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These depictions of Jewish women from Adrianople (present day Edirne, Turkey) is from a travelogue by French geographer Nicolas Nicolay, who is believed to have done his own illustrations. Considered…
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…
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…
This Haggadah, decorated in the Ashkenazic tradition, was copied in northern Italy. As is traditional for Ashkenazic Haggadahs, illustrations appear in the margins and frame the text. At the top left…
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…
Printing, which Jews adopted immediately after its invention, helped to unify far-flung communities. Where previously Jewish learning had been transmitted through the individual copying of manuscripts…
Title page of the first known printed version of the Ku-bukh (Cow Book), a sixteenth-century collection of Yiddish fables, published in Verona, Italy in 1595. The later compendium of Yiddish stories…
This diploma of Doctor of Medicine was awarded to Jacob Mahler by the University of Padua, Italy. Mahler, born in Bingen-on-Rhine, Germany, studied medicine and philosophy, and in 1695 was awarded a…
This receipt with ornate Hebrew calligraphy was issued to certify a donation by members of Ferrara’s Jewish community to aid Jews in Jerusalem. The funds were solicited by the rabbi of a yeshiva in…
Illustrated title page from a manuscript siddur from Italy according to the Romaniote (Greek) rite, with prayers focused on marriage and birth rituals and customs, as well as the pidyon ha-ben…
