. 38.  For an overview of Livornese imports and exports, see Filippini 1998, vol. 1: 39–73. 39.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 313, 315–18, 324. 40. Cestoni 1941: 500; Vico 1929: 55–56. 41. Goldgar 1995: 17. 42.  On the history of the British Nation in Livorno, see Atti del Convegno di studi “Gli inglesi a Livorno” 1980; Pagano de Divitiis 1990 and 1993. 43.  On the British consuls in seventeenth-century Livorno, see Villani 2004. 44.  On Wake’s Hebraic interests, see Ruderman 2007: 20–37. Attias owned a copy of this book, as documented by his library catalog, a copy of which is found in ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 791, inc. 361 (unpaginated): Catalogo della libreria [CL], 470 Paolo Pedrusi. I Cesari in Metallo grande, e parte de’ medesimi in mezzano, raccolti nel Museo Farnese. Parma 1721. T. 8. In all references to Attias’s library holdings, I have maintained the original spelling; titles are preceded by the number by which they are listed in the catalog. 45.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 306. 46. Ibid.: 318; Frattarelli Fischer 2008: 335. 47. Vico 1929: 55–56, 61–62. A common acquaintance was Roberto Sostegni, a student of Salvini. Attias was in Naples at a time when there was no Jewish community in that city: Giura 1978. 48. Vico 1929: 55–56; Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 311–12. Vico sent an additional copy of his New Science to Attias, who claimed to have read it as part of the daily gatherings in his home. The catalog does not list the book but it includes two other works by Vico: CL, 696 Jo. Baptistae Vici de nostri temporis stud. dissertatio. 1708; 941, Jo. Bap. a Vico de Antiquissima Italorum Sapientia [1710]. 49. Mascagni 1967: 124. 50.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 307, 309. On Italian periodicals in the early modern period, see Capra, Castronovo, Ricuperati 1976. 51. CL, 1138 J. Le Clerc Biblioteque Choisie. Ams. 1712. Tom. 28; 1139 J. Le Clerc. Bibliot. Ancienne, et moderne. Ams. 1714. Manca Tom. 18 parte prima, tutto il 19. 21. 24. 25 sono in tutto n. 49. 52. CL, 1144 Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres de l’an. 1686 au 1688. Ams. Tom. 4 par M. Pierre Baile.

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Notes to Chapter Two 53. CL, 1178 Giornale de’ Letterati d’Italia. Mancano il T. 8. 13. 15. 21. 23. 25. 26. T. 16 in tutto. Attias owned even more scholarly journals: CL, 1122 Giornale de’ Letterati dal 1668 al 1675. Roma 1676. T. 4 1141 Le Journal des Scavans [sic] Tom. 37 mancano Tom. 12. 21. 49. 50. 51. 63. 65. 66. 67 legati in vacchetta; 1142 Le Mercure Ollandois contenant les choses plus remarquables de toute la Terre du 1672 au 1678. Ams. 1678. Tom. 12. 54. Raven 1993: 8. 55. ACDF, St. St., HH 2 c: 3r–13r. 56. Ibid.: 717r–v. 57. ACDF, Tit. Libr. 1705–10, inc. 48; inc. 59. 58.  Attias’s collection was rather sizable for its time. In eighteenth-century Italy and France, private libraries often did not exceed one thousand volumes: Capra 2000: 623. 59.  The only extant copy is found in ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 791, inc. 361 (unpaginated); see below. 60. CL, 1056 Dapper Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Assiria, Anatolia, & Arabia [sic] Norimbergae per Jo. Hofman 1681. In Tedesco. Olfert Dapper was an influential Dutch “armchair” geographer. 61. CL, 624 Antonio Vieira Sermoens. Em Lisboa 1679. Tomi 13. Portoghese. Vieira (1608–97) was one of the preeminent Portuguese Jesuit preachers of his time. 62.  On Gentili, see Morelli Timpanaro 1997. On Sterbini and his antiquarian activities, see Spier and Kagan 2000. 63. ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 791, inc. 361 (unpaginated). The pezza da 8 reali was a common type of currency in eighteenth-century Tuscany. Each pezza was worth 5.15 lire toscane (each lira toscana was worth 20 soldi or 12 crazie). 64. Brockliss 2002: 283. 65.  The Hebrew material may have been excluded for commercial reasons, as Hebrew editions would be less appealing to potential non-Jewish buyers. This was the case with the library catalog of Amsterdam Rabbi David Nunes Torres, auctioned off after his death in 1728. Although Nunes Torres owned Hebrew books because of his profession, his library’s inventory, which includes 1520 titles, does not list any: Y. Kaplan 2002: 281. 66.  G. de Soria 1773: 14–15; Provasi 1940: 293. 67.  The catalog lists another five English works in the main subsections, including Newton’s The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (CL, 494) and Bacon’s Resuscitatio (CL, 785). 68.  The catalog lists seven Spanish works: three dictionaries (CL, 317, 363, 364), two mathematical works by Diego Besson and Juan Peroz de Moya (CL, 778, 779), a translation of Julius Caesar’s De Bello Gallico (CL, 571), and the Varias ­Antiguidades d’España by Bernardo Aldrete (CL, 495), a 1614 text that weighed in on the debate regarding the ancient Jewish presence in Spain. 69. Swetschinski 1982: 67. 70. Provasi 1940: 295.

Notes to Chapter Two 71. ACDF, St. St., HH 2 c: 720r–726r. Professors at the University of Pisa regularly applied for licenses from the Inquisition to read prohibited works. 72. Miller 2004. 73. Tamani 1967; Del Bianco Cotrozzi 1991. 74.  Bots and Waquet 1997: 91–111. 75.  Van Houdt and Papy 2002: 3. 76.  Zemon Davis 1988 and 1995: 20. 77. Goldgar 1995: 149. 78.  On the notion of relational self-fashioning, see Fulbrook and Rublack 2010. 79.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 307. 80. Goldgar 1995: 151. 81. Ibid.: 150. 82.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 307. 83.  Frattarelli Fischer 2008: 318 n. 55. 84. Cochrane 1961: 110–56. Until the nineteenth century, Jews were admitted into Christian academies only by special decree of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. 85.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 325. 86. Miller 2000b: 49–50. 87.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 307. 88. Goldgar 1995: 151. Attias owned the volume of the Nouvelles de la République des Lettres in which Bayle published this quip (CL, 1144; see above note 52). 89. Miller 2000a. 90. Provasi 1940: 293. 91. Sutcliffe 2000: 36–37. 92. Ibid.: 40. 93. Ruderman 2000: 204–14. 94. Trumpy 1967: 7; emphasis mine. 95.  Unlike de Pinto, whom Sutcliffe compares to the model of the Jewish parvenu analyzed by Hannah Arendt: Sutcliffe 2000: 41. 96.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 326. 97.  R. Toaff 1990: 155–78. Their tasks included tax collection and tax negotiation with the Tuscan authorities, as well as the management and upkeep of the synagogue and the cemetery, of charity and hevrot, and of the Talmud Torah. 98.  A. Toaff 1937: 189. 99.  DdG, book D: 63r (December 16, 1727), 66r (July 26, 1728), 70r (February 13, 1729), 109r (August 10, 1732), 128r (October 20, 1733), 128v (November 8, 1733). On at least one occasion, in 1736 Attias also pronounced the mi-she-berakh blessing, which customarily followed the successful naming of two members of the community to serve as Hatan Torah (Bridegroom of Torah) and Hatan Bereshit (Bridegroom of Genesis), as recipients of the honors of being called up, respectively, to close the Torah reading cycle and to open the Torah reading cycle in the synagogue, on the festival of Simhat Torah. The candidates were selected by lottery: DdG, book E: 21r–v (August 22, 1736). See also Bregoli 2007a: 134–39.

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Notes to Chapter Two 100.  DdG, book D: 102r (September 21, 1731); book E: 17r (March 18, 1736) 101. ACEL, Rescritos 1726 a 1734, inc. 33: 147r. 102. Menkis 1990: 27–45. 103.  Frattarelli Fischer 2008: 320; Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 323. 104.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 327. The rabbinic title of hakham is used in Se­ phardi communities, where it is considered superior to the titles of maskil and haver. 105.  A. Toaff 1937: 186. 106.  Mahzor 1735. The approbation was signed on the eighteenth of Sivan 5495 (June 8, 1735). Alongside Attias we find the names of Gabriel del Rio, Eliezer ha-Cohen, David Meldola, Jacob Lusena, Malachi ha-Cohen, and Moses son of Samuel ha-Cohen. The edition contained another approbation, signed by the Florentine rabbi Judah Raphael Joshua son of Phineas Baruch from Monselice, at the end of Sivan of the same year. 107.  DdG, book E: 54v (July 29, 1738). Along with Attias, another six rabbis participated. They were Daniel Valensin, David son of Abraham Meldola, Isaac Enriques, Adam Bondì, Jacob Lusena, and Malachi son of Jacob ha-Cohen. 108.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 326. 109. Provasi 1940: 296–97. 110.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 326. 111. Ibid.: 325. 112. In 1680, following a rift between rabbi Jacob Sasportas and the massari of the nazione ebrea, the Jewish authorities laid out rules concerning which cases should be judged by halakha and which ones by common law, see Tishby 1993; A. Toaff 1965; Milano 1967b. 113. Hacker 1988; Berkovitz 2008: 90–2; D. Kaplan 2011; Teter 2005. 114. Pera 1888: 119–20. 115. Pera 1899: 257–58. 116. Pera 1888: 135. 117. Ibid.: 317. 118.  Frattarelli Fischer 2008: 319–22. 119. Aron-Beller 2011: 87–238; Caffiero 2012. 120. ACDF, St. St., HH 2 d: 69r–79v; CC 2 d (unpaginated); CC 2 e (unpaginated); Frattarelli Fischer 2008: 207–15; Di Nepi 2012: 773–79. In Livorno sexual relations between Jews and Christians fell strictly under the purview of lay jurisdiction. 121. ACDF, St. St., AA 2 a: 662r–673v. 122. Rosa 2002: 43–44. 123. Viola 1999: 449. 124. Ibid.: 453. 125. ACDF, St. St., HH 2 c: 724r; Morelli Timpanaro 2003: 201–9. 126.  The illiberality of Tuscan policies is suggested by Costa 1985: 86. 127. Allegra 1996: 21–53. 128. Canosa 1988: 165–78.

Notes to Chapters Two and Three 129. Diaz 1976: 524–45. 130.  For the history of the conflict between state and Church in eighteenthcentury Tuscany, see Rodolico 1910; Canosa 1988: 179–99. 131. Cochrane 1961: xiii–xiv; Verga 1999a: 149–50. 132. ACDF, St. St., HH 2 c: 686r. 133. Ibid.: 687r, 720v, 722r, 723r. 134. Ibid.: 724r, 725r. 135.  Morelli Timpanaro 2003: 208. 136.  Letter by Rucellai to Richecourt (August 11, 1739) quoted in Sbigoli 1884: xxv–xxxviii. 137.  On the Crudeli affair, see Zobi 1850: 195–205; Sbigoli 1884; Casini 1972. 138.  Its disastrous outcome was to bring about the demise of the tribunal itself, suppressed by Peter Leopold in 1782: Casini 1972: 149–52. 139. ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 791, inc. 361 (unpaginated). 140.  It is not known how many copies of the list were printed or who printed it. The name of Joseph Attias appears nowhere on the catalog. The booklet was probably intended for a local audience, already partially or fully acquainted with the nature and provenance of the books. The fate of Attias’s books is unknown.

Chapter Three: In Praise of Good Taste 1. Verga 1999a: 125–26. 2. Ferrone 1995: 58. 3. Rosa 2010: 219–20. 4. Israel 2001: 43. 5. Venturi 1969: 21–22. 6.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 321. 7.  G. de Soria 1773: 15. 8.  For an overview of eighteenth-century Tuscan scientific culture, see Cochrane 1961: 109–56; Verga 1999a. 9. Wyrwa 2003b: 35, 40. 10.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 312, 326. 11. Ibid.: 313. Attias owned a book by Averani: CL, 273 Josephi Averani Interpretationum Juris. Lug. bat. 1716. Tomi 2. 12. Ferrone 1995: 9–10. 13.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 312, 326. Attias’s catalog lists three books by Grandi: CL, 843 Guidonis Grandi Demostratio Geometrica Vivianeorum problematum. Flor. 1699; 744 [sic, but 844] Guidonis Grandi Flores Geometrici. Flor. 1728; 979 Guido Grandi Compendio delle Sessioni Coniche. Fir. 1722. 14.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 312, 328. 15. Ferrone 1995: 49–55. 16. Israel 2001: 43–4. 17.  On Cosimo III, see Diaz 1976: 465–522. In spite of his own veto to Galilean science and atomistic philosophy, the Grand Duke financed a pneumatic pump

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Notes to Chapter Three in Pisa, which was used to demonstrate the existence of the void, thus disproving experimentally many Aristotelian theories: Vergara Caffarelli 2007. 18. Verga 1999a: 126. 19. Ibid.: 126–27. 20. Ferrone 1995: 266–73. 21.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 307, 325; Ferrone 1995: 49. 22. Cochrane 1961: 114–15. 23.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 305–7, 314, 319–20, 322–23. On Cestoni, see Baldini 1980. 24.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 314. Ittieri saved Livorno from the 1720 plague that caused great havoc in Marseille the same year: Morelli Timpanaro 1997: 24. 25.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 327. 26. Ibid.: 320. 27.  Attias’s library catalog lists numerous works dealing with applied medicine and natural remedies: CL, 796 Petri Antonii Michaelis Nova plantarum genera juxta Methodum Tournesortianam disposita, quibus 1900 Plantae recensentur, quarum 1400 nondum observatae. Tomi 2 quorum secundus fig. continet Tabulis 138 comprehensas; 802 Guilielmi Pisonis de Medicina Brasiliensi, et Georgii Margravii Histor. rerum naturalium Brasiliae. Lug. Bat. ap. Lud. Elzivir 1648 cum fig.; 804 Pierre Pomet Hist. Generales des drogues. Paris 1694. fig.; 893 Cristoforo Acosta Istoria, natura e virtu delle Droghe medicinali. Ven. 1585; 894 Gio. Mesue Semplici purgativi. Ven. 1621; 899 Alexandri Alessi Consilia Medica. Patavii 1621; 906 Rimedj per le Malatie del Corpo Umano. Pad. 1709; 973 Histoire des Plantes plus usitees dell’Europe, e dell’Amerique. Lyon 1719. Tomi 2. avec fig.; 1000 Medicina Salernitana, idest conservandae bonae valetudinis praecepta. Genevae 1638; 1001 De potu Caphè, Chinensium Thè, & Chocolata. Paris 1685; 1007 Lucae Tozzi Medicina Practica. Bono. 1697; 1014 Domenico Auda Prattica degli Speziali. Ven. 1696. 28.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 312–14. See also Cochrane 1961: 130–34. 29.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 321. 30. Ibid.: 317–18. On Cocchi, a noted freemason, see Baldini 1982; Sbigoli 1884: 92–103; Morelli Timpanaro 1999. Attias owned several works by Cocchi: CL, 663 Xenophontis Ephaesii de Amoribus Antiae, & Abrocomi Graeco-Lat. per Antonio Cocchi. Londini 1726; 898 Antonii Cocchi Epistolae Medicae. Romae 1725; 902 Antonii Cocchi de usu Artis Anatomicae. Flor. 1736. 31. The three subgroups in the “scientific” section of Attias’s library were cataloged as: (1) 769–819, “Filosofi, Geometri, Medici, Naturalisti, Arti etc. In ­foglio”; (2) 820–928, “Filosofi etc. In quarto”; (3) 929–1038, “Filosofi etc. In ­ottavo et infra.” The section contains also texts on applied mathematics, music, and commerce. 32. CL, 857 Galileo Galilei Opere. Fir. 1718. Tomi 3; 860 G. Galilei Dialogo sopra i due sistemi Copernicano e Tolemaico. Fir. 1632. The book was placed on the Index in 1633.

