Keri’ath Shema al Seder ha-Kabbalah [Kabbalistic Rite of Recitation of the Shema before Retiring for Night]

WITHDRAWN (ITALIAN JUDAICA)

(Rome)

1745

Black ink on stiff paper. Square letters with vowel points (nikud). On front fly, “Ex libris Dona Alatri” in Hebrew. Hand-drawn title bears escutcheon of Alatri family, a lion mounting a column. (See Daniela Di Castro, Arte Ebraica a Roma e nel Lazio, p. 145). Final ff. 8 contain a register of births in the Alatri Family between the years 1805-1838.

A VERY FINE MANUSCRIPT, BEAUTIFULLY BOUND, WITH AN ILLUSTRIOUS PROVENANCE. The Alatri Family was one of the most distinguished Jewish families of Rome. For the better part of the nineteenth century, Samuel Alatri (1805-1889) presided over the Roman Jewish community and led delegations to several successive Popes. Alatri’s efforts on behalf of his brethren were crowned with success in 1870, when King Victor Emmanuel entered Rome and ended the temporal power of the pope. In years to come, Alatri was elected to the newly formed Parliament and entrusted with the herculean task of juggling the Italian budget. See EJ, Vol.II, cols. 514-5; JE, Vol. I, p. 319; Cecil Roth, The History of the Jews of Italy (1946), p. 473.