There Were in Padua Almost As Many Hebrew Printers As Hebrew Books” the Sixteenth Century Hebrew Press in Padua1
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CHAPTER NINE “THERE WERE IN PADUA ALMOST AS MANY HEBREW PRINTERS AS HEBREW BOOKS” THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY HEBREW PRESS IN PADUA1 The sixteenth century is the most important and influential in the history of Hebrew printing. It is characterized by an exponential growth in the number of books printed and, in Italy where the first Hebrew books were printed in about 1469–70, by great presses in cities such as Mantua and Venice. These presses have to their credit numerous achievements; the quality of their imprints are appreciated and often unequaled to the present. Inevitably, however, not all presses were equally successful or memorable. These latter presses, not surprisingly, do not receive the same attention as their larger and more successful counterparts. Among the smaller sixteenth century print-shops issuing Hebrew books is one in Padua, which put out a mere two books. Padua’s failure to become an important Hebrew printing center is somewhat surprising, for it had advantages that would have suggested otherwise. A look at this little known print shop is of value not only for its own sake, recalling a less well remembered moment in the history of the Hebrew book, but also because, for the brief period that it was active, the Padua press was a microcosm of the confluence of varied interests often found in the Hebrew book industry in Italy during the Renais- sance. As we shall see, the authors of the books printed in Padua were Sephardim, the printer was an Ashkenazi, and the press belonged to an Italian non-Jew. Padua is situated twelve meters above sea level in the lower Venetian plain between the Brenta and the Bacchiglione rivers, about twenty kilometers from the lagoon of Venice. Now capital of Padova province, Veneto region, Padua is an ancient city that attributes its founding to Antenore, a mythical Trojan prince. Livy, the Roman historian, who was born there, notes that it was mentioned as early as 302 B.C.E. Much later a free city, Padua became the property of Ezzelino da Romano 1 The original version of this article was published in the Gutenberg-Jahrbuch (Mainz, 2003), pp. 86–92. Heller_f10-121-130.indd 121 10/24/2007 2:30:29 PM 122 chapter nine (1237), followed by the Scaligeris and the Carraras, until, in 1405, it became part of the Republic of Venice, which held it until 1797. The University of Padua is the oldest in Italy after the University of Bologna. Founded in 1222 by the secession of about a thousand students from the latter institution, it was, by the fifteenth and through the sixteenth century, one of the leading universities in Europe. Padua has an early and distinguished history as a printing center. Bartholemaeus de Valdezoccho printed several works, beginning with Giovanni Boccaccio’s (1313–75) Fiammeta, dated March 21, 1472, with Martinus, de Septum Arboribus (a Prussian), and in the next two years additional works alone. Bartholemaeus is but one of thirteen printers in Padua in the incunabula period.2 A further twenty-six Padua printers are recorded by Adams from 1506 through 1600, although two names, and those of interest to us, appear to be for the same person.3 There are no records indicating an early Jewish community in Padua. The surname Judaeus appears in twelfth century documents, but it is not certain that it refers to Jews. By 1255, however, Jewish settlement is known with greater certitude, for in that year Jacob Bonacosa, a Jewish physician, translated a medical text, Averroes’ Colliget, from Arabic into Latin. A hundred years later we hear of Jewish loan banks, as well as merchants, jewelers, and second-hand dealers, attracted to Padua by the tolerant Carrara court and the university. However, under Venetian rule the condition of Jewish life began to deteriorate. The community’s experience was not dissimilar from many other Jewish communities in Italy and need not be addressed here, except to note that a ghetto was established in the first half of the sixteenth century, although residence in it was not strictly enforced, and that the Talmud was burned in Padua in 1556.4 Padua also had the distinction of being home to a yeshivah led by the eminent R. Judah Minz (c. 1408–56).5 There is good reason, in light of the above, to suggest that Padua would be a likely site for a Hebrew press. It is a city with an early and 2 Robert Proctor, An Index to the Early Printed Books in the British Museum: From the Invention of Printing to the Year 1500. With Notes of those in the Bodleian Library (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1898–1903, reprint Mansfield Centre, Ct.: Marino Fine Books, 1999), pp. 454–60. 3 H. M. Adams, Catalogue of Books Printed on the Continent of Europe, 1501–1600 in Cambridge Libraries II (Cambridge, 1967), p. 779. 4 Encyclopedia Judaica 8 “Padua” ( Jerusalem, 1972), 9, 10; Cecil Roth, The History of the Jews of Italy (Philadelphia, 1946), var. cit. 5 Robert Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy (London, 1993), pp. 26–27. Heller_f10-121-130.indd 122 10/24/2007 2:30:30 PM.