Notes to Chapter Three 33. CL, 939 Franc. Baconis, e Verulamio novum scientiarum Organum. Ams. 1660. 34. CL, 775 Saggio [sic] di naturali esperienze fatte nell’Accademia del Cimento di Firenze. Fir. 1691. con fig. 35. CL, 607 Francesco Redi Aretino, Sonetti. Fir. nella Stamp. di S.A.R. 1702 Fol.; 733 Francesco Redi Bacco in Toscana Napoli 1687; 865 [5 works] Francesco Redi Esperienze intorno alle Vipere Fir. 1686, F. Redi Esper. Intorno a diverse cose Nat. Fir. 1686, F. Redi Osservazioni degl’Animali viventi negl’Animali viventi. 1686, F. Redi Osservazioni intorno a’ Pellicelli del Corpo Umano. 1687, F. Redi Osservazioni sopra la Generazione degl’Insetti. 1688; 983 Francesco Redi Opera sopra diverse Cose Naturali. Nap. 1687. Tomi 3. 36.  G. de Soria 1773: iv–v. 37. Ferrone 1995: 41–42. 38. CL, 820 Isaci Newton Philosophiae Naturalis principia Mathematica. Ams. 1723; 964, Newton Traite d’optique trad. par Cosse. Ams. 1720. Tomi 2. See also CL, 931 Ggravesand [sic] Instit. Philosophiae Newtonianae. Lug. Bat. 1723. These were not the only volumes by Newton owned by Attias: CL, 494 Isach Neuuton [sic] Te Cronologii [sic] of ancient Kingdoms amended. London 1728. 39. Ferrone 1995: 39–40; CL, 774 Hauksbee Esperienze Fisico Meccaniche sopra varii Soggetti contenenti un racconto di diversi stupendi Fenomeni intorno la Luce, ed Elasticità de’ Corpi trad. dall’Inglese. Fir. [1716] con fig. 40. Ibid.: 82–83; CL, 858 Giorgio Cheyne Principj Philosophici trad. dall’Ingl. Nap. 1729. 41. CL, 859 Antonio Vallisnieri l’Origine delle Fontane. Ven. 1726; 864 Antonio Vallisnieri de’ Corpi Marini che si ritrovano su’ Monti. Ven. 1721. 42. Cestoni 1941: 496. Attias’s name recurs in several of Cestoni’s letters to Vallisnieri from the period 1705–7 (ibid.: 482, 486, 495–96, 500, 502, 504, 514, 517, 794). 43. Ibid.: 495. 44. Ferrone 1995: 106–7. 45. CL, 6 Letters to Serena By M. Toland. London 1704. 46.  For instance, CL, 957 Recueil de diverses pieces Philosophiques de M. Leibnitz. Clarke, Newton etc. Ams. 1720. Tomi 2. The Aristotelian corpus in Attias’s library included not only scientific texts but also works on politics and rhetoric by Aristotle and his commentators: CL, 110 Antonio Scaino la Politica d’Aristotile. Roma 1578; 165 Aristotile Filos. Morale trad. in Ital. Ven. 1689; 603 Petri Victorii Commentarii in Libros tres Aristotelis de Arte dicendi. Basileae 1549; 648 Alessandro Piccolomini la Rettorica di Aristotile. Ven. 1597; 669 Aristotelis de Arte Rhetorica cum vers. Lat. Patavii 1689; 771 Simplicii Philosophii comm. in oct. lib. Aristotelis de Physico auditu. Ven. 1587; 929 Aristotelis Opera in Lat. versa. Francofurti 1593. Tomi 4; 930 Arist. Naturalis auscultationibus lib. 8. Graeco-Lat. Patav. 1691; 977 Lod. Dolce la Somma di tutta la naturale Filosofia di Aristotile. In Venezia; 1183 Aristotelis Politicorum a Montecatino in Lat. Vers. Ferrariae 1594. 47. CL, 825 Renati Des Cartes de Homine, et de formatione foetus. Ams. per

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Notes to Chapter Three Dan. Elzivir 1677; 826 Renati Des Cartes Meditationes de prima Philosophia. Ams. per Jo. Blaeu 1644; 827 Renati Des Cartes Responsiones ad obiectiones in meditationes de prima Philosophia. Amst. 1685; 835 Renati Des-Cartes principia Philosophiae. Ams. ap. Lud. Elzivir 1650; 840 Renati Des Cartes Epistolae. Ams. per Dan. Elzivir 1648. Tomi 2; 845 Renati Des Cartes. Geometria. Ams. ap. Elzivir 1659; 940 Renati Des Cartes Passiones Animae. Ams. ap Elzevirios 1650. 48. Popkin 1979: 129–50. CL, 770 Epicuri Philosophia per Petrum Gassendum. Lug. 1675; 1038 Abregè de la philosophie de Gassendi. Tom. 2. 3. 4. 6. 7. Tomi 5. 49. Ferrone 1995: 56. 50.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 319. 51. Ibid.: 320–21. 52. Ibid.: 321. 53. Gencarelli 1962: 526; Wyrwa 2003b: 67. 54. Cochrane 1978: 509 n. 4. By 1732 there existed a Masonic lodge in Florence, frequented primarily by English expatriates; there is no evidence of a similar institution in Livorno: Francovich 1974: 72–73. 55. Provasi 1940: 293. 56.  This is the same Gentili who later helped prepare Attias’s library catalog. 57.  For some of Gentili’s medical observations see Pera 1888: 314–16. 58. Pera 1888: 315 asserts that Gentili wrote that Attias died in February 1745. The Jewish scholar died at the beginning of March 1739. 59. Ferrone 1995: 41–62. 60.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 309. On Marchetti and Epicureanism in Tuscany, see Saccenti 1966. 61. CL, 731 Lucrezio trad. in Verso sciolto Toscano da Alessandro Marchetti. Londra 1717. The edition carried a false London imprint: Ferrone 1995: 186–87. ­Attias also owned a Latin edition: CL, 676 T. Lucretii Cari de rerum Natura. ­Patavii per Jos. Cominus 1721. 62.  The book was placed on the Index on April 13, 1739. 63.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 317. 64. Ferrone 1995: 77–78. 65.  Attias owned the 1721 Florence edition of the letters, composed between 1683 and 1684 and published for the first time in Venice, 1717, after Magalotti’s death: CL, 862 Lorenzo Magalotti Lettere scientifiche, e familiari. Fir. 1721. Tomi 2. See also Diaz 1976: 507–8. 66. CL, 88 Fenelon Refutation de Benoit Spinosa. Bruxelles 1731. This edition included other refutations as well. 67. CL, 314 Pierre Bayle Dictionarie Historique et Critique. Roterdam chez Reiner Leers 1697. Tomi 4. Et le supplement a Geneve 1722. Tomi 1. Tomi 5. Bayle’s Dictionaire was prohibited and placed on the Index on December 22, 1700 (and again, on May 12, 1703). 68. CL, 955 Sextus Empiricus les Hippotiposes trad. en Francois avec des Notes. 1725.

Notes to Chapter Three 69. He hinted at Hobbes’s noted remarks on the sorry and brutal state of human nature in a particularly effusive and melancholy letter to Muratori (Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 317). Attias’s catalog does not list Leviathan, but he owned a copy of De Cive: CL, 161. Th. Hobbes de Cive. Amst. ap. Danielem Elzevir 1669. 70.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 318. CL, 128, Lok L’Education des Enfans traduit par Coste. Amsterdam 1721; 853 Locke Essay philosophique sur l’entendement humain trad. de l’Anglois par Coste. Ams. 1700. On this French translation, see Goldgar 1995: 117–19. Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding was prohibited by Pope Clemens XII on June 19, 1734. 71. CL, 1 A Collection of Several Pieces of M. Joh. Toland. Vol. II. London 1726; 3 Christianity not Mysterious By John Toland. London 1702; 4 Tetradymus containing 1. Hodegus 2. Clidophorus 3. Hypatia 4. Mangoneutes By M. Toland; 6 Letters to Serena By M. Toland. London 1704; 8 An Account of etc. Prussia and Hannover By M. Toland. London 1714; 13 Anglia hbera [sic] By fo [sic] Toland. London 1701; 14 Nazarenus or Jewish Gentile and Mahometan Christianity By M. Toland London; 15 A Philippick Oration Jo. [sic] incite English against the French By John Toland. London 1707. 72. Ferrone 1995: 84–85; Israel 2001: 609–14. 73. Israel 2001: 613. 74.  There is no evidence for the suggestion that Attias had a copy of the Treatise of the Three Impostors (Frattarelli Fischer 2008: 331). In reality, he owned Les imposteurs insignes avec leurs portraits. Ams. 1696 (CL, 564) by Jean-Baptise de Rocoles; see below. 75. Ferrone 1995: 267. 76.  Frattarelli Fischer 2008: 335. 77. Pasta 1997: 117–18 n. 88. 78. Ferrone 1995: 60–62. 79. Bertelli 1955. 80.  For Muratori, and for Attias here, good taste was “a power of judging individual cases which cannot be decided according to universal rules.” In Muratori’s philosophy, the term is interchangeable with “judgment” and “accurate reasoning.” See Wiener 1973, vol. 4: 354. 81.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 308. Although Attias knew the book, it does not appear in his catalog. Two other texts by Muratori are listed: CL, 638 Lod. Muratori la perfetta poesia Italiana. Ven. 1724. Tomi 2; 1015 Lod. Ant. Muratori del Governo della Peste. Modena 1714. 82. Barbierato 2002: 11–83. 83. Ibid.: 304–13. See also Caffiero 2012: 121–80. 84. CL, 974 Le Comte de Gabalis ou Entretiens sur les Sciences segretes [sic]. Ams. 1700. On this parodic text, which would ironically be seen as a “real” magical primer by some later readers, see Kahn 2010. 85.  Muratori’s critical methodology was based on a three-pronged system: ascertaining, sifting, and interpreting sources.

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Notes to Chapter Three 86.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 309. 87.  On Modena’s Ari Nohem see Dweck 2011. 88.  Despite his criticism, Attias owned the kabbalistic collection by Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, Cabbala Denudata: CL, 339 Christiani Ronserth [sic] Lexicon Cabalisticum, sive Cabala enundata [sic], de Doctrina Hebraeorum Transcendentali, Metaphysica et Theologica. Sulzbaci 1677. Tometti 20. His library additionally shows curiosity for early magical and alchemical texts, including the Opera of Cornelius Agrippa: CL, 868 Gio. Battista Porta Magia Naturale. Nap. 1677; 936 Cornelii Agrippae Opera. Lug. Per Beringeros Fratres Tomi 2. 89. Berti 1999; on Shabbetay Zevi, see Scholem 1976. 90.  On Ergas, see R. Goetschel 1980, 1998, 1999. 91. Carlebach 1990. 92.  A. Toaff 1937: 189. 93. CL, 564 Les Imposteurs Insignes avec leurs Portraits. Ams. 1696. 94. Popkin 2001: 101–3. 95.  G. de Soria 1773: 14–5. 96.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 307. 97. CL, 11 Jo. Buxtorfii Concordantiae Bibliorum Hebraice. Basileae Typ. Lud. Koing. 1632; 38 Jo. Buxtorfii Commentarius Masorethius triplex, Historicus, Didacticus, Criticus. Basileae 1665; 284 Jo. Buxtorfi Lexicon Chaldaicum, Thalmudicum, et Rabbinicum. Basileae 1639; 375 Jo. Buxtorfii Lexicon Hebraicum et Chaldaicum. Basileae 1676; 380 Jo. Buxtorfi Manuale Hebraicum & Chaldaicum. Basil. 1658; 381 Jo. Buxtorfi Florilegium Hebraicum. Basil. 1658; 397 Jo. Buxtorfii Thesaurus Grammaticus linguae sanctae Hebraeae. Basil. 1663; 405 Jo. Buxtorfii de abbreviationibus Hebraicis. Basil. 1640; 406 Jo. Buxtorfii Institutio Epistolaris Hebraica. Basil. 1629; 407 Jo. Buxtorfii Grammat. Chaldaica, & Syriaca. Basil. 1601. On Johannes Buxtorf see Burnett 1996. 98. CL, 39 Jo Buxtorfii filii Exercitationes ad Historiam S. Basileae 1659; 335 Jo. Buxtorfii Junioris Lexicon Chaldaico Syriac. Basileae ex. off. Lud. Regis; 348 Jo. Buxtorfii Filii De punctorum vocalium et accentiuum in lib. Vet. T. Hebraicis etc. Basilae. 1648. 99. CL, 17 Jo. Lightofoti Opera Omnia cum Opp. ejusdem posthumis. Ultrajecti ap. Guilielmum Brodelet 1699. Tomi 7. 100.  CL, 41 Jo. Seldeni Uxor Hebraica, seu de Nuptiis et divortiis Hebraeorum. Francofurti 1695; 19 Jo. Spenceri, de Legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus, & earum rationibus. Cantabrigiae 1695. On Selden, see Rosenblatt 2006. 101.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 307. 102. Ibid.: 325. 103. CL, 8 Samuelis Bocharti Opera Omnia. Lug. Bat. Et Trajecti ad Rhenum 1712. Tomi 4. 104. CL, 349 Jo. Reuchlin de Accentib. & Orthographiae Hebraicae linguae. Haganoae 1518. 105. CL, 401 Roberti Bellarmini Instit. Linguae Hebraicae. 1619.

Notes to Chapter Three 106. CL, 9 Jo. Plantavitii Florilegium Biblicum. Lodovae Typ. Arnaldi Colomeri 1645; 10 Jo. Plantavitii Florilegium Rabbinicum. Lodovae 1645; 310 Jo. Plantevit Thesaurus Synonymicus Hebraico-Chaldaico, Latinicus. Lodovae Typ. Arn. Colomerii 1644. Tomi 4. 107. CL, 32 Jo. Her. Hottingerii Thesaurus Philologicus, seu Clavis Scripturae. Tiguri Typ. Jac. Bodmeri 1659; 333 Jo. Hen. Hottingeri Smegma Orientale sordibus barbarismi praesertim contemptui Linguarum Orientalium oppositum. Heidelburg 1658; 334 Jo. Hen. Hottingeri Promtuario sive Bibliotheca Orientalis. Heidelburg 1658; 1V92 [sic, but 1192] Jo. Hen. Hottingeri Grammatica Hebraica, Chaldaica, Syriaca, Arabica. Heidelbergae 1659. 108. CL, 6 Julii Bartoloccii Biblioth. Magna Rabbinica, de Scrip. et Scriptis Hebraicis, Latine, et Hebraice. Romae Typ. G. C. P. F. 1675. Tomi 4; 299 Caroli Jos. Imbonati Bibliotheca Latino-Haebraica. Romae 1694. 109. CL, 293 David de Pomis Dict. Italico-Latino Haebraicum. Venet. 1587; 412 Eliae Levitae Nomenclator Graeco Latino Germanicus. Frenekerae 1652. Attias’s catalog does not list a copy of Leone Modena’s Riti ebraici, one of the most wellknown seventeenth-century texts on Jewish customs directed at Christian readers. 110. CL, 444 Flavii Josephi Opera quae extant Jo. Hudsonus diligenter emendavit, et nova versione donavit. Oxoniae e Th. Sheldoniano 1720. Tomi 2; 445 ­Flavii Josephi Antiq. Judaicarum Interpetre Rufino. Ejusdem reliqua Opera diversis Interpretibus ab Erasmo recognita. Coloniae 1534; 547 Flavius Joseph Hist. de la Guerre des Juifs contre les Romains. Trad. du Grec en Francois par M. Andilly. Ams. 1703. Tomi 2; 548 Les Antiquitez Judaiques de meme trad. par Andilly. Ams. 1715. Tomi 3; 591 Gioseffo della guerra Giudaica. Ven. 1570. 111. CL, 35 Rabbi Moisis Maimonidis. Doctor Perplexorum a Jo. Buxtorfio in Lat. versus. Basileae 1629. 112. CL, 12 Philonis Judaei Opera, quae extant ex accuratissima Sigismundi Gelenii, et aliorum interpretatione. Francofurti 1691; 86 Philon Juif traduit en Francois a Paris 1619. 113. CL, 43 Rabbi Isaaci Abrabanelis Commentarius in Hoseam. Lug. Bat. 1688. 114. CL, 167 Leone Ebreo Dialoghi d’Amore. Ven. 1558. 115. CL, 118 Simon Luzzatto Socrate. Venezia 1651. Attias did not own a copy of Luzzatto’s Discorso circa il stato degl’Hebrei (Venice, 1638). 116. CL, 773 Isac Cardoso Philosophia libera. Ven. 1673. 117. CL, 841 Rabbi Abram Ispani Sphaera Mundi in Lat. versa per Oswaldum Scherekhensuscum. 118. CL, 622 Rosales fasciculus trium propositionum. Flor. 1654; 928 Rosales Fasciculus trium verarum propositionum Astronomicarum. Flor. 1654. On Rosales, see Studemund-Halévy 2004. 119.  Attias referred to the Histoire des Juifs et des peuples voisins, depuis la décadence des royaumes d’Israël & de Juda jusqu’a la mort de Jesus-Christ (Paris, 1726).

