Anonymous. Lettera Apologetica a sua eccellenza il signor marchese n.n. amico del signor avvocato Giovambattista Benedetti [“Apologetic Letter to his Excellency the Anonymous Marchese, Friend of Advocate Giovambattista Benedetti”]

(ITALIAN JUDAICA).

Alberto Pazzoni

Mantua

1775

Vignette of castle on title

Simonsohn, p. 94, n. 294

In Ferrara, in 1770, a financial quarrel broke out between a Jew and a Christian. The Jew refused to take the oath in the usual manner reserved for Jews: swearing in a black hall, illuminated by black candles. The matter was brought before the curia in Rome. The Christian advocate Benedetti opined against the Jew. His conclusion, blatantly antisemitic, was that in general one simply ought not trust the oath of Jews. Our anonymous letter, now universally acknowledged as the composition of the illustrious Rabbi of Mantua, Jacob Saraval (?1707-1782), takes Benedetti to task, mustering proofs from throughout rabbinic literature as to the trustworthiness of Jewish oaths. In the title the author pretends that the addressee is an anonymous friend of Benedetti. Though Saraval knew full well it was none other that Benedetti himself who authored the antisemitic opinion, he feigned ignorance and pretended that a man of Benedetti's stature could not possibly have stooped so low. See S. Simonsohn, History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantua (1977), pp. 93-4; EJ XIV, col. 874