IMPORTANT COLLECTION OF ELEVEN ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE BURNING OF THE TALMUD.
I: Summary of six papal briefs from 1518-1537 regarding the Licences granted to Daniel Bomberg by Popes Leo X, Clement VII and Paul III to print the Talmud. Italian cursive script. Brown ink on paper. Single leaf. n.p., n.d.
II: Document responding to the spreading rumors that the new printed editions of the Talmud contain offensive statements against the Christian faith in which the Consiglio gives orders to the Executors of the Commission against Blasphemy to immediately collect printed copies of the Talmud for examination by good Chritians who are Hebrew experts. The Consiglio will review their report and take the necessary measures. Italian cursive script. Brown ink on paper. Single leaf. 12 June 1553. [The document mentions three Cardinals; Girolamo Di Presti, Alvise Foscarini and Maffeo Venier].
III: Document of the Executors of the Commission against Blasphemy responding to the Consiglio’s request and nominating the monk Tommaso di Urbino of the Order of Santo Domenico and the physician Giovanno Battista di Frescolini, former Jews who are now good Christians, to carefully examine the Hebrew texts for heresy against the Christian faith. Their reports, given under oath, will be brought before the Tribunal of Cardinals. Italian cursive script. Brown ink on paper. June 1553.
IV: Declaration of Giovanni Battista Frescolini, professor of theology, doctor of medicine and member of the Venetian college of Physicists and Brother Tommaso di Urbino, of the order of Santo Domenico. Declaring that having examined the suspect Hebrew texts; albeit in a short time given the quality of the books, they have encountered offenses and blasphemies against Christians and the Christian faith. Recommending that in their opinion, the texts are dangerous and must be “extinguished and execrated.” Italian cursive script. Brown ink on paper. [1553].
V: Transcription of the Latin document of the six General Inquisitors: G. P. Caraffa, R. Pio, G. Alvarez de Toledo, G. Verallo, G. Pozzo and S. Pighino calling for the confiscation and burning of all copies of the Talmud possessed by Jews in Venetian-Italian dialect. The Talmud is condemned for containing blasphemies and offensive statements against Christians and the Christian faith. Any Jew or Christians owning a copy of the Talmud will be subject to punishment at the hand of the Inquisition. All sequestered copies of the Talmud are to be burned in Rome in the Campo de Fiori. Venetian-Italian cursive script. Brown ink on paper. ff. (4). Oxidized in places. Folio. [cf. M. Stern, Urkundliche Beiträge über die Stellung der Päpste zu den Juden, (Kiel, 1839), pp. 98-102, Doc. No. 100 (Latin Original); S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. Documents 1546-1555, (Toronto, 1990), p. 2887, No. 3165 (Latin Original)]. (Rome, 12 August, 1553).
VI: Part of a letter by a commissar of the College of Cardinals declaring that on that day, 9th September 1553, the burning of the Talmud took place at the Campo de Fiori in Rome and that a similar edict will be issued in Venice. Italian cursive script. Brown ink on paper. (Rome, 9th September, 1553).
VII: Declaration reconfirming the validity of the condemnation of the Talmud cited by decree of the Consiglio dei Dieci on 22nd October 1553, also stipulating that books that have been reviewed, corrected and purged of passages offensive to the Christian faith may be kept by Jews. Document tranched. Italian cursive script. Brown ink on paper. Single leaf. (c. 22nd October, 1553).
VIII: Transcription of the papal bull “Cum sicut nuper” by Julian III into Venetian-Italian dialect ordering the prelates to inform the entire Jewish community that within four months all copies of the Talmud in their possession must be presented to the ecclesiastical authorities. Transgressors will be subject to severe penalties. Venetian-Italian dialect cursive script. Brown ink on paper. ff. (2). [cf. S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. Documents 1546-1555, p. 2920, No. 3215 (Latin Original)]. (Rome, 29th May 1554).
IX: Manuscript document by a Congregation of Cardinals granting permission to the Jews to keep the condemned books if the passages offensive to the Church have been censored and expurgated in response to a request by the Jews. Italian cursive script. Brown ink on paper. ff. (2), including one blank. Folio. Rome, 23rd June, 1554.