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Notes to Chapter Three 120.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 317; emphasis mine. 121. CL, 2 Quatuor Evangelia ex Latino in Hebraicum versa ab Jo. Baptista Jona. Romae Typ. S. Congreg. P. Fidei 1668; 3 Evangelia Araba cum Lat. Versione. Romae ex Typ. Medicea 1591; 4 Novum J. C. Testamentum ex Bibliot. Regia. Lutetiae ex Offic. Roberti Stephani 1550. Graecum; 25 [sic, but 15] Jo. Calvini Harmonia Evangelica, cum ejusdem comm. Oliva Rob. Stephani 1555; 16 Jo. Clerici Harmonia Evangelica, cui subiecta est Historia Christi. Amstel 1699; 21 Biblia Sacr. Vet. Editionis Sixti V jussu recognita, et Clementis VIII Auctoritate edita. Lugduni 1688; 22 Biblia S. Juxta Vulgatam editionem. Parisiis 1552. Tomi 4; 23 Novum J. C. Testamentum Hebraico Latino Graecum. Parisiis 1584; 24 Eliae Hutteri Nov. Testamentum Harmonicum, Hebraice, Graeco-Latine, et Grammatice editum. Amst. 1615; 27 Bernardi Lamy Commentarius in Harmoniam quatuor Evangelistarum. Parisis 1699. Tomi 2; 66 Novum Testamentum Graecum Versiculis distinctum. ­Parisiis 1582; 67 Novum Testamentum Syriacum. Antuerpiae 1575; 68 Evangelium secundum Matthaeum Hebraico-Latinum cum Notis Munsteri. Basileae 1552; 69 Jo. Alberti Fabricii Nov. Testam. Codex apocryphus, Hamburgi 1719. Tomi 2. 122. Trumpy 1967: 9. 123. CL, 60 Benetelli Saette di Gionata. Venezia 1703; 100 Melchior Palambrotti [sic] raccolta d’argumenti contro gli Ebrei. Ven. 1649; 47 Jo. Christoph. Wangeseilii vari argumenti exercitationes sex. Altdorfii 1687. On Palontrotti, see Busi 1985; Ravid 1983. 124. Nellen 2008: 808–17. 125. CL, 78 Hugonis Grotii de Veritate Religionis Christianae cum notis Jo. Clerici. Hagae Comitum 1716; 1140 Jo. Clerici Ars Critica. Ams. 1712. Tomi 3. 126. CL, 53 Richard Simon Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament. Roterdam 1685. Tomi 2. 127. CL, 544 Basnage Histoire, et Religion des Juifs. Roterdam 1707. Tomi 5. 128. Breuer 2008: 1007–8. 129. Ibid.: 1008. 130. Bregoli 2009. 131. CL, 1125 Biagio Garofalo Considerazioni sopra la poesia degl’Ebrei. Roma 1707. 132. Kugel 1998. 133.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 313. 134.  G. de Soria 1773: 14. 135. Mascagni 1967: 123–25. This was the first complete Latin translation of the Mishnah, prepared by the Dutch Christian Hebraist Willem Surenhuis (ca. 1664–1729). Magliabechi initially lent his own copy to Attias for a few months in 1702. The Livornese scholar ultimately secured the entire set for himself, see CL, 7 Guilielm Surenhusii Systema totius Juris Hebraeorum, Rituum, Antiquitatum, Legum Oralium etc. cum Cl. Rabbinorum Maimonidis, et Bartenorae Comm. integris. Quibus acced. variorum Auctorum notae in eos, quos ediderunt, Codices etc. Ams. excud. Gerhardus et Jac. Borstius 1698. Tomi 6. Attias owned another

Notes to Chapter Three text by Surenhuis: CL, 37 Guilielmi Surenhunsii Biblos Katallagês. Ams. 1713. On this edition see van Rooden 1999. 136.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 326. 137. Rosenbloom 1994: 150. 138. Cochrane 1978: 509–10. Lami engaged in the same discussion in Vienna with Giannone in 1727. Because of its date, it does not seem that this controversy was the reason for the inquisitorial accusations of heresy against Attias in 1728, although it may have contributed to exacerbate suspicions. 139. Israel 2001: 611, 675–76. 140. Jewish philosophers, such as Hasday Crescas, Joseph Albo, and Isaac Abravanel, discussed the matter in apologetic works and biblical commentaries (Rosenbloom 1994: 151–57). Abraham ibn Ezra, with whom Attias was familiar, referred to it in his commentary on Deuteronomy 32:39. 141.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 326. 142. Goldgar 1995: 196. 143.  Di Campli and Forlani 1995: 314; Salvini was a pioneer of Homeric studies, and a theorizer of the art of translation. Attias owned Salvini’s translations of the Iliad and the Odissey: CL, 727 Omero l’Iliade trad. in Verso sciolto Toscano da Antonio M. Salvini. Fir. 1723. Tomi 2.; 728 Omero l’Odissea trad. in Verso sciolto Toscano da Antonio M. Salvini. Fir. 1723. Tomi 2. During his sojourn in Florence in 1728 and 1729, Attias assisted Salvini through the illness that led to his death. Remembering his friend, Attias lamented that only after Salvini’s passing the people of Florence had started praising him; yet, little did they remember Galileo and Redi. 144. Cochrane 1961: 157–206. 145. Ibid.: 161. The statement was echoed by Scipione Maffei and others. 146.  Filippo Buonarroti acted as auditore delle Riformagioni e della Giurisdizione in Tuscany between 1699 and 1733. He is not to be confused with the homonymous Italian egalitarian and utopian socialist (1761–1837). 147. Cochrane 1961: 166. 148. Provasi 1940: 294. 149. Ibid.: 297. 150. Ibid. Aner is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 6:55 as a city of Manasseh, given to the Levites of Kohath’s family. The two Hebrew names in Attias’s letter are misspelled. The city of “Anar‘oer” should be read as “Ar‘oer,” one of the towns of the tribe of Reuben (Josh. 13:16), while Antarot should be read as “Atarot,” one of the cities of Arnon (Num. 32:3). It is characteristic of Sephardi Jews from certain communities to insert an n after the guttural ayin in their pronunciation, while n or ng, indicates the ayin in the traditional Italian pronunciation. It is curious that Attias reproduced the n sound in the written Hebrew spelling of the two cities. 151.  Attias owned a copy of Maffei’s Istoria diplomatica, and van Adrichem’s work: CL, 505 Scipione Maffei Ist. Diplomatica. Mantova 1727; 1045 Christiani Adrichomii Delphi, Theatrum Terrae Sanctae. Col. Agripp. in off. Birkmanica 1600.

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Notes to Chapters Three and Four 152. Sorkin 2001b: 9–10. 153. Freudenthal 2005: 332–33. 154. Wyrwa 2000 and 2003b: 78–79.

Chapter Four: Entering the Medical Republic 1. Ruderman 1995. 2. Friedenwald 1967; Efron 2001: 36–37. 3. Dubin 2012: 213–14. 4. Efron 2001: 64–104; Dubin 2009: 21–36. 5.  R. Toaff 1990: 383–85. The two most well-known examples are Elia Montalto and Jacob Rosales. 6. Ruderman 1995: 276. 7.  Ten Jewish students received medical degrees at the University of Siena between 1628 and 1695: Cooperman 1976: 294–95. 8.  R. Toaff 1990: 425 (Livornina 1593, ch. 19); Marangoni 1995. For a history of the University of Pisa, see Fabroni 1793–95; Storia dell’Università 2000. 9. Ruderman 1995: 100–117, 273–309. 10. Arieti 1998 and 2002; Colorni 1950. 11. Between 1617 and 1816, more than 320 Jews graduated from the University of Padua: Modena and Morpurgo 1967; see also Carpi 1986; Shatzky 1950; Soave 1876. 12. Ruderman 1995: 114–15. 13.  Ruderman and Veltri 2004: 7. 14.  Modena and Morpurgo 1967: 22, 46, 76, 80, 82. They were David Cuseres (1646); Salomon de Pas (1647); Moses Tilque (1687); Aaron Salinas (1717); Emanuel Calvo (1724); Michael Pereira de Leon (1725); and Abraham Oliveira (1728). 15. Ruderman 1995: 112–16. 16. Ibid.: 104–6. 17. Bellatalla 1998: 80. 18. ACDF, St. St., HH 2 c: 685–730; Prosperi 1999. 19.  Modena and Morpurgo 1967: 88–107. I have excluded from this count Jewish students who received licenses as surgeons in the absence of a doctoral degree. 20. Abbri 1999: 198–204. 21. Cochrane 1961: 110–56. 22. Bellatalla 1998: 80. 23. Cambi 1998: 40. 24. Bellatalla 1998: 76. 25.  Bandini and Mariani 1998: 68. 26. Pasta 2006. For an overview of the Italian situation, see Brambilla 1984. 27. Bellatalla 1998. 28. Carranza 1974: 250; Marangoni 1995: 155–57. 29. Grendler 2002: 178–80. 30.  For the text of the ruling, see Carranza 1974: 368–70. Ecclesiastical authorities customarily officiated during doctoral ceremonies for Catholic students.

Notes to Chapter Four 31.  De Soria graduated on August 27, 1754. 32.  Storia dell’Università 2000: 284, 339, 345. 33. ASFi, Reggenza 1051, ins. 7, published in Marangoni 1995: 187–88. 34. Cambi 1998: 40. 35. Marangoni 1995: 187. 36.  He received a stipend of eleven lire from the community to attend the Talmud Torah: DdG, book E: 103v (July 10, 1742). 37.  DdG, book F: 117v–118r (May 11, 1752, for Jacob Bondì); book G: 7 (July 2, 1754, for Angelo de Soria). 38. Marangoni 1995: 187. 39. Cochrane 1961: 110–15. 40. Sonnino 1935: 184–89; A. Toaff 1937: 186–92; R. Toaff 1990: 337–41. The large volume of communal deliberations concerning the Talmud Torah is now lost. 41.  In the two elementary courses, the students learned to read and write in Hebrew and Ladino, to recite the daily liturgy, and to read the weekly biblical portions for the synagogue service. In the two upper classes, they were introduced to the Aramaic translation of the Bible, biblical interpretation, and to the study of the Mishnah with the commentaries of Ovadia Bertinoro (fifteenth century) and Yom Tov Lipmann Heller (1568–1654), the Tosefet Yom Tov. 42.  Students approached the Talmud with Rashi’s commentary and the ­Tosafot. They were also introduced to Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, which they studied along with its commentaries; the Tur, the medieval halakhic code of Jacob ben Asher (1270–1340); and Joseph Caro’s Bet Yosef (1550–59). 43. Sonnino 1935: 186–87. 44.  A. Toaff 1937: 189. 45. Sonnino 1935: 195. 46. Ibid.: 189. 47. Cambi 1998; Bellatalla 1998. 48. Risse 1992: 171–78. 49.  Porter and Porter 1993: 2, 15. 50. Venturi 1969: 177–86; Cochrane, 1961: 167–68. 51. Muratori 1996: 89. 52. Ibid.: 93. 53. ASPi, Università, 110: 707r. 54. Marangoni 1995: 155. Padoa received his medical degree on October 30, 1754. 55. Efron 2001: 60. 56. ASPi, Università, 110: 707r. De Soria’s request of admission to the doctoral degree was approved on June 14, 1754 (ibid.). 57. ASFi, Reggenza, filza 1051, inc. 7 (unpaginated), published in Marangoni 1995: 187. 58. Marangoni 1995: 187. 59.  Laurea e sonetti 1754: 15; emphasis mine.

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Notes to Chapter Four 60.  For an earlier example of an oration delivered by a Christian academic mentor for a Jewish student, see Friedenwald 1967: 257–62. 61. Carranza 1974: 369; Marangoni 1995: 156. 62. Grendler 2002: 177–78. 63.  I was able to consult a copy of this pamphlet in the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; two leaves in this exemplar are missing (3–4 and 17–18). Despite the lack of the frontispiece, references to Verzani, as well as a manuscript note by Isaiah Sonne, provide evidence that he was the oration’s author. The pamphlet contains a bilingual address printed on two facing columns, in Latin and Italian. It also includes some sonnets, among which one in Spanish by Abraham de Bargas, and one in Italian by Isaac Bondì. 64.  Laurea e sonetti 1754: 6–14. The majority of the address is taken up by a dream vision. Verzani recounts how, struggling to find the words to praise his student appropriately, he sought inspiration by resting in a quiet place. Overcome by slumber, he was visited by Medicina, a “majestic and luminous” matron “who appeared like a Goddess,” garbed in a rich gown embroidered with figures of plants, animals, fossils, and metals, holding in her right hand a vase overflowing with “vital juices.” Stepping in for the advisor, Medicine itself described the young man’s training and achievements. 65. Ibid.: 7. 66. Ibid.: 8–9. 67. Brambilla 1984: 23–24. 68.  Laurea e sonetti 1754: 9. 69. Cochrane 1961: 43, 135. On Baglivi, see Crespi 1963. 70. Brambilla 1984: 77–80. On Cocchi, see Baldini 1982. 71.  Laurea e sonetti 1754: 10. 72. Brambilla 1984: 22–23; for a survey of the curriculum at the University of Padua, see Ruderman 1995: 107–8. 73.  The studies of Giambattista Morgagni (1682–1771), the father of modern anatomical pathology, were quickly incorporated into Tuscan medical science. 74.  Laurea e sonetti 1754: 10. 75. Ibid.: 12. 76.  Such as those of Herophilus, considered the founding father of empirical medicine, and the empiricist Heraclides of Tarentum. 77.  Laurea e sonetti 1754: 13. 78. Ibid.:14: he visited the Pisa botanical garden and read the studies of botanists Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, Pirro Maria Gabbrielli, and François Etienne Geoffroy. 79. Ibid.: 12. 80.  R. Toaff 1990: 425 (Livornina 1593, ch. 18). 81. ACDF, St. St., AA 2 a: 48r–49v (July 16, 1698); 87r–88v (February 23, 1699); 358r–359v (March 15, 1702). 82. Loevinson 1937b; R. Toaff 1990: 114: Moses Cordovero, who settled in

Notes to Chapter Four Livorno in 1597, received a license to treat Christian patients from cardinal Ippolito d’Este in 1637 after the archbishop of Pisa had denied him the possibility of doing so. 83. ACDF, St. St., HH 2 c: 402r (June 19, 1725). 84. ACDF, St. St., AA 3 b: 420r–423v (January 4, 1723). 85. ACDF, St. St., HH 2 c: 407r–413v. 86. Ibid.: 394r (August 20, 1725). In order to avoid visiting Christians in their homes, Jewish doctors had their patients call on them instead, an arrangement that appeased the Pisa Inquisitor. 87. ACDF, St.St., AA 3 b: 482r–483v (April 28, 1723); 671r–672v (June 2, 1723); St. St., AA 3 c: 70r–71v (August 10, 1724); 74r–75v (May 1, 1724); 217r (May 23, 1725); 244r–247v (June 5, 1725); St. St., AA 4 a: 7r–10v (February 24, 1728); 212r– 215v (September 12, 1729); 322r–323v (January 25, 1730); 356r–359v (April 17, 1730). 88. ACDF, St. St., HH 2 c: 405r–v. 89. Ibid.: 626r–633v (March 21, 1740). 90. ACDF St. St., AA 2 a: 161r–164v. 91. ACDF, St. St., BB 1 b: 782r–820v (Oct. 1757–Nov. 1760). 92. Marangoni 1995: 157–58, 165. Joseph Vita Castelli graduated on August 25, 1766, under the supervision of Giovan Battista Buonaparte. 93. Marangoni 1995: 156–57. 94. Ibid.: 157, 172. 95. Bellatalla 1998: 83. 96. Risse 1992: 150–54. 97. Lampronti 1776. On Jewish approaches to smallpox treatment, see Ruderman 2002. 98. Piperno 1846: 80. 99. Cochrane 1961: 136–7. 100.  J. Castelli 1774: 14–15. 101. Ibid.: 26. On Gentili see Morelli Timpanaro 1997: 9–48. 102.  J. Castelli 1774: 34. Gentili attested his approval of his colleague’s ministrations with a note published at the end of the pamphlet (35). 103.  The Swiss neurologist Tissot was famous for his work on experimental physiology, migraines, epilepsy, and other nervous conditions. 104.  J. Castelli 1774: 3–13. 105. Ibid.: 13. 106.  The verse does not correspond to the Vulgate and is a translation from the Hebrew. Accordingly, my rendition conveys the Hebrew instead of the Latin verb tenses. 107. Ibid.: 10–11. 108. Ibid.: 3–5. 109. Ibid.: 7. 110. Ibid.: 27–28. 111. Ibid.: 9. 112. Pasta 2006: 85–86.

