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“She Has Them Coming to Judaism”: Tradition and Jewish Affinity in Jewish Wills of Seventeenth- Century Livorno

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“She Has Them Coming to Judaism”: Tradition and Jewish Affinity in Jewish Wills of Seventeenth- Century Livorno European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202 brill.com/ejjs “She Has Them Coming to Judaism”: Tradition and Jewish Affinity in Jewish Wills of Seventeenth- century Livorno Nourit Melcer-Padon Abstract From its inception, the Jewish community in Livorno enjoyed a unique status, encour- aging former conversos to settle there. In Livorno they could live openly as Jews. Thus, it is most interesting to study their attitude to their cultural heritage, according to the wills left by several of the Sephardi community’s prominent members. A linguistic analysis of phrases used by three testators is particularly revealing in assessing their positions regarding Judaism. Their words reflect anxiety and determination: a realiza- tion of hardships encountered by New Christians on their way to Judaism, and a fur- ther realization that only few will adhere to it. Keywords Livorno – Jewish Sephardi community – testaments – New Christians – New Jews – seventeenth-century Spanish language 1 Introduction In the archive of the Jewish community of Livorno there is a file that contains some 138 wills: originals, various copies and codicils, written over 84 years, from 1629 to 1713. Clearly, if one considers that the average number of deaths in the Jewish community was around 100 persons per year, from infants to old * The research for this article was carried out within the framework of the European Research Council, and received funding from the ERC under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) / ERC grant agreement n° 295352. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/1872471X-11221042Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access “She Has Them Coming to Judaism” 169 people,1 one can assume that the wills bound in this file are not representative of the greater majority of the community, but rather of some of its more prom- inent members. This assumption is strengthened by the contents of several testaments. Many testators belonged to the leading members of the Sephardi community, held various official offices, and bequeathed large fortunes. Their last wishes were accordingly witnessed and recorded by the heads of the com- munity, and by the community Cancelliere, who were able to act in lieu of a Christian notary. The wills provide a fascinating outlook on various characteristics of the Jewish Sephardi community of Livorno, such as the identity of these people, their customs and communal institutions, their connection to Judaism, and the kinds of relations they maintained with relatives and business associates in other Jewish communities, from the Ottoman Empire, throughout Europe and all the way to the New World. In what follows, I will concentrate on one main aspect that permeates thirty of these wills,2 namely the affiliation and connec- tion to Judaism on the part of former conversos, in a city that was unique in its attitude towards Jews in the Early Modern Period. After discussing the special status Jews enjoyed in Livorno from its inception, I will turn to the specific- ity of the wills examined here, and finally focus on a particularly interesting will, that of Raquel Gutieres Pegna, the richest woman whose will is found in the file.3 A long and detailed will, containing several fragmented copies, it discloses many aspects pertaining to the community as a whole; in addition, one of its clauses is very interesting from a linguistic point of view, in itself indicative of the writer’s attitude to Judaism. Two other wills corroborate this linguistic aspect. 1 See: Renzo Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700) [The Jewish Nation in Livorno and Pisa (1591–1700)] (Florence: Olschki, 1990), 123; the table Toaff provides covers the years between 1657 and 1810, and the average of 100 deaths per year refers to the years 1657–1715, the closest to the years referred to in the wills in this file. AJCL, Testamenti dalli anni 1629 a 1713 estrati ritrovati nelle filze antiche sciolte [Testaments of the Years 1629–1713, extracts found in the old loose files]. All testaments I will be referring to are contained in this file, unless otherwise specified. Throughout this article, spellings of names follow the spellings found in the original manuscripts of the wills. 2 The wills discussed here are part of an ongoing research of several other wills of the Livorno community of this period. 