“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 realization of hardships encountered by New Christians on their way to Judaism, and a further 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 prominent 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 community, 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 connection 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 benefit 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 guaranteed 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 exempt 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 secret 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 policy, 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 internal 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 juridical functions would be carried on even in the absence of a qualified rabbi.” Renzo Toaff stresses the initial impossibility of adhering to the required three- rabbi format, which led to the establishment of a Massari tribunal in 1597 that dealt mostly with trade and personal matters, but also infrequent criminal cases.9 Yet Cooperman goes on to emphasize a more fundamental issue: the Massari’s effort, in Livorno as in other Sephardi communities, to limit rabbinical authority, so that “even in ritual-related matters of inheritance and divorce settlements the council insisted that the rabbis acted merely as legal advis- ers and that only the Massari themselves could formally declare judgment.”10 Significantly, the Massari received the right to decide whom to receive—or not—into the midst of the community out of the newcomers to Livorno, a pro- cedure known as “ballottazione.”11 Being included in the list of the community

Livorno and the Competition for Jewish Merchants in the Sixteenth Century,” Mediterranean Historical Review 6 (1991): 141. 8 As Francesca Bregoli writes, the Jewish nation differed from the many other foreign nations of Livorno since it was “legally recognized as a ‘subject nation’ by the Tuscan authorities” and “enjoyed the right to organize itself as a special political body, autonomous yet dependent on the government of the city.” See: Francesca Bregoli, “The Port of Livorno and its ’Nazione Ebrea’ in the Eighteenth Century: Economic Utility and Political Reforms,” Quest 2 (October 2011): http://www.quest-cdecjournal.it/focus.php?id=227#b (accessed 29 October 2014). 9 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 203. 10 See: Cooperman, “Trade and Settlement: The Establishment and Early Development of the Jewish Communities in Leghorn and Pisa (1591–1626),” 312–14. 11 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 47–8.

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 172 Melcer-Padon members was of extreme importance, because it also meant receiving immediate Tuscan citizenship.12 Most importantly, the Livornine offered the Jews security for an extensive period of time, of 25 years, to be renewed automatically for another 25 years; any changes to its provisions had to be made with an advance notice of five years, allowing the Jews enough time to sell their estates profitably should they find it necessary to leave Livorno, following potentially unfavourable changes.13 Lucia Frattarelli Fischer underlines the long, uninterrupted respect of the Livornine, which secured over 200 years of religious tolerance and favoured the establishment of a prosperous Jewish nation. At its peak, this community constituted around 10% of the population.14 The flow of New Christians arriving in Livorno continued to rise, concomitant with the renewed vigour of Inquisitional trials in Spain in 1640.15 By the end of the seventeenth century, the Jewish community comprised about 2500 members, second in size only to that of the Western Sephardi community of Amsterdam.16 As Jonathan Israel explains, the “pre-eminence of Amsterdam and Livorno in the western Sephardi world, has to be ascribed to the fact that conditions in those cities particularly favoured the development of specialized process- ing and auxiliary industries geared to servicing long-distance maritime trade,” conditions that flourished during the second half of the seventeenth century

12 Cooperman, “Trade and Settlement: The Establishment and Early Development of the Jewish Communities in Leghorn and Pisa (1591–1626),” 322; Lucia Frattarelli Fischer, “Cristiani Nuovi e Nuovi Ebrei in Toscana fra Cinque e Seicento. Legittimazioni e percorsi individuali” [“New Christians and New Jews in Tuscany between the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries”], in: Identità dissimulata. Giudaizzanti iberici nell’Europa Cristi- ana dell’Età moderna [Dissimulated Identity: Iberian Judaizers in the Christian Europe of the Modern Era], ed. P.C. Ioly Zorattini (Florence: Olschki, 2000), 99–149; Francesca Bregoli, Mediterranean Enlightment: Livornese Jews, Tuscan Culture, and Eighteenth- Century Reform (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2014), 22. One must stress however, that the ballottazione was not the only way to receive Tuscan citizenship. 13 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 419–35. 14 Lucia Frattarelli Fischer, “Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno nel sei e settecento tra inquisizioni e garanzie granducali” [Jews in Pisa and Livorno in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Between Inquisitions and Guarantees of the Grandukes”], in: Le inquisizioni cristiane e gli ebrei, Atti dei convegni Lincei 191 [The Christian Inquisitions and the Jews, Proceedings of the Lincei Conferences 191] (Rome: Lincei Acc., 2003), 255. 15 Frattarelli Fischer, “Gli Ebrei, il principe e l’inquisizione,” 223. 16 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 227. Frattarelli Fischer mentions that there were more than 3000 Jews in the communities of Pisa, Florence and Livorno by the end of the seventeenth century. See: Frattarelli Fischer, “Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno nel sei e settecento tra inquisizioni e garanzie granducali,” 255.

