Corcos, Tranquillo Vita (Mano’ach Hayim).

(BLOOD LIBEL).

Stamperia della Reu. Camera Apostolica

Rome

1706

Alla Sagra Consvlta Illustriss e Reuerendiss. Monsig. Ghezzi Ponente per l'Uniuersità degl'hebrei di Roma. Sommario. [Letter of General Father of the Dominicans to the representative of the Church in Poland, debunking the myth of Jewish ritual murder].

Rare. No copy recorded in WorldCat. Tranquillo Vita Corcos (the Younger, 1660–1730) was a member of an ancient Roman-Jewish family of rabbis and financiers. In 1692 Corcos was elected to the governing body of the Rome community, and in 1702, appointed its rabbi. Corcos was active in seeking to persuade the Congregation of the Holy Office to refute anti-Jewish calumnies and he successfully secured the withdrawal of a blood libel charge in Viterbo (a city some 50 miles north of Rome). Lurid excitement rose in Italy in 1705 as a result of the arrest in Viterbo of a number of Jews on account of a blood accusation - such charges having never before been preferred in Rome or its environs. Amidst much political lobbying and legal maneuvering, Corcos presented this Summaria, addressed to Monsignore Ghezzi, the papal reporter on Jewish affairs. It roundly demonstrated the groundlessness of the ruinous accusation, producing historical documents relating to the blood libel from both secular and ecclesiastical authorities. See Madga Teter, Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth (2020) pp. 280-91.