Showing Results 1 - 10 of 15
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…
Moses ben Abraham Pescarol’s illuminated scroll of Esther, completed in Ferrara, constitutes one of the oldest examples of an illustrated manuscript of this biblical book, which is chanted on the…
According to the Hebrew inscription, this silk velvet, gilt silver-thread embroidery and silk brocade Torah wrapper was donated in 1727 or 1728 to the Scola Castigliana (a synagogue founded by Jews of…
This very early Torah ark curtain from Pesaro was embroidered by Rachel Olivetti and donated to the synagogue in honor of her marriage to Judah Montefiore. The Hebrew text is a poem celebrating and…
This silver Torah crown from Padua, Italy, is decorated with images of the tablets of law, incense utensils, the ark of the covenant,
and the headdress of the high priest.
This Torah ark curtain from Venice was made by Simḥah, the wife of Menachem Levi Meshuallami, a member of a prominent family in the Venice ghetto. It is embroidered in silk and silk-metallic thread…
Like Torah scrolls, the scroll of the biblical book of Esther, read ritually in the synagogue on the holiday of Purim, must be completely unadorned. However, in the sixteenth century, for reasons…
This wooden Torah ark and its two cathedrae (chairs), from the Scuola Grande Synagogue in Mantua, Italy, date from 1543. Decorated with gilt carvings and architectural elements, they were meant to…
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…
This Torah binder is one of the earliest examples from Italy. The binder (also known as a wimpel) was intended to accompany the male child through his lifetime, through the stages of his circumcision…