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Notes to Chapter Four 113.  J. Castelli 1774: 9–10. 114. Ibid.: 10–11. 115.  Castelli referred to Relazione delle febbri che si sono provate epidemiche in diverse parti della Toscana l’anno mdcclxii, scritta per ordine . . . del Magistrato di Sanità della città e dominio di Firenze (Florence, 1767). 116.  J. Castelli 1774: 11. 117.  DdG, book H: 197 (September 8, 1770). 118.  DdG, book E: 129v (March 31, 1744); book G: 219 (August 15, 1762); book I: 55 (July 24, 1777). 119. Lampronti 1776: 74–75; emphasis mine. 120. Dubin 2009: 23. 121. Gori 2006: 131. 122.  J. Castelli 1774: 12. This statement seems to have provided the basis for Piperno’s account of Castelli’s never-completed project about a medical history of Tuscany. 123. Cochrane 1961: 115. 124.  A. Castelli 1766a. In the eighteenth century, events of national importance were increasingly immortalized by Jewish authors in public sermons, or in Hebrew or vernacular poems: Saperstein 1987; Wyrwa 2003: 111–22. On the participation of European Jews in “patriotic liturgy” and dynastic festivals, see Schechter 2003. 125.  For the educational role of formalized events see Burke 1978; for public festivals in Tuscany see Ravenni 1998. 126.  A. Castelli 1766. The Livornese chronicler Pietro Bernardo Prato also reported on the elaborate monument that the nazione ebrea erected in honor of the deceased ruler, BLL, Prato 1764–65 (vol. 1): 129–58. 127. Castello 1766: 54. 128.  Modena and Morpurgo 1967: 77. 129.  DdG, book I, 55 (July 24, 1777). 130.  Tomo quinto 1770: 120. 131.  Gazzetta Universale 1776: 406, 413. Although a medical degree in theory bestowed the ability to teach in all Christian universities, in pre-emancipation Europe Jews were not allowed to become professors. 132. Marangoni 1995: 170–71. Bondì graduated on May 24, 1785. See also Salah 2007: 96. 133. Brambilla 1984: 61–67. 134. Bondì 1785: 45–6. 135.  On Vaccà Berlinghieri, see Dini 2000: 670–73. 136. Bondì 1785: 28, 31–32, 35. Vaccà Berlinghieri attributed bodily inflammations to external causes, such as the infection provoked by a dirty needle or some foods and beverages (5). As treatments, Bondì prescribed remedies meant to reduce swelling and pain and increase blood circulation (40–42). 137. Prontera 1984: 811–12. 138. Pasta 2006: 95.

Notes to Chapters Four and Five 139.  For an initial overview of the large bibliography on Christian confraternities and charities in early modern Italy, see Terpstra 2000. 140.  Grell, Cunningham, and Arrizabalga 1999: 1–17. 141. Contini 2000. 142. Prontera 1984: 804. 143. Pasta 2006: 85–86, 95. 144. Eisenbichler 2000: 275–76. 145. Bondì 1785: vii. 146. Brambilla 1984: 34–35. 147. Ibid.: 46. 148. Biagioli 1993. 149. Shapin 2003: 178–83. 150. Efron 2001: 37; Benayahu 1978.

Chapter Five: Pious Care and Devotional Literature 1.  Grell, Cunningham, and Arrizabalga 1999: 1–17. 2.  Grell, Cunningham, and Roeck 2005. 3. Pasta 2006: 85–86, 95. 4.  On Jewish confraternities in early modern Italy, see Rivlin 1991; Horowitz 1987, 2000, 2001. 5. Rivlin 1991: 87–103; Israel 1998: 166–67. 6.  R. Toaff 1990: 268. 7. Ibid.: 260–68. 8. Ibid.: 258. The confraternity’s regulations are no longer extant, and most of the evidence about its organization comes from indirect sources. 9. Ibid.: 260. 10.  DdG, book E: 50v–51r (March 30, 1738). 11.  Capitolaçoems 1743: 52. 12. Contini 2000: 220–21; see also Prosperi 1996. 13. Contini 2000: 225. 14.  Albini and Daltri 1991: 98–99. 15.  Capitolaçoems 1743: 7. 16. Ibid.: 11. 17. Horowitz 2000: 153–54. 18.  The society included four “gabaym de temidim,” who were also in charge of distributing food to the sick; one “gabay para as Caixetas,” namely a supervisor over the donations; one secretary (neeman); one “depositario”; one shammash; and three general deputies (Capitolaçoems 1743: 15–16). 19.  Capitolaçoems 1743: 48–49. 20.  See Horowitz 1995. 21.  DdG, book H: 135 (March 10, 1768), 139 (March 29, 1768). 22. Pasta 2006: 83. 23.  DdG, book I: 55 (July 24, 1777).

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Notes to Chapter Five 24. Pasta 2006: 85–86, 95. 25.  DdG, book H: 197 (November 8, 1770). 26. Eisenbichler 2000: 275–76. 27.  On de Bargas, see Cassandro 1983: 116; Roth 1931: 10; Salah 2007: 66. 28.  DdG, book E: 129v (March 31, 1744); book G: 219 (August 15, 1762). In April 1766 the Sephardi community of Bordeaux granted a gift of sixty livres to a certain physician Bargues, possibly de Bargas himself: Szajkowski 1970: 769. 29.  A. Castelli 1753: 8. 30.  Lattes and Toaff 1909: 58–70; Busi 1995, 477. 31.  De Bargas 1746. 32.  DdG, book F: 17r–v (May 12, 1746). The ruspo was a golden coin, minted in 1736. It was worth three zecchini. 33. Weinberg 1991; Busi 1993. For an overview of Hebrew sources about Italian earthquakes, see Busi 1995. 34.  On the Lisbon earthquake, see the classic Kendrick 1956. Disasters such as earthquakes forced Enlightenment thinkers to grapple with preconceptions about the natural order and human agency. Among recent treatments of reactions to the Lisbon earthquake, see Braun and Radner 2005; on eighteenth-century interpretations of natural disasters, see Johns 1999. 35.  One such account was Pedini 1742. 36.  Distintissima relazione 1742. 37. Gentili 1742; Morelli Timpanaro 1997: 28–29. 38.  Lattes and Toaff 1909: 31–34. De Bargas’s pamphlet gave a detailed depiction of the devotional and penitential practices of Livornese Jews, who sought shelter in their synagogue, just as the Christian population of the port flocked to its churches: de Bargas 1742: 5–8. 39. Weinberg 1991: 72–73. 40.  De Bargas 1742: 9. 41. Ibid.: 11. 42.  Baglivi was influenced by Athanasius Kircher (1601–80), who in his Mundus subterraneus posited that underground fire-hearths caused movements on the earth’s surface when inflamed by sulphureous vapors: Oeser 1992: 24. 43.  De Bargas 1742: 11–12. Possibly, de Bargas was familiar with Leonardo da Vinci’s “neptunist” take on earthquakes and adapted it to his purposes. According to the Renaissance polymath (who believed the earth was full of water), earthquakes were caused by the violent encounter of air and water. They developed because rising mountains crumbled as a result of air trapped within the subterranean caves, which cracked the earth’s surface when escaping: Oeser 1992: 18–19. 44. Weinberg 1991: 74. 45.  De Bargas 1742: 10. 46. Ibid.: 11. 47. Pliny and Seneca were often cited alongside Aristotle: Weinberg 1991: 74–75.

Notes to Chapter Five 48.  On historical earthquake theories, see Oeser 1992: 18–26. 49.  De Bargas 1742: 12. 50. Weinberg 1991: 80. 51.  De Bargas 1742: 14. 52. Ibid.: 15. 53. Méchoulan 1985. 54. For two opposite positions on this issue see van Praag 1950: 19, and Méchoulan 1987: 70–71. 55.  De Bargas [n.d.]: 5. 56.  Nicetas; or, The Triumph over Incontinencie, translated into English by R.S. [Rouen], 1633; the story also inspired one of Cotton Mather’s sermons. Joseph Martinez de el Villar, trans., Nizetas; o, La incontinencia vencida (Zaragoza, 1701); Eugenio Gerardo Lobo (1679–1750) popularized the episode in his poem Triunfo de la castidad, y martirio de Nizetas (Seville, n.d.). 57.  I was unable to find any references to the name Sinocrata. In eastern European versions of the story of Nicetas, the martyr encounters a beautiful, unnamed lady, whom he persuades to respect his chastity. 58.  De Bargas [n.d.]: 57–74. 59. Ibid.: 75–87. 60.  On the genre of the Jewish sermon, see Saperstein 1992. For an overview of the Sephardi sermon in Spanish or Portuguese, with a focus on the Amsterdam production, see den Boer 1995: 213–68. 61.  Capitolaçoems 1743: 55; DdG, book E: 103v (July 10, 1742). 62.  M. de Soria 1751: 3–4. After the dedication, two sonnets by Abraham de Bargas and Isaac Bondì follow. De Bargas and Bondì also contributed sonnets to the publication in honor of de Soria’s medical degree. 63.  A brief homily on Vayetze (Gen. 28:10–32:3), the biblical parashah narrating the encounter between Jacob and Laban, introduced the topic. Following traditional aggadic interpretations, de Soria presented Laban as a symbol of the yetzer ha-ra, Rachel of the vida contemplativa, and Leah of the vida activa (ibid., 21–31). 64.  M. de Soria 1751: 11. The Sephardi tradition of bar mitzvah sermons, composed by adults or by boys turning thirteen, dates back to the seventeenth century, see ­Lieberman 2011: 155–58. 65. Ibid.: 84–85. 66. Ibid.: 82–84. 67. Ibid.: 42–43. 68. Ibid.: 63. 69. Ibid.: 92–93. 70. Ibid.: 36–37. 71. Ibid.: 40, 44. 72. Pouchelle 1990: 132; Porter and Porter 1993: 2. 73. Eph. 6: 11–17: “induite vos arma Dei ut possitis stare adversus insidias diaboli . . . propterea accipite armaturam Dei ut possitis resistere in die malo et

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Notes to Chapters Five and Six omnibus perfectis stare state ergo succincti lumbos vestros in veritate et induti loricam iustitiae . . . in omnibus sumentes scutum fidei in quo possitis omnia tela nequissimi ignea extinguere et galeam salutis adsumite et gladium Spiritus quod est verbum Dei.” 74. Dunlop 2001: 330; Soukup 2007. 75. Buckley 1995: 444–45. 76. Kottek 2001: 114. Renaissance Jewish engineers such as Abraham Colorni and Raphael Mirami were also known for their contributions to military technology. 77.  M. de Soria 1751: 45, 48–49, 52. 78.  The only example refers to the “public friendship” of the inhabitants of Tarentum with Pyrrhus, King of the Epirus, that caused a “well-known damage to the Romans” (ibid., 77). 79. Venturi 1969: 65–68. 80. For instance, by Castruccio Buonamici, Giuseppe Maria Mecatti, or Gianfrancesco Doria: ibid., 68–70. 81.  For a study of the circulation of information about military events in seventeenth-century Italy, see Dooley 1999. 82. Swetschinski 1982: 65–67. 83. Saperstein 1998. 84.  Den Boer 1995: 257. 85. Saperstein 1998: 127. 86.  M. de Soria 1751: 8–9. 87. Ibid.: 214–15. 88.  Y. Kaplan 1991; Endelman 1979. 89.  M. de Soria 1751: 215. 90. ACDF, Diari, XVII, 1749–63: 116. 91. ACDF, Prot., 1755–57, vol. II.a 85: inc. 131, 312r–314r.

Chapter Six: Coffee and Gambling 1.  De Brosses 1995: 125–26. 2.  On the complex nature of Livornese cosmopolitanism, see Fettah 2003. 3. Goffman 2002: 169–88 (only much later these organizations would be called millets); Hundert 1983. 4. Trivellato 2009: 70–101. 5. Ibid.: 72. 6. Darnton 2000. 7.  Van Horn Melton 2001: 240–51; D. Goodman 1998. 8. Habermas 1989: 31–43. 9. Among the most significant recent attempts to revise the Habermasian model of the coffeehouse is B. Cowan 2005. For a history of the coffeehouse, see Ellis 2004; on Jewish coffeehouses, see Liberles 2012. 10. Katz 1993: 136–37.

Notes to Chapter Six 11. Feiner 2010: 48–49. 12. Kahana 2013: 9–26. 13.  B. Cowan 2005. 14. Pincus 1995; B. Cowan 2001 and 2004: 23–26. 15. Smith 1995: 154–55; J. Goodman 1995. 16. Klein 1984–85 and 1997. For Klein’s influence on other historians, see Van Horn Melton 2001; D. Goodman 1994: 121. 17.  The rare comparative works on early modern European coffee shops demonstrate the difficulty of identifying traits common to a “typical coffeehouse”: ­Bologne 1993; Heise 1987; Reato 1999; and the classic Ukers 1935. For Parisian cafés during the ancien régime, see Isherwood 1986; Garrioch 1986. On German coffeehouses, see Bödecker 1986. For an assessment of Neapolitan coffeehouses, see Calaresu 2005: 161–65. On Venetian coffeehouses, see Reato 1991. 18. Calaresu 2005: 162–63. For a literary interpretation of the “purgative function” that coffee shops play in society, see Francioni and Romagnoli 1993: 481. 19. Wolff 2012: 86–88, 95–99. 20.  This practice was widespread in the Venetian Republic: Comisso 1994: 81, 122–24; Benzoni 1989; Fiorin 1989b. 21.  On Venetian coffeehouses as places of scandal, see Wolff 2012: 77–80. 22. Comisso 1994: 241, 247, 266. 23. Fiorin 1989a: 40–41, 44–45, 56–57. 24. Schivelbusch 1992: 38–39. 25. Horowitz 1989. 26.  Licit and illicit gaming also took place in English coffeehouses, such as the well-known White’s, a watering hole for the aristocracy, or the Cocoa-tree. In London, there is also some evidence of association between prostitution and coffee­houses (B. Cowan 2005: 253). However, even though certain English establishments were characterized by bawdy and unruly behavior, their exclusivity limited the occurrence of crimes: Berry 2001. 27. Addobbati 2002. The case of Venice is particularly well studied. In addition to Fiorin 1989a, see Walker 1999; Pilot 1916; Tassini 1961. 28.  B. Cowan 2005: 90; Reato 1991: 14. 29.  B. Cowan 2005: 90. 30. Liberles 2012: 69. 31. ASLi, Dogana, filza 44: 430. The appalto also forbade the sale of any other hot drink in the port. 32.  To the best of my knowledge, women are not mentioned in Tuscan or Jewish regulations about coffeehouses. 33.  For Jewish consumption of coffee in the Ottoman Empire, see Ben-Naeh 2005: 179–80. 34. Liberles 2012: 69; Swetschinski 1982: 62. 35.  R. Toaff 1990: 314–15. 36. Pera 1888: 142.

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Notes to Chapter Six 37. ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 3104: 580, 710v, 751. 38. Liberles 2012: 41–55. 39. Ibid.: 55–57. 40. Feiner 2010: 49. 41. Kahana 2013: 21–26. 42.  R. Toaff 1990: 312–13, 562 (Escama 31, 1655), 613–14 (Escama 6, 1677), and 634 (Escama 11, 1694). Licit games included the popular card games of picchetto, ombre, and minchiate fiorentine. 43.  DdG, book B: 40r (January 10, 1712). 44. Ibid.: 40v. 45. In 1641, Agnolo Azevedo appealed to Ferdinand II de’ Medici with the request to open a Jewish casino, but after the massari’s objection his request was denied: R. Toaff 1990: 310–11. 46.  DdG, book B: 45r–46r (September 26, 1712). 47. Ibid.: 56r (March 13, 1714). 48. Ibid.: 45v–46r. Molho’s customers were Samuel Ergas, David Aghiar, Abram Nunes, Abram del Rio, Aron Bocarra, Abram Ergas, Jacob Zacuto, Jacob Nunes, Moise Portello, Abram del Rios, Rafael Farro, Heschiau Zacuto, Samuel Nunes, and David Ergas. 49.  The games known as dado secco, bassetta, primiera and any games with less than eight cards were not allowed. 50.  DdG, book B: 51v–52r (June 13, 1713). 51. The casino opened for two hours before midday, and for about eight continuous hours in the afternoon and evening. 52.  DdG, book B: 56r (March 13, 1714). 53. Ibid.: 57r (March 13, 1714, referring to decisions taken on March 6). 54. Ibid.: 56v (March 13, 1714, referring to decisions taken on March 6). 55.  R. Toaff 1990: 634 (Escama 11, 1694). 56.  DdG., book C: 5v (November 28, 1715); ACEL, Rescritos 1715 a 1725, inc. 94–97: 316r–v, 317r–v, 318r, 319r. 57. ACEL, Rescritos 1715 a 1725, inc. 50: 186r (July 13, 1716). 58.  Ibid., inc. 28: 96r–97r (November 12, 1716). 59. Landman 1966–67 and 1971. 60.  DdG, book C: 67v–68v (December 17, 1720). 61.  On the issue of blasphemies pronounced during a game see Landman 1971: 367–68. 62. ACEL, Rescritos 1715 a 1725, inc. 94: 316r–317r–v. 63.  DdG, book C: 68r (December 17, 1720). 64. ACEL, Rescritos 1715 a 1725, inc. 96: 318r (December 21, 1720) and inc. 97: 319r (January 7, 1721). 65.  DdG, book C: 68r. I was not able to find evidence of such communication. 66. The 1694 regulation prohibiting games in public was reinstated on June 11, 1730.

