Mazal Tov Modena. Im Tabit el Panai... [“If you behold my face, a man cannnot see me and live”]

The riddle, in the form of rhymed couplets, is signed “Mazal Tov Modena.” The Jewish Encyclopedia (Vol. VIII, p. 639) lists a “David b. Mazzal Tob Modena,” an Italian scholar of the nineteenth century. Our poet might be David’s father.This wedding riddle was issued in honor of the nuptials of Samson Chaim son of Yedidyah Nachman to Tziporah daughter of Judah Nachman. There is a possibility that the groom in question is R. Chaim Samson Nachmani, author of Toldoth Shimshon on Tractate Avoth (Livorno, 1766) and Zera Shimshon on the Pentateuch and Megiloth (Mantua, 1778). This genre of the Epithalamium is unique among Italian Jews. It was in vogue from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. (See previous lot.) See D. Pagis, “Baroque Trends in Italian Hebrew Poetry as Reflected in an Unknown Genre,” in: Italia Judaica 6 (Rome, 1986), pp. 263-277; Cecil Roth, Studies in Books and Booklore (1972), Hebrew Arts., 40-59.