Viterbo, Asher. Be’nesu’ei Ha’chathan Hana’alah [Wedding Riddle]. Composed for the marriage of Pinchas ben Abraham Ha’kohen (Fellice Coen) and Guidicca Coen of Ancona.

(EPITHALAMIUM).

Italy

18th century

Printed Broadside. Text in Hebrew. Large woodcut device depicting winged angel holding a garland and bugle.

Vivian B. Mann, Gardens and Ghettos (Berkeley, 1989), p. 281, no.161a; Frojmovic and Felsenstein, Hebraica and Judaica from the Cecil Roth Collection (Leeds, 1997), pp. 30-33, Nos. 12-13 (illustrated)

Riddles in the form of poems became popular among Italian Jews in the mid-seventeenth century and remained an important literary genre through the mid-nineteenth century. The festivities at Italian Jewish celebrations frequently included riddle contests. Such riddles seem to have been a peculiarly Jewish invention, though they owed a debt to Italian and Spanish literature. These canny riddles were also composed for weddings to amuse the bride and groom, and were distributed to guests prior in order to prepare a solution. At the wedding celebration the guests would present their solutions, the winner being rewarded with a prize.