Notes to Chapter Six 67. Addobbati 2002: 32–38. 68. Ibid.: 168–73. 69. Ibid.: 173. The first tariff amounted to six scudi, and permitted minchiate and card games with low cards; the second, more expensive, amounted to twenty scudi, and allowed a very popular, yet risky game called bambara. 70. Ibid.: 174. 71. Ibid.: 175–76. 72.  Trucchi was the name of another kind of game of billiards. 73. Addobbati 2002: 177. 74. ASLi, Dogana, filza 12, affare 46. 75.  Ibid., filza 11, affare 5. 76. ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 3105 (unpaginated). 77. Ibid. 78.  DdG, book F: 68v (May 27, 1749). 79. Ibid.: 73v (September 8, 1749). 80. Ibid.: 73v–74r. 81. ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 3104: 710v, 751. 82.  The set of communal decisions approved between December 25, 1755, and January 6, 1756, contained a chapter on jogo e paragems, and reiterated the old permission for Livornese Jews to play certain games in private Jewish spaces and in vineyards and orchards in the countryside, even if they were owned by Christians, but did not mention the Jewish coffeehouse. Any form of gambling in public was prohibited under the threat of excommunication: DdG, book G: 58 (December 25, 1755). 83. Ibid.: 232 (December 30, 1762). 84. Ibid.: 235 (January 30, 1763). 85. ACEL, Massari 1766, I, inc. 31, unpaginated (March 20, 1766); ASLi, Dogana, filza 13, affare 24. 86. ACEL, Massari 1766, I, inc. 31: Finzi acquired Guglielmi’s license (condotta), issued in 1762 and valid until 1771, against the monthly payment of 33 pezze; ASLi, Dogana, filza 12, affare 46. 87.  The Livornese massari prohibited gambling in this coffeehouse claiming that Finzi was a “subcontractor.” In his appeal, Finzi demonstrated that he had acquired a legitimate license from Guglielmi and argued that he would suffer “irreparable damages,” should the massari deny him the right to allow gambling in his coffeehouse “because of the burdensome payment” he had to disburse every month: ACEL, Massari 1766, I, inc. 31 (March 30, 1766). 88.  DdG, book H: 83 (April 27, 1766). 89. ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 3119, “Trasgressioni di gioco” (unpaginated). Their names were Raffaello Fattucci, Sabato Mieli, Leone Suschino, Daniel Fano, Vita Modena, Salomone Terracina, and David Procaccia. The eighth player, Ruben Pegna (the only Sephardi of the group) escaped before arrest. For a discussion of licit and forbidden games in Tuscany, see Addobbati 2002: 148–59.

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Notes to Chapters Six and Seven 90. Liberles 2012: 132. 91. ASLi, Gov. Aud., filze 3107, 3110 (unpaginated). 92.  Mascilli Migliorini 1997 and 1999. 93.  On March 14, 1771, Gio. Batta Gorzini established a new coffee shop in Via della Posta, called Caffè del Commercio. The older coffeehouse of Via San Giovanni was closed down to maintain the required number of thirteen shops: BLL, Prato 1770–71 (vol. 5): 204. 94.  BLL, Prato 1772–73 (vol. 7): 80–81; Addobbati 2002: 186–91. 95. Addobbati 2002: 151. 96.  Memoriale 1816: 245. 97.  For instance, the Republic of Venice closed down its official Ridotto at San Moisè in 1774. For a history of the Ridotto see Walker 1999. 98.  On Pompeo Neri and his administrative and reformist career in Tuscany and Lombardy, see Venturi 1969: 321–31, 432–42; 473–81; Diaz 1997: 140–44, 158– 65; Mascilli Migliorini 1997: 266–77; Verga 1999b: 41–44. 99. Addobbati 2002: 191. 100. In 1776 the government prohibited all bets on billiard games and three years later it drastically reduced the number of licensed halls, further curbing opportunities for popular recreation (ibid.: 192–93). 101. Salvadori 1995: 87. 102. ASLi, Dogana, filza 14, affare 109. See also BLL, Prato 1770–71 (vol. 5): 244–45. 103. ASLi, Dogana, filza 18, affare 101, 130. The shop was located in Via degli Ebrei ai Quattro Canti. 104.  Ibid., affare 52; filza 19, affare 17. The shop was located in Via degli Ebrei alle Trombe. 105.  Ibid., filza 19 affare 67; filza 23, affare 20, 42; filza 24, affare 34. 106.  Ibid., filza 22, affare 70. 107.  Ibid., filza 24, affare 57.

Chapter Seven: Commerce and Jewish Culture 1. Diaz 1978: 19. 2. Ibid.: 21–23; Fettah 2004: 186–87. On the decline of Tuscany during the last decades of the Medici government, see Diaz 1976: 466–545. 3.  The only broad survey on the subject is Sonnino 1912. My own analysis of eighteenth-century Livornese Hebrew printing is based on data culled from the Vinograd Index (Vinograd 1993, 2: 379–85) and from the Bibliography of the Hebrew Book [BHB], accessible electronically at http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/ English/infochannels/Catalogs/bibliographic-databases/Pages/the-hebrew -book.aspx (accessed February 8, 2014). See “Appendix: Bibliographic Data.” 4. Gremigni 1993: 19–21. 5. Heller 1998–99. 6.  Maracchi Biagiarelli 1965: 330.

Notes to Chapter Seven 7. Chiappini 1904: 20–22, 155–59. The first two imprints were a governmental announcement (bando) in Latin types and a Psalter in Armenian. 8.  By the date of the establishment of the Gabbay press in Livorno, Hebrew printing houses had been flourishing in Italy for almost two centuries. The best general introduction to the subject is still Amram 1909. 9. Diaz 1976: 465–545. 10.  Yedidiah was also known as Solomon Gabbay. The biblical King Solomon was also called Yedidiah, and the two names were often interchangeable for medieval and early modern Jewish men. 11.  On Gabbay see Sonnino 1912: 23–27; Heller 1998–99; Ioly Zorattini 2001. 12.  Ioly Zorattini 2009. 13.  Ioly Zorattini 2001: 500–502. 14.  Most commonly, printing privileges were issued by the state to printers according to the jus excludendi alios (right to exclude other people), which supplemented any jus utendi et fruendi (right to use an asset and enjoy its benefits) already enjoyed by the entrepreneur. 15.  The history of printing privileges in the Italian states has been customarily studied by jurists in relation to modern copyrights and patents. See in particular Stolfi 1915: 1–90 and Franceschelli 1952. 16.  Ioly Zorattini 2009 (January 16, 1645). 17. Ibid.: 33–37. 18.  Ioly Zorattini 2001: 502–6. 19.  Possibly one or two texts were published in Livorno between 1657 and 1740: a Ladino work of dubious attribution printed in 1703, and a liturgical work allegedly printed in 1701 (this book is no longer extant). 20.  Moücke additionally published a broadside in 1735, containing prayers for the sick composed in the Jewish community of Reggio. 21.  On Moücke see Tosi 1984; Morelli Timpanaro 1999. 22.  The first book Moücke put out was a reprint of a Livornese collection of prayers for the end of the Sabbath, previously issued by Gabbay. This Seder ha-mizmorim (1734) was intended for “the synagogues . . . of Sephardim in the Levantine congregations of Livorno and Florence.” In 1735 a mahzor for the High Holidays appeared, also according to the Sephardi rite. This edition was endorsed in Portuguese by the massari of the nazione ebrea, and included two approbations: one, signed by the most illustrious rabbinical figures in the Livorno congregation (Gabriel del Rio, Eliezer ha-Cohen, Joseph Attias senior, David Meldola, Jacob Lusena, Malachi ha-Cohen, and Moses son of Samuel ha-Cohen); the other, by the Florentine rabbi Judah Monselice. The last prayer book printed by Moücke, in 1736, was yet another Sephardi siddur, which included a collection of poems for the Jewish festivals and prayers for troubled times, Seder zemanim, composed by David Meldola, a Spanish translation of Pirke Avot, and a text of the Passover Haggadah. The edition included approbations by Gabriel del Rio, David Meldola, and Jacob Lusena, and by Judah Monselice.

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Notes to Chapter Seven 23. ASFi, Riformagioni, filza 82: 163r–168v (December 1, 1734). The Latin privilege also appears in Mahzor 1735: 3v and Seder tefilot 1736: 352v–352r. 24. ASFi, Riformagioni, filza 82: 165v. 25.  This amounted to fifty scudi for each transgression and each book. A governmental note publicizing Moücke’s exclusive privilege was registered in the Jewish community of Livorno only in 1736: ACEL, Rescritos 1734 a 1744, inc. 39: 424r. 26.  For the complete text of Bomberg’s privilege, see Fulin 1882: 106. 27.  In all Tuscan governmental documents pertaining to the development of Hebrew printing that I was able to survey, the Lorraine authorities refer to Hebrew and Rashi types as the sole element identifying Hebrew printing. 28. ASFi, Riformagioni, filza 89, inc. 255: 99v. 29. Sabbatini 1990: 161–64; Cassandro 1983: 90. Established in 1650 as an experiment limited to the port of Livorno, the paper monopoly was held by Jewish entrepreneurs until 1681. 30. Chappini 1904: 38–39. 31. Sabbatini 1990: 239–81 and 1992. 32. ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 822, inc. 174. 33.  Ibid., filza 820, inc. 47. 34.  The BHB database lists Ricci and Meldola as “printers,” and Isaac de Pas as “publisher.” 35. Sabbatini 1990: 258–74. The appalto was eventually assigned to a Tuscan entrepreneur, Pietro Serrati, and ultimately abolished on December 1, 1750: Sabbatini 1992: 123–24. 36. ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 820, inc. 47. 37.  His print shop was located on the fourth floor of a house in Via del Casone alle Quattro Cantonate: ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 900, inc. 881, n. 10 (unpaginated). For an overview of Meldola’s early printed editions, see Heller 2005. 38. Landi 2000: 345. 39.  The law was promulgated on March 28, 1743. On the background and outcomes of this legislation, see Landi 1999 and 2000; Morelli Timpanaro 1969; Rodolico 1910: 211–24. 40. AAP, Inquisizione, filza 29 (unpaginated). 41.  R. Toaff 1990: 425 (Livornina 1593, ch. 17). 42.  The standard formulation con licenza de’ Superiori featured on Hebrew and Latin book frontispieces included the inquisitorial permission (ibid.: 377). 43. ACDF, St. St., AA 3 b: 632r–633v (October 14, 1722). This is the only request on the part of an eighteenth-century Livornese author that I was able to locate, before or after 1743. 44. ACDF, St. St., AA 3 c: 83r–84v (June 28, 1724). Although the Mishnah was not included among the Hebrew books prohibited by the Catholic Church, its commentaries—the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud—were; such requests were bound to be ignored by the Holy Office.

Notes to Chapter Seven 45. On early modern censorship of Hebrew books, see Popper 1899; Raz-­ Krakotzkin 2007. 46.  Daniel Valentin, David Meldola, and Jacob Lusena, members of the p­ ublica Jesiba court of Livorno at the time. 47. Volterra 1740. 48. They were Alfonso Maria Alamanni, proposto and vicario of Livorno; Francesco Giovanni Mariani, vicario generale of the Holy Office in Livorno; and ­Girolamo Bonfini, auditore. 49. Laras 1978b: 101. 50. Heller 2005: 92–93. 51. This is confirmed by similar printed licenses found in later Livornese editions. 52.  Ioly Zorattini 2001: 504–5 (May 7 and June 15, 1646). 53. ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 900, inc. 881, n. 9 (April 7, 1742). 54.  Ibid. (June 28, 1742). 55. Rakover 1970: 2–17. 56.  On Malachi ha-Cohen see Lattes and Toaff 1909: 35–36. 57.  The cursive text is Italian in Hebrew characters; emphasis mine. 58. Duran 1742 (unpaginated). The haskamah was signed in Livorno in the year [5]502 (1741–42). 59.  The approbation was signed by David Israel Attias and Isaac Hayim ibn Dina de Brito, in the Jewish year [5]502 (1741–42). 60.  This periphrasis emphasizes the difficulty of Meldola’s negotiations. 61.  Duran 1742 (unpaginated). 62. Ibid. 63. Baron 1965: 135, 140. 64. Palazzolo 1999. 65. Fettah 2004: 182–86. 66. Palazzolo 1999: 317. 67.  On Giovan Battista Stecchi and the later joint printing enterprise StecchiPagani, see Morelli Timpanaro 1993. The editions were the Seder tziduk ha-din, a collection of prayers for the dead to be recited by those grieving at the cemetery, designed specifically for the Livornese community; a calendar; and a book of prayers for the end of Shabbat in honor of Gabriel Racah. 68. ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 900, inc. 881, n. 1 (unpaginated) (August 12, 1748). 69.  Ibid., n. 2. Stecchi obtained the right from the Grand Duke of Tuscany on May 6, 1745, and asked the Grand Duke for the permission to associate to his business his Jewish partner on June 14, 1748. Stecchi’s request was granted on July 4, 1748. 70.  Ibid., n. 3. 71.  The original documents are in ASFi, Riformagioni, filza 89, n. 255: 99r– 101v; filza 90, n. 286: 33½; filza 91, n. 513: 361–62; ASFi, Reggenza, filza 129: 370r; filza 131: 126r.

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Notes to Chapter Seven 72. ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 900, inc. 881, n. 4. 73.  Ibid., n. 8. 74. Ibid. 75.  Ibid., n. 13 (October 2, 1748). 76.  Ibid., n. 9 (April 7, 1742). The licenses had been granted by the proposto del vicario del Sant’Uffizio, the local representative of the Inquisition, and by the auditore of the government of Livorno. 77.  Ibid., n. 10 (May 7, 1743). 78.  Ibid., n. 9. Moücke had ceded his privativa unofficially to Giovan Agostino Ricci soon after 1736. It is unclear whether the Ricci mentioned by Meldola was Giovan Agostino or his former printing partner Clemente Ricci. 79. ASLi, Gov. Aud., filza 913, inc. 414, n. 2 (July 16, 1749). 80.  Ibid., n. 4 and 5: Meldola submitted his payment on July 30, 1749. 81.  Moses Attias acquired the monopoly over works in Hebrew and Rashi types after the mandate of Isaac de Pas expired; Attias began his printing activity in 1760. 82.  He brought to print three liturgical editions for Carlo Giorgi in 1768 and 1769: a prayer book for minhah and arvit in 1768, a prayer book for Shabbat, and a book for the Passover liturgy in 1769. 83.  The frontispiece of the Seder tefilat kol peh (Santini, 1753) mentions that it was printed with Isaac de Pas’s new letters (“be-otiyot hadashot shel yitzhak de mose de pas”); we find similar claims in two other texts printed by de Pas in the same year: the Sefer eshet hayil (Santini, 1753) (“heviu el ha-defus . . . r. yitzhak de mose de pas be-otiyot shelo”) and the Sefer lev tahor (Santini, 1753) (“nidpas al yad baal ha-defus be-otiyot shelo . . . yitzhak de mose de pas”). 84.  Isaac de Pas called himself baal defus in the two texts he printed for Fan­ techi in 1753, both of which he also composed: the Sefer hadarat zekenim (Fan­techi, 1753), an abridged version of the Concordantia hebraica, or Meir netiv (Venice, 1523); and the Sefer meirot enayim (Fantechi, 1753), an index to the Sefer ha-mitzvot by Maimonides. 85.  According to the BHB, at least 194 volumes were printed in Livorno from 1740 to 1789; according to the Vinograd Index, at least 203 works were printed during the same period (Vinograd 1993, 2: 379–85). See “Appendix: Bibliographic Data.” 86.  This comparative analysis, based entirely on the BHB, offers a general impression subject to a slight margin of error. 87. Chiappini 1904; Corrieri 2000; Lay 1973; Mangio 1993 and 1996; Morelli Timpanaro 1997: 85–99; Pasta 2002–3; Catalogo 1979; Mostra 1964. 88.  The Hebrew data are culled from the BHB database. My count of vernacular and Latin editions is based on the CEDL (Censimento delle edizioni livornesi) database, a catalog that identifies Livornese editions printed between 1641 and 1830, produced by the Biblioteca Labronica F. G. Guerrazzi and accessible electronically at http://pegaso.comune.livorno.it/easyweb/cedl/ricerche.html (accessed February 8, 2014).

Notes to Chapters Seven and Eight 89.  Based on CEDL data, between 1740 and 1749, seven publishers were active in Livorno: Appalto della Carta, Fantechi, Fortini, Giorgi, Masi, Piattoli, and Zecchini. 90.  On the status of Livorno as a free port, see Masson 1904: 160–83; on Jewish merchants and the exemption from custom duties, see Frattarelli Fischer 2003b. 91. Bregoli 2007–8; on Algerian works printed in Livorno, see Aminoah 2008. 92. Gianni 1790: 29. 93.  Mascilli Migliorini 1997: 295–303; Maitte 2002 (February 1 and 3, 1770). 94.  Mascilli Migliorini 1997: 296, and n. 3 95.  See also Gremigni 1993: 19–21. 96. ASLi, Governo, filza 2: 675r (August 30, 1766). 97. ASFi, Riformagioni, filza 94: 82r, 92v–93r; filza 99: 372r–373r. 98. ASLi, Governo, filza 2: 805r (October 18, 1766); filza 3: 82r (February 14, 1767). 99.  Ibid., filza 963: 168r (February 18, 1767). 100.  Ibid., filza 3: 104 (February 28, 1767). Around the same time, the governor of Livorno received a request from the three Latin printers then active in the port, Giorgi, Strambi, and Coltellini, who asked that the Grand Duke prevent any other entrepreneur from opening additional print shops in Livorno. In line with his antiprotectionist policy, the request was denied. The following September, the Grand Duke abolished the privativa over Hebrew and Rashi printing in the entire Tuscan state (ibid., filza 4: 114, September 8, 1767). 101.  Ibid., filza 963: 257r–v, 258r (August 31, 1767). 102. Ibid.: 256v. 103. Ibid. 104.  Ibid., filza 17: 319r (October 4, 1777). 105.  Ibid., filza 969: 193r–v (October 10, 1777).