X: Transcription of the Papal Declaration “motu proprio” of Pope Julian III into Venetian-Italian dialect, granting permission to the Jews to keep copies of the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmud, notwithstanding the formal condemnation provided that within four months, all passages offensive to the Church are deleted. Venetian-Italian dialect cursive script. Brown ink on paper. Single folio leaf. [cf. S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. Documents 1546-1555, p. 2826, No. 3235 (Latin Original)]. Rome, 18th December, 1554.
XI: Memorandum compiled by three Venetian commissars on the condemnation of the Talmud and the decisions made by the Consiglio dei Dieci and other official Venetian bodies. This unpublished report, charts the history and development of the Church’s contention with the Talmud, beginning with the edict of Pope Gregory in 1242 and the episode of burning of the Talmud that followed the edict of Innocent IV. It continued to examine the attempts made by the Consiglio dei Dieci to instruct the Commission against Blasphemy to appoint suitable examiners to inspect the suspect text and concludes with an account of the infamous burning of the Talmud in Italy in 1553-4. Italian cursive script. Brown ink on paper. ff. (2). Folio. n.p., (1554)
Together, Eleven Manuscript Documents.
(Italian): v.d. (1550-1555)
Est: $50,000 - $70,000
PRICE REALIZED $130,000
The dark years following the Papal edict of 1553 which began a nine year period of intensified censorship, confiscation and burning of Hebrew books, was the result of two rival editions of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah published in 1550. Jealousy between the Houses of Bragadin and Giustinian resulted in the future of Hebrew printing in Italy laid before the Ecclesiastical Authorities, the confiscation and denunciation of the Talmud for heresy against Christians and the Christian faith and culminated on September 9th, 1553 (Rosh Hashanah) in the burning of volumes of the Talmud at Campo de Fiori, Rome and on October 20th-22nd at San Marco in Venice.
This fascinating collection of manuscripts, contemporary with the period of the burning of the Talmud and compiled in the ecclesiastical environs of the Republic of Venice, chart the development of this tragic episode for Hebrew scholarship. These documents evidence the familiarity of the Venetian authorities with the details of the affair and the heavily anti-Jewish position taken against the Hebrew texts brought under scrutiny for heresy.
While the Cardinals of the Inquisition in Rome, lead by the Neapolitan G. Caraffa, were examining the corpus of the Talmud, the Consiglio dei Dieci (“Council of Ten”) charged the Commission against Blasphemy (“I Commissari contro la Blasfema”), to conduct a search for a person expert in Hebrew who could examine the Hebrew books. The two converts appointed; the Dominican Brother Tommaso de Urbino and the physician Giovan Battista Frescolini, declared the Hebrew texts to be dangerous and calumnious. The texts underwent a second review by the two converts together with Venetian theologians and canonists. The moderate positions of the Vatican, contained in the bulls of May 29th and December 18th 1554 were regarded with suspicion by the executors of the Commission against Blasphemy as noted in the final section of the last document.
This collection was probably the personal file of one of the Venetian inquisitors charged by the Consiglio dei Dieci with compiling a report on the “blasphemies” contained in the Hebrew texts. This report, along with the Inquisitor’s recommendations for measures to be taken is Document No. XI in this group. The other ten documents would seem to be the Inquisitors working papers in compiling his report and contain the texts of Papal Bulls and Canonical dispositions (here translated into Italian), letters and other reports compiled by colleagues.
The various watermarks on the leaves confirm the contemporary dating and location of these documents.
Bibliography:
D. W. Amram, The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy pp.263-73. (On the restriction of printing of Hebrew books in Venice in the years 1555-63).
A. Yaari, Sereiphath Hatalmud B’Italia in: Mechkarei Sepher (1958) pp. 198-233.
K. Stow, The Burning of the Talmud in 1553 in Light of Sixteenth Century Catholic Attitudes toward the Talmud, in Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, XXXIV, (Geneva, 1972), pp. 435-59.
S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and Jews. History. (Toronto, 1991) pp. 339-42.
