Seder HaHa’arachah Vehanhagah [communal tax regulations and obligations]

(ITALY).

Raphael Chaim of Italy

Mantua

1732

Title within architectural arch. Wide-margined copy on thick paper.

Vinograd, Mantua 356

The Mantuan Community began to organize its financial obligations through the levying of taxes from the beginning of the 16th century and tax regulations were published, until the end of the 18th century. These chart the economic changes of Mantuan Jewry and the kinds of property and income that were taxable. Every three years the tax regulations of the Jewish community would be reviewed and a new book of regulations issued. The present edition, published by the Va’ad ha-Kelali (Community Council) on 4th Kislev 5492, covers the period from March 1732 until February 1735. “It was a special characteristic of the Mantuan community that it never went bankrupt, despite the great financial burden it was required to bear… The decline of the economic position of Italy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the increasing burden of taxes borne by the Jews, and the growth in the number of Jewish poor, all affected the Duchy of Mantua, but [they] succeeded in balancing their budgets because they were able to manage their affairs more wisely than their brethren in neighbouring states.” See S. Simonsohn, History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantua (1977) pp. 375-90.