Chapter Eight: Economic Utility and Political Reforms 1.  For an overview of the issue, see Sorkin 1987 and Schechter 2003, and the references therein. 2. Wyrwa 2003b: 43–66. 3. Gariel 1786. On Les Juifs see also Addobbati 2009. 4.  A Caffè Greco did not exist in Livorno in 1786 (pace Rossi 1988: 97–110), although the Greek Stefano Brecci managed the Caffè del Nettuno in Livorno at the time this fictional dialogue was published (ASLi, Dogana, 21, 53). It is possible that the pamphlet’s author wished to pay homage to Brecci’s establishment. 5. Ricuperati 1976. 6.  Francioni and Romagnoli 1993. 7.  On Pietro Verri, his collaborators and the Milanese environment of Il Caffè, see Venturi 1969: 645–747; Carpanetto and Ricuperati 1986: 341–53; Romagnoli 1993. 8.  Francioni and Romagnoli 1993: 12.

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Notes to Chapter Eight 9. Gariel 1786: 28. 10.  The later and more famous “Jewish play” by Lessing is Nathan the Wise (1779). 11. Ritter-Santini 1997: 340; De Felice 1955: 687–88. 12.  Lessing’s play was translated into French in 1772 and in 1781: Genton 1988. On Migliaresi and his translation see also Addobbati 2009: 179–82. 13.  Migliaresi maintained reading rooms in Pisa and Livorno and sold French journals as soon as 1795: Mangio 1974: 98; Vicentini 1939: 47. Considering ­Migliaresi’s political leanings and the established Livornese tradition of Enlightenment printing, it is not surprising that Lessing’s play received its first Italian translation in the port city. 14. Genton 1988: 15–17. Genton was unaware of the 1786 Italian translation of Die Juden and assumed that the Livornese imprint was fictitious. 15.  Les esclaves livournois a Alger: Comédie en deux petits actes par l’auteaur [sic] du dialogue au Caffè du Grec. A Livourne chez Jean Vincent Falorni, 1786. This work was meant to be bound together with Les Juifs. 16.  On the frontispiece, Gariel dubbed himself “Citoyen de Paris, ci devant Caissier de Monsieur frère du Roi de France [Citizen of Paris, formerly cashier of the King of France’s brother],” possibly an ironic reference to the French economic reforms pursued by Necker, which led to the firing of many public administrators. The name François Gariel also appears on a pamphlet published in Venice in 1783, Remerciement d’un bon piemontais a monsieur *** . . . par M. F.ois Gariel, Citoyen de Turin, Membre d’aucune Académie, qui prend pour devise celle si connue . . . avec la description de la réception des comtes du nord a Turin, de l’opera donné a cette occasion, & du sejour & depart de ces princes pour la France. This fuels speculations that Gariel may have been a Piedmontese expatriate living in Tuscany. The definition Citoyen de Turin reminds of Citoyen de Paris and suggests deliberate irony. 17.  Spelling singularities and numerous wrong accents suggest that the author was Italian—although they could be typos due to the ignorance of the printing press workers. 18.  Precise references to Tuscan topography suggest that Gariel was very familiar with Pisa and Livorno. 19.  On de Coureil see Pera 1867: 31–33. 20. Mangio 1991: 81. The academy was disbanded in 1793 by the authorities who feared the “revolutionary” spirit of its members. 21.  De Coureil 1819: 3–8. 22. Cioni 1962. It was through Aubert that Beccaria was able to print his Dei delitti e delle pene in Livorno. He also oversaw the publication of the second Tuscan edition of the Encyclopédie: Lay 1973. For Aubert’s relationship with the Livornese Jewish community see A. Toaff 1933: 377–78. 23.  On Michell, see Pera 1888: 436–38; A. Toaff 1933: 375–77. Michell is also known for his Jacobin activity at the end of the century (Mangio 1974: 200–203).

Notes to Chapter Eight 24. See Composizioni poetiche 1788. The collection contained poems by Aubert and other members of the Polentofagi, as well as by Michell himself. Michell met Salvatore de Coureil and the two carried on an epistolary exchange in 1793: Rubbi 1796: 215–16, 222–23, 232, 239–40, 254–56, 268–69, 277–78, 285, 294, 325, 343. 25. Lea 1991; Och 1992. 26.  Van Cleve 1986: 109–36. 27.  W. Goetschel 2003: 64–67; Horowitz 1994: 109. 28. Lessing 2002: 22–23. 29. Ibid.: 29–30. 30. Ibid.: 52. 31. Ibid: 53. 32.  Van Cleve 1986: 122–23. 33. Ibid.: 127. 34. Ibid.: 128–29. 35. Ibid.: 7. 36. Ibid.: 14–15. 37. Lea 1991: 170; Addobbati 2009: 189–90. 38.  It is possible that the author of Les Juifs was aware of Michaelis’ critique and of Mendelssohn’s defense of Lessing’s play: Addobbati 2009: 193, 205. 39. Gariel 1786: 10. Later in the dialogue, the baron’s daughter was also flagged as not credible. 40. Ibid.: 11–12. 41. Ibid.: 12. 42. Lessing 2002: 52. 43. Gariel 1786: 13. 44.  This is the first reference in the dialogue to the fact that Jeremie and Jonas are Jewish. Until that moment, they could have been just as easily two learned Catholic men of letters. 45. Gariel: 14. 46. Ibid.: 27. 47. Horowitz 1994: 108. 48. Ibid.: 110. 49. Gariel 1786: 15. 50. Ibid.: 16. 51. Ibid.: 24–26. 52.  R. Toaff 1990: 431 (Livornina 1753, ch. 42); Cooperman 1976: 298–99. The chapter was confirmed in 1683 and again in 1751, under the proviso that the Christian wet-nurses receive a certificate of faith and religious education from the ecclesiastic authorities: Pera 1899: 293. 53.  The wording in the Livornina’s chapter that granted Jews the ability to keep Christian servants “in the same way as it is practiced in Ancona, Rome, and Bologna,” all centers located within the Papal States, is puzzling. By 1593, the Jews of Ancona and Rome were ghettoized and surely had few Christian servants, if any,

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Notes to Chapter Eight while Jews had been expelled from Bologna in 1569. One must assume that the Livornina in these clauses is being disingenuous, acting as though theory reflected reality: see Stow 1977 and Linder 1997. 54.  This controversial motif was echoed with some hostility by French observers: Mangio 1978: 315–18. English travelers to the port, on the other hand, were not as shocked by the freedom of Livornese Jews: Curreli 2004. 55. Gariel 1786: 19–20. 56. Ibid.: 21. 57. Ibid.: 23. 58.  It is curious that the city of Metz is mistakenly taken for Prussian; while close to the Prussian border, Metz was in the French province of Lorraine at the time. 59. Ibid.: 28–30. 60.  It remains a matter of speculation whether the author of the pamphlet was familiar with the situation of late eighteenth-century Jews in other parts of Italy, where their conditions ranged from the miserable squalor of the ghetto of Rome to the culturally vibrant, but still ghettoized, life in the communities of Modena and Mantua. If he was, there is no mention of that in the work. 61. Dubin 2006. 62. Gariel 1786: 30. 63.  This status was recapitulated in the secret instructions sent from the central authorities to the governor of Livorno on April 26, 1774: R. Toaff 1990: 47; Dubin 2006: 53–54. 64.  On the Italian debates over the granting of the rights of citizenship to Jews, see de Felice 1955; Luzzatto Voghera 1998: 37–63, 113–33. 65. Wyrwa 2003b: 63. 66. Karp 2008: 12–93. 67. Ibid.: 16. 68. Ibid.: 1–11. 69. Ravid 1978 and 1982. 70. Ravid 1991: 138–62. 71. Diaz 1997: 58, 108–18. 72. Fox-Genovese 1976; for a study of Tuscan political economy, see Wahnbaeck 2004: 71–135. 73. Diaz 1978: 19. 74.  Important excerpts of governmental discussion of the legal status of the nazione ebrea in 1752 and 1772 can be found in Mangio 1995b: 12. 75. Wahnbaeck 2004: 83–88, 92. 76. Ricuperati 1976: 296. 77.  On the Livornese periodical press see Gremigni 1996. Livorno was also the center of a business information network (McCusker and Gravestejin 1991: 253–63). A commodity price current and an exchange rate current dated from as early as 1627.

Notes to Chapter Eight 78.  Magazzino Italiano 1753, vol. 3: 9 (March 25, 1753). 79. Ibid.: 52–53. 80. Freudenthal 2005. 81. Karp 2008: 91–93. 82. In The Spectator 495 (September 27, 1712), Addison likened the Jews to “the Pegs and Nails in a Great Building, which, although they are but very little valued in themselves, are absolutely necessary to keep the whole Frame together.” This analogy was later on echoed in Encyclopédie 1765: 24–25 (s.v. “Juif ”) and reiterated by Jewish apologists such as Israel Bernard de Valabrègue of Bordeaux in his ­Réflexions d’un Milord (1767): Schechter 2003: 115–19. 83. Barzilay 1969. 84.  These calls for Jews to abandon commerce and take up crafts and manufacture did not originate in the eighteenth century. Martin Luther advocated for this change in his On the Jews and Their Lies (1543), and so did exponents of German Pietism in the following century: Karp 2008: 110–11. 85. Ibid.: 93. 86. Ibid.: 94–106. 87. Liberles 1989: 25–28. 88. Schechter 2003: 87–95; Goldstein Sepinwall 2007. 89. Karp 2008: 112–22, 132–34. 90. Dubin 1998 and 1999: 133–34. The Alsatian Jewish leader Berr-Isaac Berr, writing after the French Revolution, also advocated a shift from commerce to manufacture and agriculture: Lerner 2001: 202–5. 91.  For the case of Modena, see Francesconi 2010. 92. Diaz 1978: 21–22. 93. Barzilay 1969: 80–81. 94. Karp 2008: 22, 36–37. 95.  I use the term citizenship here to refer to the right of political representation enjoyed by a limited number of individuals in a hierarchical society of estates and orders. I am not referring to the modern notion of national citizenship that emerged only in the aftermath of the French Revolution, as the institutional articulation of the relationship between equal citizens and the national state that represents them. On theories of citizenship in the premodern period, see P. Costa 1999 and 2002. 96. Sordi 1991. 97.  Women who owned property were allowed to participate in the elections. If selected, they were required to indicate a male substitute or to decline the appointment after paying a standard fee. 98.  For an overview of the communal reforms in Livorno, see Mangio 1995a. On the admission of a Jewish deputy, see Gavi 1995; Verga 2001; Dubin 2006: 64–67; Bregoli 2010: 317–23. 99. Verga 2001: 1049. 100.  Among the rich literature on the French and Prussian debates about Jew-

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Notes to Chapter Eight ish emancipation, see Hertzberg 1968; Schechter 2003: 18–109; R. Robertson 1999; Bernardini 1992. 101. Verga 2001: 1048, 1053–57. 102. Pipes 1975: 11; Klier 1976: 512, and 1989: 126. 103. Klier 1989: 126. 104. Pipes 1975: 13–14. 105. Klier 1989: 127. 106. Cochrane 1961: 53. 107.  The text of the Grand Duke’s motuproprio can be found in Gavi 1995: 262 (July 7, 1778). 108. Piselli 2007: 99. 109. Verga 2001: 1061–62. 110. Mano 2012. 111.  Frattarelli Fischer 1983. 112. Gavi 1995; Verga 2001: 1057–58. 113.  Ferrara degli Uberti 2007. 114. Mangio 1995a: 92–107; Gavi 1995: 256–57. 115.  The first Jewish representatives were Eleazar Recanati (1780, 1783, 1786, 1787), Jacob Aghib (1781), Moses Aghib (1782), David Franco (1784, 1785), Jacob Bonfil (1788 and 1789). 116. Gavi 1995: 252. 117. Ibid.: 254, 270–71. 118. Ibid.: 254. 119. Ibid.: 264 (October 11, 1779). 120. Ibid.: 265. 121.  P. Costa 2002: 30. 122. Hertzberg 1968: 360. 123.  When the French National Assembly emancipated the Jews of France in September 1791, the revolutionaries gave concrete affirmation to the principle proposed by Clermont-Tonnerre. With the emancipation of individual Jews as equal French citizens came the unavoidable end of Jewish communal autonomy. 124. Gavi 1995: 266; Dubin 2006: 65. 125.  On the coexistence of multiple views of “citizenship” and political participation in the early modern period, see P. Costa 1999: 73–80. 126.  P. Costa 1999: 5–94 and 2002: 31. 127. Schechter 2003: 165–78. 128. Ibid.: 165, 169. 129. Malino 1981: 111–13. Jewish attitudes toward the retention of communal autonomy changed only after the French Revolution identified nationality with citizenship, eliminating for the Jews the possibility of retaining their ancient juridical and communal autonomy. 130. Gavi 1995: 267. 131. Ibid.: 269.

Notes to Chapter Eight 132. Ibid.: 257 (March 20, 1780). 133. The motuproprio was issued on April 20, 1789. 134. Gavi: 251. Grand Duke Leopold II promulgated a new constitution (­statuto) in 1848, guaranteeing the legal and political emancipation of all Tuscan Jews, which was however abolished in 1852. 135. The penchant for theater of early modern Italian Jews is well known: Schirmann 1964. On Jewish actors and playwrights during the eighteenth century see Feingold 1995 and Procaccia 2001. 136. ASLi, Governo, filza 43, inc. 728: 138–226. For a different interpretation of the case see Filippini 1998, vol. 3: 311–12; Mangio 1995a: 117. 137. ASLi, Governo, filza 1214: 456, 494; DdG, book K: 38 (September 14, 1788), 39 (September 16, 1788), 41 (October 21, 1788), 65 (March 29, 1789), 68 (April 4, 1789). Isach Abudaram was elected massaro on October 21, 1788. 138.  R. Toaff 1990: 314; Hernando Álvarez 1994. 139. ACEL, Rescritos 1726 a 1734, inc. 75: 344r. AAP, Cancelleria, 18–14 (unpaginated). See also Pera 1888: 348. 140. Mazzoni 1989a: 86. 141.  The entrepreneur Piero Gaetano Bicchierai, who had bought out the San Sebastiano between 1773 and 1778, sold the old theater to the Jewish businessman Paltiel Semach (ASLi, Governo, filza 43, inc. 728: 163r–172r). 142. Mazzoni 1989b: 91–94. 143. ASLi, Governo, filza 43, inc. 728: 163r–172r. 144. Ibid.: 188r–193r. They were the brothers Aghib; Salvadore and Lazzero (Eliezer) Recanati; Samuel Miranda; Abram Carvaglio; Isac son of Salomon Coen; Jacob Bonfil; David son of Raffael Franco; and Aron Vais Villa Reale. 145. ACEL, Massari, 1789, inc. 73. 146. Ibid.: 168r–172r. 147. Ibid.: 208v–209r. 148. ASLi, Governo, filza 43, inc. 728: 140r. 149. Ibid.: 172r. 150. Sonnino 1937: 23–29; di Porto 1984: 807–11. 151.  On the Viva Maria riots see Turi 1969 and Mangio 1974: 1–36. 152. Sonnino 1937: 27–29. 153. ASLi, Governo, filza 43, inc. 728: 138r–139r (March 10, 1791). 154. Ibid.: 161v. 155. Ibid.: 157v–158v. Whether gentile or Jewish, box-owners who were not members of the Avvalorati were excluded from participating in the events organized in the theater’s ballroom. 156. Ibid.: 158v. 157. Ibid.: 174r–179v. As one of the members of the Avvalorati was to hold a “policing office” within the theater, the possibility of having a Jew in charge would expose him to the offenses of those “uncultured and imprudent people who fill the [theater] pit in Livorno.”

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Notes to Chapter Eight, Conclusion, and Appendix 158. Ibid.: 180r. 159. Ibid.: 181r. 160. Sorkin 1999; Dubin 2005. See, however, Monaco 2009, for a critique based on evidence from the Caribbean. 161. Sorkin 2001a: 37–38, 40, 42. Recently, Sorkin has further nuanced his differentiation introducing the concept of “corporate parity” and “civic parity” in privileges. The first applies to Jews in certain Italian locales, such as Livorno; the second to the Jews of London and Amsterdam: Sorkin 2010.

