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This micrographic drawing designed for a sukkah decoration is the best-known artwork of Israel David Luzzatto. Micrography, a form of drawing originally created by scribes, in which lines of miniature…
The book of Esther (also known as the Scroll [megillah] of Esther) is read out loud on the holiday of Purim. This example of a scroll from Venice has Hebrew text framed by arcades and borders…
This rabbinic ordination certificate granted to Judah ben Eliezer Briel was printed as a broadside in Venice and signed by prominent Venetian rabbis. It certifies his learning and his fitness to…
The second-oldest building in the Venetian ghetto is the Scuola Canton Synagogue. Built several years after the Scuola Grande Tedesca, the Canton Synagogue also served the Ashkenazic community. The…
This wedding riddle from Italy is written in Hebrew and Judeo-Italian. Wedding songs, sometimes performed by professional jesters, were traditional at Jewish weddings. Some had lyrics in the form of…
The Scuola Italiana is one of five synagogues in the Venetian ghetto, and its smallest. In 1575, the Italian Jewish community established the synagogue in a preexisting building because of a law…
The Vittorio Veneto Synagogue, in a town near Venice, was constructed on the second and third floors of a modest house. Elements of the Italian Baroque style are visible in the interior, especially in…
Kehunat Avraham (The Priesthood of Abraham), completed in Venice in 1719, is an interpretation and retelling of sections from the book of Psalms in verse. The Hebrew text in this illustration comes…
The Scuola Levantina (Levantine Synagogue), a Sephardic synagogue built in 1541, was restored in the late seventeenth century. The bimah is thought to have been carved by Andrea Brustolon, famed for…
Kabbalist Elijah Menaḥem ben Abba Mari Ḥalfan constructed this diagram, now stained and torn, with the assistance of his tutor Abraham Sarfati. It depicts the sefirotic system and includes Ḥalfan’s…