3 Cristina Galasso wrote about 122 testaments found in the archive of the Jewish Community of Livorno, and mentions this fact. See: Cristina Galasso, Alle origini di una communità: ebree ed ebrei a Livorno nel seicento [At the Origins of a Community: Jewish Women and Men in Livorno in the Seventeenth Century] (Florence: Olschki, 2002), 81. European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 170 Melcer-Padon 2 Livorno and Its Jews: An Exceptional Relationship Livorno was particularly attractive to many Sephardi Jews, who had been in- vited in 1549 by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I, to settle in Tuscany.4 The Grand Duke’s hopes that these versatile merchants could help promote trade relations with the Near East,5 and boost the economic development of what was merely a little fisherman’s village, were well rewarded, to the ben- efit of both sides. There followed a series of concessions, granted by Cosimo I and later by his son Ferdinand I, which culminated in the “Livornine” of 1591 and 1593, as the finalized privileges became known.6 The Livornine guaran- teed that Jews of Pisa and Livorno lived freely: they could choose their pro- fessions, and were not constrained by the necessity of living in a ghetto, as were the Jews of other cities, although they preferred to live in close quarters. They were exempt from various taxes, allowed to buy and own property, and employ Christian servants. Importantly, the Jews of Livorno were also ex- empt from wearing external distinguishing signs, such as a yellow or red hat or sleeve, unlike the Jews of Rome, Mantua or Venice.7 They were also able to 4 As Lucia Frattarelli Fischer writes, this document, inviting the Jews to settle in Tuscany, was written in Latin, and conceded privileges to Portuguese New Christians. It was kept se- cret by the Duke’s clergy to fend off the disapproval of the Holy See. See: Lucia Frattarelli Fischer, “Gli Ebrei, il principe e l’inquisizione” [“The Jews, the Prince and the Inquisition”] in: L’Inquisizione e gli Ebrei in Italia [The Inquisition and the Jews in Italy], ed. Michele Luzzati (Rome: Laterza, 1994), 219–221. Renée Levine Melammed mentions that the formulation of Livornine charter was influenced by the charter previously granted in Venice in 1589. See: Renée Levine Melammed, A Question of Identity: Iberian Conversos in Historical Perspective (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004), 128. 5 Jonathan Israel explains why the Sephardi Jews, rather than other communities such as Armenians or Greeks, were in a favoured position to fully benefit from the Ottoman pol- icy, and the general circumstances of the times. See: Jonathan I. Israel, Diaspora within a Diaspora: Jews, Crypto-Jews and the World Maritime Empires (1540–1740) (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 8–9. 6 An in-depth study of the Livornine, as well as an English translation of the privileges, can be found in: Bernard Dov Cooperman, Trade and Settlement: The Establishment and Early Development of the Jewish Communities in Leghorn and Pisa (1591–1626) (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1976). Cooperman contextualizes the Livornine privileges within the larger, shifting economic and political relations between the Balkans and the Near East after the Ottoman conquest. Ibid., 36–79. 7 Regarding the colour of the compulsory head dress in Venice, which, as Benjamin Ravid points out, changed from yellow to red over the years, see: Benjamin Ravid, “From Yellow to Red: On the Distinguishing Head-Covering of The Jews of Venice,” Jewish History 6 (1–2) (1992): 179–210. Ancona granted privileges to Levantine merchants already in 1514, and under Papal rule, in 1534 they received a safe-conduct, which included the exemption of distinctive head dress. See: Benjamin Ravid, “A Tale of Three Cities and their Raison d’Etat: Ancona, Venice, European Journal of Jewish StudiesDownloaded 12from (2018) Brill.com09/23/2021 168–202 08:14:13PM via free access “She Has Them Coming to Judaism” 171 erect a synagogue, maintain a ritual bath and many community institutions, and live openly as Jews. In addition, they could settle internal disputes in front of a community tribunal, governed by the Massari, the board of governors of the community, though the sentencing could be appealed before the munici- pal court of Livorno.8 A community run by rich merchants, who looked after their common in- terests meticulously through the internal community regulations on the one hand and the agreements with the Tuscan Dukes on the other, the Livorno community lay leaders tried, from the community’s initial years, to avoid in- ternal feuds. If the 1591 charter of the Livornine already limited the functions of the rabbinical authorities in the Sephardi community of Livorno, the 1595 charter removed any position of communal powers the rabbis still held, placing them in the sole hands of its lay leaders, the Massari. As Bernard Cooperman explains, this may have been a result of the difficulty in attracting a rabbi to the new settlement, and the community may have “wanted to ensure that ju- ridical functions would be carried on even in the absence of a qualified rabbi.” Renzo Toaff
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