Conclusion: Enlightenment and Emancipation 1. Benayahu 1978; Ruderman 2010: 198–200. 2. Sorkin 2001b. 3. Ruderman 2000. 4. Dubin 1999: 124–33. 5. Israel 1998: 210–11. 6. Sutcliffe 2000. 7. Malino 1978: 1–26. 8. Endelman 1979: 16; Swetschinski 2000: 10–25; Ruderman 2000. 9. Dubin 1999: 223–24; Grassi 1994; Bernardini 1996: 105–62. 10.  Luzzatto Voghera 1998: 113–85. 11. Dubin 1999: 206, 211. 12. Sorkin 2001a: 38, 40, 42. 13.  Ferrara degli Uberti 2007, 2011.

Appendix 1.  The BHB is accessible electronically at http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/ English/infochannels/Catalogs/bibliographic-databases/Pages/the-hebrewbook.aspx (accessed February 8, 2014); Vinograd 1993, 2: 379–85. 2. Amory 2005.

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Index

Note: Locators in italics indicate pages with tables. Family names that include della, de, or de’ sort under the second element of the name except for names of royalty and nobility, which sort under the given name. Abraham ibn Ezra, 87 Abudaram brothers, 233–36 academies, 53, 70–71, 110, 174, 210–11, 263n84. See also Accademia degli Avvalorati Accademia degli Avvalorati, 233–36 acculturation, Jewish, 2–8, 96, 99, 240; Amsterdam, 241; integration vs. separation, 15–19, 22–23, 180, 208, 242; Livorno, 18, 34, 238, 242; London, 32. See also integration, cultural; under individual names, especially Attias, Joseph Achris, Isaac, 204 Addobbati, Andrea, 157 Aghib, Anna, 15–16 Aghib, Jacob, 15–16, 40, 228–31, 233–34 Aghib, Moise, 233 Aghib brothers, 233–36 agriculture, promotion of, 35, 219–21 Allegra, Luciano, 62 Amsterdam, 29, 32–33, 193; acculturation, Jewish, 241; demographics, 257n95; Hebrew printing/publishing, 199–201 ancien régime societies, 114, 184, 226–29, 244 Ancona, 6, 20–21, 24, 65, 293–94n53 anti-commercial doctrines, 220–21, 295n84 anti-Jewish riots, 234 antiquarian collections and studies. See historical studies apothecaries, 73, 135 approbations, rabbinic (haskamot), 192–94 Aristotelianism and anti-Aristotelianism, 68, 71–72, 76, 80, 140, 265–66n17 Ashkenazi Jews. See Jews, Ashkenazi assembly, communal, 28, 31, 257n83

atomism, 71–72, 75–76, 78 Attias, Abram, 43–44 Attias, David, 18 Attias, Jacob, 48, 66 Attias, Joseph, 13, 40–95, 60–61; aspirations, 53–56; autobiographical writing, 51–55; Cestoni and, 73; correspondence, 44–48, 51, 55–57, 69– 70, 89; culture, approach to, 69–70, 84– 85; in Florence, 53, 57–58, 61–62, 72–74; Gentili and, 48, 66–67, 77–78, 268n56; halakhic knowledge and service to the community, 56–59, 263n99; inquisitorial investigations, 62–66, 77, 273n138; intellectual pursuits and relationships, 43–47, 53, 70–77, 84–88; on kabbalah and magical literature, 81–83; Lami and, 89; library holdings, 43–44, 48–50, 66, 262n58, 265n140; 266nn31; library holdings (by descriptor): cataloguing of, 66–67, 74; English books, 47–50, 262n67; French books, 48, 50; Hebraic studies, 85–88, 272–73n135; history, 43, 49; Jewish authors, 86; journals, 47; New Testament editions, 86–87; prohibited books, 48–50, 74, 79–80, 86; radical thought, 77, 79–80; rationalism, 77, 80–82, 89; scientific works, 74–76, 266n27, 267n46; Muratori and, 42, 47, 51–54, 56, 67, 76, 81; 82–83; Salvini and, 62, 69, 273n143; theological discussions, 55–56, 88–89; Vallisnieri, and, 75; Vico and, 42, 47 Attias, Moses, 199, 204–5, 290n81 Attias, Rachel, 44 Aubert, Giuseppe, 211, 292n22

331

332

Index autonomy, communal, 28–29, 224, 228–30, 242–45, 296n123, 296n129. See also assembly, communal; Livornina charter; nazione ebrea (“Jewish nation”) Averani, Giuseppe, 71, 92 Azulai, Hayim Joseph David, 33, 57 Bacon, Francis and Baconian methods, 74, 110 Baglivi, Giorgio, 110, 139 Baldasseroni, Pompeo, 227–29 ballottati and ballottazione system, 30, 257n93 Barbierato, Federico, 81 Bargas, Abraham de, 129, 136–43, 149–50, 276n63, 280n38, 281n62 bar mitzvah ceremonies, 143, 281n64 Baron, Salo, 3, 195 Bassi, Sebastiano, 46 Bayle, Pierre, 54, 79, 268n67 Beccaria, Cesare, 36, 201, 209 Bella, Simone della, 177 Belorussia, 224–25 benevolent societies (hevrot), 27, 127–29, 131–33, 135. See also Bikur Holim society; Gemilut Hasadim society Berlinghieri, Francesco Vaccà, 114, 122, 278n136 bet din (rabbinical court). See courts/court cases Biagioli, Mario, 125 biblical criticism, 84–88. See also Attias, Joseph: intellectual pursuits and relationships Bikur Holim society, 13, 119, 129, 131–35, 150, 279n18 billiards, 166, 175, 286n100 board games. See gaming Bolaffi, Aron, 167, 170 Bomberg, Daniel, 186 Bondì, Abraham, 121 Bondì, Adam, 104, 121, 131–32 Bondì, Azaria Vita, 122, 135 Bondì, Graziadio, 13, 40, 97, 121–25, 278n136 Bondì, Jacob, 107, 122, 135 Bonfil, Robert, 3, 22 book distribution and trade, 47–48, 186–87, 203. See also Attias, Joseph: intellectual pursuits and relationships; Hebrew printing/publishing; knowledge, dissemination of books, prohibited, 48, 50, 263n71, 288n44 Bordeaux, 242, 246; demographics, 257–58n95

Borro, Alessandro dal, 159 boundary crossing/policing, 34, 152–54, See also ethnic groups, integration/separation of Bourbon del Monte, Filippo, 171, 205–7 Brosses, Charles de, 68, 152 Buonarroti, Filippo, 91–92, 273n146 Buxtorf, Johannes (Sr. and Jr.), 85 Il Caffè (periodical), 209 Calzabigi, Giuseppe, 66 cameralism. See agriculture, promotion of card games and card playing. See gaming casini, 160–64, 284n51. See also coffeehouses; gaming Castelli, Abraham Isaac, 6–7, 27–28, 39, 119–21, 137, 199, 250 Castelli, Joseph Vita, 13, 97, 114–20, 125–26, 136 catalogs, book, 48–49, 66-67, 262n65 Catherine II, 9, 224–25 Catholicism and Catholics: anti-Jesuits, 72, 80; Livorno, 15–17, 60, 231–32; pietistic literature, 129, 141–42 (see also vanitas trope); provision of health and spiritual care, 128, 134–35; reformers, 74–75, 132. See also conversions to Catholicism; conversos and ex-conversos; Inquisition and Inquisitors; Jewish-Christian relations; state and Church censorship, 36; ecclesiastical, 64, 68, 189; of Hebrew works, 188–90; secularization of, 188, 190. See also books, prohibited Cerati, Gaspare, 71, 101–2, 107, 114 Cestoni, Diacinto, 55, 73, 76 Cheyne, George, 75 chinachina. See quinine Christian Hebraists, 84–85. See also Buxtorf, Johannes (Sr. and Jr.) Christians. See Catholicism and Catholics Church and state. See state and Church citizenship and political participation, 222–31, 245, 295n95, 295n97. See also emancipation; integration, civil; property, ownership Clermont-Tonnerre, Gaspard (Count), 228, 296n123 Cocchi, Antonio, 74, 110, 138 coffee and coffee drinking, 155–56, 158–60 coffeehouses, 153–80, 209–10; continental Europe, 156, 283n17; criminal behavior and, 159; English, 156, 283n26; financial aspects, 176–77; gaming and, 160, 163–65, 168–72; Italian, 156–57; Jewish,

Index Dubin, Lois, 5, 8–9, 217–18, 240 Duran, Solomon ben Simon Tzemah, 190

157–59, 167–72, 178–80; licensing and regulating, 157, 163, 165–66; women and, 159, 283n32 commercial utility, 10–11, 20, 207–8, 218–22, 232, 238, 245–46. See also emancipation; Jews, Livornese; Jews, toleration of; Livornina charter; mercantilism compartmentalization. See separation, cultural competition, 157, 173, 176, 182–84, 195–98, 203–7 confraternities. See benevolent societies (hevrot) conversions to Catholicism, 15–16, 21, 254n3. See also conversos and ex-conversos conversos and ex-conversos, 20–21, 98, 141–42. See also Bargas, Abraham de copyright. See approbations, rabbinic (haskamot) Cordovero, Moses, 131, 276–77n82 correspondence, scholarly, 50–51. See also Attias, Joseph: correspondence; Attias, Joseph: Muratori and; Attias, Joseph: Vico and Corsani, Giuseppe, 204–5 Cosimo III de’ Medici (Grand Duke), 30–31, 71–72, 265–66n17 Costa, Emanuel Mendes da, 55 Coureil, Salvatore, de, 210–11 courts/court cases, 22, 31, 196–98, 233–36, 264n112; non-Jewish, 58–59, 244; rabbinic, 22, 160 Cowan, Brian, 155–56 criminal behavior and criminals, 157, 159, 255n29, 283n26 Crudeli, Tommaso, 65 Cudworth, Ralph, 78–79

earthquakes, 133, 137–40, 280n34, 280n38, 280nn42–43. See also Fiel Relazion delos Terremotos education. See Jewish education educational opportunities/restrictions, 101–2, 107, 274n7. See also medical practice; professional opportunities/ restrictions Efron, John, 107 Eliezer ha-Cohen, 56, 83, 264n106, 287n22 emancipation, 9, 11, 237–38; French Jews, 229, 296n123; Italian Jews, 209, 232; Tuscan Jews, 246, 297n134. See also citizenship and political participation Endelman, Todd, 3, 240 Enlightenment, 1, 208; absolutism and, 9–10; education, role of, 106–8; French, 7; Italian, 7–8, 35–36, 38, 69, 95, 110, 201, 217–18, 239–40, 259n122; medicine, role of, 96, 105; political aspects, 35–36; traditional Judaism and, 4. See also Haskalah and maskilim; Jews, toleration of; reformist policies Epicureanism, 77–78 Ergas, Joseph, 27, 56, 83, 257n76 ethical works, 136–46. See also devotional literature; sermons ethnic groups, integration/separation of, 166–68, 236. See also boundary crossing/policing; nazione ebrea (“Jewish nation”) Etruscan civilization, 91 Euchel, Isaac, 18 excommunication, 29, 164, 170, 285n82

Dei delitti e delle pene, 36, 201 De rerum natura (Marchetti’s translation), 71, 78, 268n61 Descartes, René and Cartesian thought, 71, 75–76, 78, 80, 110 devotional literature, 127–28, 136–46, 149 Dialogo entre Sinocrata i Nizetas, 142–43 dialogue, interreligious, 99–100 Dictionaire Historique et Critique, 79, 268n67 Divre shalom ve-emet, 6–7 doctoral ceremonies, 108–9. See also laurea (celebratory address) Dohm, Christian Wilhelm, 208, 220–21 Donati, Donato, 47–48 Drexel, Jeremias, 142

Falorni, Giovan Vincenzo, 199, 206, 210, 250 Feiner, Shmuel, 3 Ferdinand I de’ Medici (Grand Duke), 21, 61 Ferdinand II de’ Medici (Grand Duke), 98, 184 Ferdinand III de’ Medici (Grand Duke), 246 Ferrara, 6, 21, 113, 240; earthquake, 138, 141 fevers, 118–19. See also tertian fever Fiel Relazion delos Terremotos, 138–43, 150 Finzi, Beniamino, 171–72, 285nn86-87 Florence, 37, 61–62, 173, 229. See also Attias, Joseph: in Florence Florentine Accademia del Cimento, 71 Francesco I de’ Medici (Grand Duke), 24

333

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Index Francis Stephen (Grand Duke), 10, 35–37, 101, 260n2; economic policy, 219; eulogies and honors for, 120–21, 278n126; licensing of coffeehouses, 157; printing/ publishing and, 188–89; reform of gaming, 165; support for science, 121 Francos (Italian Jewish elite), 18 freemasonry, 18, 65, 72, 266n30; books, 189; lodges, 77, 268n54 Frizzi, Benedetto, 96, 119 Gabbay, Yedidiah (Solomon), 183–84, 186, 191 Galiani, Celestino, 68, 74 Galilei, Galileo and Galilean tradition, 69–76, 78, 82, 93, 100, 120 gambling. See gaming gaming, 156–57; board and card games, 155–58, 160–63, 284n42, 284n49; halakhic concerns, 164, 169–70, 172; regulating, 157, 164–67, 169–75, 284n66, 285n69, 285n82. See also billiards; casini; coffeehouses Gariel, François, 210–11, 292nn16–17 Garofalo, Biagio, 88 Gassendi, Pierre and Gassendian ideas, 71–72, 75–76 Gay, Jonas (fictional character), 210, 213–17, 293n44 Gemilut Hasadim society, 100, 131, 133–34 Gentili, Giovanni, 48, 66–67, 77–78, 117, 138, 268n56 ghettoization and ghettos, 22, 130, 256nn43–45 Gian Gastone de’ Medici (Grand Duke), 63, 72, 260n2 Giannetti, Pascasio, 53, 71 Gianni, Francesco Maria, 222–26 Ginori, Carlo, 165–67, 185–86 Giorgi, Carlo, 206, 290n82 Goldgar, Anne, 44 good taste (judgment, accurate reasoning), 81–82, 86, 269n80 Gorani, Giuseppe, 19 governo (communal assembly). See assembly, communal; lay leadership Gradis, Abraham, 57 grand dukes, 125, 192–95. See also Cosimo III de’ Medici (Grand Duke); Gian Gastone de’ Medici (Grand Duke), Ferdinand I de’ Medici (Grand Duke); Ferdinand II de’ Medici (Grand Duke); Ferdinand III de’ Medici (Grand Duke); Francesco I de’ Medici (Grand Duke);

Francis Stephen (Grand Duke); Lorraine government; Medici family and government; Peter Leopold (Grand Duke) Grandi, Luigi Guido, 71, 265n13 Grégoire, Henri, 221 Gualtieri, Giovanni Paolo, 71 Guglielmi, Daniele, 171 guilds and professional associations (arti), 204, 221. See also printers and printers’ guilds Gumpertz, Aaron, 94, 220 Habermas, Jürgen and Habermasian model, 154, 156 hakham (rabbinic title), 57–58 Hapsburg-Lorraine house. See Lorraine government Haskalah and maskilim, 93–94, 96–97, 208–9, 240; in Italy, 5–8; in Prussia, 18, 221. See also Enlightenment; Wessely, Naftali Herz haskamot. See approbations, rabbinic (haskamot) Hauksbee, Francis, 75 health care, 115, 123–24, 128–29, 132. See also Bikur Holim society; inoculation; medical practice Hebrew language and literature, 32–33, 89–90, 92, 258n102. See also devotional literature; Hebrew printing/publishing; vanitas trope Hebrew printing/publishing, 14, 181–207, 199–201; in Florence, 185–88, 195–97; government intervention and protection, 194–96, 198, 205; legal and liturgical works, 187, 198, 201, 287n22, 289n67, 290n82; in Livorno, 195–98, 202, 207, 290n85; occasional literature and sermons (see sermons); reformist policies and, 204–6; regulating, 188–91 (see also licenses); in Tuscany, 182–89, 196–98, 287n19, 287n22; typefaces (see typefaces, Hebrew and Rashi) herem. See excommunication hevrot (sing. hevrah). See benevolent societies (hevrot) historical criticism. See biblical criticism historical studies, 81, 91 Hume, David, 55 hygienic practices, 118–19 identity, Jewish, 3–5, 55, 94–95, 242. See also acculturation, Jewish; Attias, Joseph; Gumpertz, Aaron

