(ITALY)

AUCTION 30 | Tuesday, September 20th, 2005 at 1:00

Fine Judaica: Books and Manuscripts

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Lot 190

(ITALY)

Three pro-Jewish acts of legislation under the benevolent rule of Austria: 1) Imperiale Regio Governo di Milano. Notificazione. Volendo S.M. provvedere che nessuno dei professanti la Religione israelitica sia condotto da violenza o da falso interesse ad abbracciare il Cristianesim [“Official notice of the imperial Government of Milan. His Majesty wishes to provide that no one professing the Israelite religion be driven by force or by false interest to embrace Christianity…”]. (Milano: Imperiale Regia Stamperia, 3 March, 1817). * 2) Notificazione. Per impedire che nella conversione degli Ebrei alla Religione Cattolica non siano lesi i diritti dell’autorità paterna [“Official notice to prevent conversion of Hebrews to the Catholic Religion without parental authority”]. (Venice: Francesco Andreola Stampatore dell’E. Governo, 2 September, 1817). * 3) Imperiale regio Governo di venezia. Notificazione. [“Official notice of the Government of Venice permitting the importation of woolen devotional cloaks, “Tales,” such as used by the Israelites in their religious cremonies”]. (Venice: Francesco Andreola Tipografo dell’I. R. Governo, 14 March, 1840) Folio

Est: $1,200 - $1,800

PRICE REALIZED $1,000

Following Napoleon’s defeat, several States of the Italian peninsula, including the former Venetian territories, came under Austrian rule. It has been noted that in the Austrian territories of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom - the most efficiently administered part of the country - conditions of the Jews were not oppressive, and on a par with those prevailing in the rest of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. See C. Roth, The History of the Jews of Italy (1946) pp. 445-7. In this light, two of the present documents offered here, forbid the forcible conversion of Jews, especially Jewish children, to Christianity which Italy had been notorious for centuries. The third document provides for the importation of woolen prayer-shawls (“Tales”)