Index Ignatius of Loyola, 145 Illuminismo. See Enlightenment imagery, military, 144–45 immigrants, 24–25, 30, 255n34, 257n93. See also ballottati and ballottazione system; conversos and ex-conversos immortality of the soul, 89, 273n140 inclusion, political. See citizenship and political participation; emancipation individual rights. See citizenship and political participation inflammatory diseases, 122–23, 278n136 inoculation, 115, 119 Inquisition and Inquisitors, 16–17, 60–66, 112–13, 188–90. See also Attias, Joseph; censorship; state and Church integration, cultural, 15, 23, 40, 50, 114, 127. See also acculturation, Jewish; separation, cultural integration, civil, 208–9, 217–18, 237; Belorussia, 224–25; economic utility and, 11; France and Prussia, 223–24. See also acculturation, Jewish; emancipation; Enlightenment; Livorno: Jews and Jewish presence Israel, Jonathan, 68, 241 Issur ve-Eter committee, 57–58, 169–70 Italian language and literature, 32–33, 258n110 Italy, 16, 35, 68–69, 90–91, 188. See also Tuscans and Tuscany; under various cities, especially Florence; Livorno; Mantua; Trieste Ittieri, Marcellino, 73, 266n24 Jesuits and anti-Jesuits, 68, 72, 76, 132 Jesurun, Isaias, 163–64 Jewish-Christian relations, 34; economic and political aspects (see commercial utility; mercantilism: philosemitism); hostility and violence, 16–17, 60–61, 234; intellectual aspects, 50–51, 55, 108 (see also Attias, Joseph); social aspects, 159, 172, 179. See also acculturation, Jewish; Livornina charter; sexual relations Jewish demographics, 16, 30–31, 257–58n95, 258n96 Jewish education, 7, 87, 93, 103–4, 109–10, 275nn41–42 Jewish printers and publishers. See Hebrew printing/publishing “Jewish question.” See acculturation, Jewish; integration, civil Jews, Ashkenazi, 5, 9–11, 42, 93, 216, 229–30

Jews, Dutch, 29, 32, 242. See also Menasseh ben Israel Jews, English, 29–30, 32, 242 Jews, Italian, 30, 53, 96–98, 258n98, 263n84, 294n60. See also under various cities Jews, Livornese, 16–18, 28–31, 33–34, 60–61, 215–19. See also Livorno Jews, portrayal of, 18–19 214–15 Jews, Russian. See Belorussia Jews, Sephardi and Sephardi communities, 2, 18, 214, 242, 264n104; acculturation and, 3, 238; cultural aspects, 32–33, 39; economic aspects, 20–21, 26; political aspects, 29–31; printing/publishing and, 199–202, 201, 203, 287n22; religious aspects, 149, 187. See also Jewish demographics; “port Jew” model; under individual names, especially Attias, Joseph; Bargas, Abraham de; and Soria, Angelo (Mordechai) de Jews, toleration of, 16, 19, 217–20. See also emancipation; Enlightenment; Jews, Livornese; Joseph II Joseph II, 9, 208, 245 Die Juden (The Jews), 210–15 Les Juifs (pamphlet), 209–11, 213–16, 218 kabbalah and kabbalists, 27, 56, 82–83, 201–2. See also Ergas, Joseph; magic and witchcraft; Ricchi, Immanuel Hay Kahana, Maoz, 159 Karp, Jonathan, 218, 220 Katz, Jacob, 154, 178 Key of Solomon, 81–83 Kimchi, David, 87 knowledge, dissemination of, 46–47, 51, 99. See also book distribution and trade Krumm, Martin (fictional character), 211–12, 214 Ladino language, 198, 249, 258n102, 275n41, 287n19 Lagusi, Giorgio Hasenöhrl, de’, 117–18, 122–24 Lami, Giovanni, 89 Lampronti, Cesare, 115, 119 Lampronti, Isaac, 39, 126 Lampronti, Joseph, 177 laurea (celebratory address), 109–10, 276nn63–64. See also doctoral ceremonies lay leadership, 22, 28–30, 56–58, 131, 163–64, 171–72, 190–91, 257n83. See also assembly, communal; massari (lay leaders);

335

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Index tribunale dei massari (court of the lay leaders) Le Clerc, Jean, 47, 79, 87 leisure activities and recreation, 154–55, 178. See also coffeehouses; gaming; nazione ebrea (“Jewish nation”); sociability Lenghi, Jacob, 177 Leopold II. See Peter Leopold (Grand Duke) Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 28, 210–15, 217 Lettera medico-critica, 117–19 Levi, Haim di Samuel (Caino), 176–77 liberalization. See reformist policies Liberles, Robert, 159, 172 licenses: coffeehouses (see coffeehouses: licensing and regulating); gaming (see gaming: regulating); medical, 112–13; printing and publishing (privative), 181–82, 184, 188–91, 203–6 (see also approbations, rabbinic [haskamot]) literary tropes, 141,145. See also imagery, military; vanitas trope liturgical works. See Hebrew printing/ publishing Livornina charter, 2, 20–21, 208, 232, 259n117; abolition of, 246, 255n29; books and printing, 183, 189; confirmation of, 37, 221; doctoral degrees, 98; domestic help, 215, 293–94nn52–53; economic incentives, 22; jurisdictional autonomy, 22; medical practice, 112; perception of, 64, 205; property ownership, 22, 225; protection from ecclesiastical control, 21–22, 61, 255n34. See also commercial utility Livorno, 1–4, 167; cultural and intellectual aspects, 36, 154–55; demographics, 24–25, 31–32; economic and political aspects, 20, 24–26, 37, 152–53, 195 (see also municipal reforms); Jews and Jewish presence, 2–4, 7, 10–11, 16–23, 208–38, 257–58n95 (see also Livornina charter). See also Jews, Livornese; nazione ebrea (“Jewish nation”) London, 26, 29; acculturation, Jewish, 32; coffeehouses, 156, 163, 283n26; demographics, 257–58n95; earthquake, 138 Lorraine government, 35–37, 63–65, 128–29, 132–33, 165. See also grand dukes; Tuscans and Tuscany Lunel, Rafael, 163 Luzzatto, Simone, 218–19, 222 Maffei, Scipione, 90–92 Magalotti, Lorenzo, 79, 268n65

magic and witchcraft, 81–82 Magliabechi, Antonio, 42, 45, 47, 52, 55, 88, 260n12, 272n135 Malachi ha-Cohen, 27, 137, 192–94 malaria. See tertian fever Malino, Frances, 230 Mantua, 6, 16–17, 22, 61, 113, 119, 200–201, 244 Marchetti, Alessandro, 71, 78 Marcone, Sebastiano, 171 Marcus, Ivan, 3 Marini, Shabbetai, 39, 126 Martini, Georg Christopher, 41–42, 87 maskilim (“Jewish enlighteners”). See Haskalah and maskilim massari (lay leaders), 28–30, 190, 258n100, 263n97. See also lay leadership; Livornina charter; nazione ebrea (“Jewish nation”) medical assistance. See health care medical practice, 96, 115–16, 123–24, 128, 266n27, 276n73; histories and literature, 115–19, 278n122 (see also imagery, military); reformist policies, 123 (see also physicians, Jewish: reformist; reformist policies: health care); training, 96–97, 110–11, 276n78. See also fevers; hygienic practices; inflammatory diseases; physicians, Jewish Medici family and government, 20, 24, 36–37, 61, 64, 132. See also grand dukes Meldola, Abraham, 187, 190–98, 199, 202 Meldola, David, 194 Meldola, Moses, 187 Meldola, Raphael, 33, 137–38, 187 Menasseh ben Israel, 218, 222 mercantilism, 10, 20–21, 218–19; criticism of, 11, 36–37, 181, 219, 243; philosemitism, 220 Michaelis, J. D., 213 Micheli, Pier Antonio, 73–74 Michell, Salomone, 211, 293n24 Migliaresi, Luigi, 210–11, 292n13 military history/strategy, 146–47 military imagery and language. See imagery, military Miller, Peter, 54 Mirabeau (Honoré Gabriel Riqueti), 36 Mishnah, 88, 272–73n135, 287n44 Modena, 17, 61, 76, 113, 294n60 Modena, Emanuel, 176 Modena, Leone, 51, 82, 271n109 modernization, 3–5, 62–63, 116, 240, 243. See also reformist policies Molho, Moise, 161–62, 284n48

Index Montesquieu, 25–26, 42 Monti, Giuseppe Maria, 166 Mornini, Giuseppe Arnoldo, 54, 77 Morpurgo, Elia, 6, 42 Morpurgo, Samson, 39, 126 Morteira, Saul Levi, 147 Moücke, Francesco, 185–86, 196–97, 287n22, 288n25 municipal reforms, 225–33 Muratori, Ludovico Antonio, 42, 47, 51–54, 56, 68–69, 76, 81–82, 106, 146, 269n80 mysticism, Jewish. See kabbalah and kabbalists nazione ebrea (“Jewish nation”), 2–6, 25; cultural and intellectual aspects, 12, 34–35 (see also Attias, Joseph); economic and political aspects, 10–14, 16– 22, 28–31, 188–91, 219, 221–23, 226–33; demographic aspects, 23, 30–31; health care and, 128–29, 151; recreational aspects, 14, 151, 158, 235 (see also coffeehouses; gaming); religious aspects, 127, 148–49 (see also devotional literature); social aspects, 17, 27, 136–37; Tuscan state and, 2, 15–38, 107–8, 150–51, 208, 217, 231–32, 236–37, 240, 243–46. See also Haskalah and maskilim; Livornina charter nazioni (colonies of international merchants), 25, 28, 64, 166–67, 220, 256n61 Neri, Pompeo, 173–75 networks, diasporic and transnational, 33, 38. See also mercantilism; scholarly community and literary commerce New Science, 47, 261n48 Newton, Isaac and Newtonian thought, 47, 71, 74–76, 79 Nicetas, 142–43, 281nn56–57 novatori. See research, scientific Nunes, Daniel, 228–31 On the Civil Improvement of the Jews, 208, 220 Oracion panejirico doctrinal sobre la mala tentacion, 109, 143–49 Oriental languages. See Attias, Joseph: intellectual pursuits and relationships; Hebrew language and literature Padoa, Leon Prospero, 113, 250n275 Padroni, Agostino, 71 paper production and sale, 186–87, 288n29. See also book distribution and trade

Pas, Eliau de, 196 Pas, Isaac de, 187, 195–98, 199, 203, 290nn81–84 Perelli, Tommaso, 71, 114 Peter Leopold (Grand Duke), 10, 35–37, 116, 182, 258n100; reformist policies, 173–76, 204, 207, 221–22, 225, 234; regulating of coffeehouses and gaming, 157, 173–76; secularization of health care, 123–24; suppression of ecclesiastical tribunals and religious confraternities, 136, 190, 265n138 physicians, Jewish, 96–100, 125–26; Christian patients and, 112–13, 276– 77n82, 277n86; rabbi-poet-doctor model, 39–41, 126; reformist, 113–14, 118–19. See also Bargas, Abraham de; Bondì, Graziadio; Castelli, Joseph Vita; Soria, Angelo (Mordechai) de physiocracy and physiocrats, 10, 218–19, 259n127 Piazza, Moses Aharon, 39 Pierallini, Giuseppe, 235–36 Pinto, Isaac de, 55, 214 poor, the (assistance to), 128–34, 216; clothing and dowries, 27, 131; medical assistance, 76, 100, 123–24. See also Bikur Holim society Portaleone, Abraham, 146 “port Jew” model, 9, 11, 14, 237–38, 298n161 ports, 11, 20–31, 36–37. See also Livorno; Trieste Pouf, Jeremie (fictional character), 210, 213–17, 293n44 Prato, Pietro Bernardo, 15 Prince of Craon, 37 printers and printers’ guilds, 195–96. See also printing/publishing printing/publishing, 181–84, 188–91, 202, 203–6, 287n14, 290n88. See also Hebrew printing/publishing; printers and printers’ guilds print shops. See Hebrew printing/ publishing privativa system. See printing/publishing professional opportunities/restrictions, 113, 278n131. See also educational opportunities/restrictions; physicians, Jewish property, ownership, 222–24, 233–36. See also citizenship and political participation prostitutes and prostitution, 156–57, 283n26 protection and protectionism, 21–22, 60–61, 173, 182, 191–98, 204–7, 229, 240–44

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Index public spaces, 169, 178–79. See also Habermas, Jürgen and Habermasian model quinine, 76 rabbi-poet-doctor model, 39–41, 126 Rabeni, Raffaele, 88 Rakover, Nahum, 192 Rashi typeface. See typefaces, Hebrew and Rashi Recanati family, 132, 226, 234, 258n98 Redi, Francesco, 73, 267n35 Reflections on Good Taste, 81–82 reformist policies, 114, 165, 242–43; health care, 123, 132–33; Hebrew printing/ publishing, 204–6; Tuscan, 10–11, 13–14, 35–38, 158, 173. See also Peter Leopold (Grand Duke); municipal reforms; nazione ebrea (“Jewish nation”): economic and political aspects regimes, absolutist, 9–10, 243, 245–46. See also Catherine II; Joseph II representation, political. See citizenship and political participation The Republic of Letters, 44, 52, 54, 56 research, scientific, 70–72, 100, 110–11. See also knowledge: dissemination of; medical practice; under individual names Ricchi, Immanuel Hay, 39, 189, 192–93 Ricci, Clemente, 187 Richecourt, Emmanuel de (Count), 64, 101, 133 riots. See anti-Jewish riots Rocoles, Jean-Baptiste de, 83 Rome, 16, 21–22, 31, 61, 63–65, 183, 244 Roques, Jacob, 176–77 Rossi, Azariah, de’, 84, 138, 141, 239 Rossi, Giovanni Bernardo, de, 51 royal alliance trope, 195. See also grand dukes; Hebrew printing/publishing: government intervention and protection Rucellai, Giulio, 65 Ruderman, David, 8 Sabbatean beliefs, 83 Salinas, Jacob, 112 Salonika, 199, 200–201, 255n17 Salvini, Antonio Maria, 62, 273n143 San Sebastiano theater, 233 Schechter, Ronald, 229 scholarly community and literary commerce, 51–54, 72, 92, 125. See also research, scientific

science. See medical practice; research, scientific; scholarly community and literary commerce secular studies, approach to, 136–50. See also Attias, Joseph: intellectual pursuits and relationships; earthquakes; military history/strategy; research, scientific Sefer ha-Rashbash, 190, 192–94 seismology. See earthquakes separation, cultural, 13–16, 136, 180; Jewish physicians and, 97, 125; Joseph Attias and, 84–85, 88, 93–95; social aspects, 166–67, 235–36. See also integration, cultural Sephardi Jews and communities. See Jews, Sephardi and Sephardi communities sermons, 143–44, 201, 258n102, 278n124, 281n64. See also devotional literature sexual relations, 34, 259n117, 264n120 Shohat, Azriel, 3 shtadlanut (intercession), 57 Simon, Richard, 87 sociability, 129, 153–55. See also Bikur Holim society; Gemilut Hasadim society; leisure activities and recreation; synagogues and chapels Soria, Angelo (Mordechai) de, 13, 97, 102– 14, 129, 136–37, 143–50, 281n63 Soria, Giovanni Gualberto de, 45, 54, 70–72, 74, 80, 84, 88 Sorkin, David, 9, 93, 237, 298n161 Spinoza, Baruch, 79, 87 Sproni, Ferdinando, 227–28 state and Church, 10, 62–64, 243. See also reformist policies Stecchi, Giovan Battista, 195–97, 289n67, 289n69 Sterbini, Bernardo, 66–67 surgeons, 130–31, 135, 274n19 synagogues and chapels, 23, 31–32, 256n49. See also devotional literature; Hebrew printing/publishing: legal and liturgical works Talmud Torah of Livorno, 27, 103–5, 198, 263n97, 275nn40–42 Teatro degli Avvalorati, 233 tertian fever, 76–77 textual criticism. See biblical criticism Tilli, Michelangelo, 73 Toland, John, 79–80, 269n71 Toleranzpatent (Patent of Toleration of Joseph II), 208, 245 Torah, 89, 140, 193–95; and secular studies,

Index harmonization of, 7, 39, 69, 93, 97, 105 (see also integration, cultural; separation, cultural); study of, 7, 103–5, 128, 144 (see also Jewish education) Tornaquinci, Giovanni Antonio, 64–65 tribunale dei massari (court of the lay leaders), 22 Trieste, 5–6, 237, 244–45 Trivellato, Francesca, 34, 153 The True Intellectual System of the Universe, 78 Tuscans and Tuscany: allegiance to and pride in, 97, 103, 116, 120–21; cultural and intellectual aspects, 68–69, 90, 101; economic and political aspects, 20, 35–36, 182–89, 287n22; reformist policies, 10–11, 13–14, 35–38, 158, 165, 173, 243. See also Enlightenment; Livorno typefaces, Hebrew and Rashi, 186, 203–4, 288n27, 290n81, 291n100 University of Padua, 99–100

University of Pisa, 71–72, 96–102, 114, 260n16 Vallisnieri, Antonio, 75 van Adrichem, Christiaan, 92 vanitas trope, 141–42 Velletri, Ventura (Maria Elisabetta Fortunata), 15–16 Venice, 6, 21–22, 24, 31, 99, 113, 257–58n95; coffee and coffeehouses, 156, 158; Hebrew printing, 183, 200–201, 205 Venturi, Franco, 35 Verzani, Cristoforo Teodoro, 106–10, 276nn63–64 Vico, Giambattista, 42, 47–48 vidduy (deathbed confession of sins), 134–35 Viviani, Vincenzo, 53, 73 Wessely, Naftali Herz, 6, 105 Zamero, Isache, 162 Zevi, Shabbetay, 83

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