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” 173 and lasted until around 1750.17 Various commercial activities were open to the Jews in Livorno, besides imports and exports of goods, such as the coral in- dustry and trade, sugar refineries, as well as paper, soap, tobacco and leather industries. They issued insurance on ships and cargo and were involved in real- estate speculation and investments.18 Although Livorno primarily attracted merchants, many of them distinguished themselves in other ways as well. There were several renowned doctors, such as Mosè Cordovero, who for many years took charge of the affairs of the community,19 or the famous Elia Montalto, also known as Felipe Rodrigues, who arrived in Livorno before continuing to Pisa, where he became a university professor. Some doctors were also famous rabbis, and some doubled as Massari of the community.20 As Michele Cassandro points out, most of the Jewish doctors of Livorno were of converso origin.21 Livorno boasted a fertile cultural and intellectual life, which attracted writers and poets, such as Joseph Penso de la Vega, whose presence in Livorno encouraged the opening of the “Academia de Los Situbundos,” advancing its sister academy by the same name that was to open in Amsterdam.22 The presence of men of letters encouraged an active book trade; many famous rabbis arrived to supervise the printing of their books at the celebrated Gabbai printing house, turning Livorno into a centre of Jewish studies.23 This was the only printing house in the Italian peninsula that could print books in Hebrew in the mid-seventeenth century. It was eventually closed, among other reasons, due to pressure from the Inquisition and to the community’s preference for Hebrew books in Spanish or Portuguese

17 See: Israel, Diaspora within a Diaspora: Jews, Crypto-Jews and the World Maritime Empires (1540–170), 35–38. 18 See: Lucia Frattarelli Fischer, Vivere fuori dal ghetto: Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno (secoli XVI- XVIII) [Living Outside the Ghetto: Jews in Pisa and Livorno (XVI-XVIII Centuries)] (Turin: Zamorani, 2008), 151–159. 19 See: Frattarelli Fischer, Vivere fuori dal ghetto: Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno (secoli XVI-XVIII), 150. 20 See: Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 383–7. 21 Michele Cassandro notes that at first Cordovero only treated Jews, eventually obtaining Papal permission to also treat Christians. The Church’s intransigent position prevented Jewish doctors from treating Christian patients for a long period of time, despite the official stand of the Duchy explicit in chapter 18 of the Livornine. Cassandro mentions the names of several other Jewish doctors of Converso origin. See: Michele Cassandro, Aspetti della storia economica e sociale degli ebrei di Livorno nel seicento [Aspects of the Economic and Social History of the Jews of Livorno in the Seventeenth Century] (Milan: Dott. A. Giuffrè, 1983), 114–117. 22 See: Frattarelli Fischer, Vivere fuori dal ghetto: Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno (secoli XVI-XVIII), 159–167. 23 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 344–5.

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 174 Melcer-Padon translation, which were useful for the initiation of the arriving conversos in the fundamentals of Judaism.24 By 1641, Livorno could rely on the presence of its resident rabbis, and on their services as judges in a rabbinical court, and by the end of the seventeenth century, there were no less than 22 rabbis.25 One must add that Italy “had been the first European country to be reached by the kabbalistic propaganda emanating from Safed,” as Gershom Scholem explains.26 Livorno’s Sephardi community, essentially made up of former conversos, especially in its early years, was almost entirely swept up by the messianic awakening of the 1660s. The “Sabbatian gospel was eagerly received,” Scholem adds, also due to a “desire to atone for their Christian past … [it] provided them with a Jewish and hence ‘legitimate’ equivalent of the devout messianic fervour which they had known in their Spanish youth.”27 Livorno also witnessed some of the most fervent opponents of Shabbetai Tzvi, such as Rabbi Joseph ha-Levi, the preacher of the community, and especially the famous Rabbi Jacob Sasportas.28 The institution of a burgeoning Jewish community was of cardinal importance to Livorno’s subsequent economic success. Although the Jews were not the only merchants whose contribution is noteworthy, their activity was nonetheless essential for the city’s initial phases, providing their know-how as well as their intricate commercial networks.29 Livorno was officially declared a free port in 1676,30 and was to become one of the main port cities of its times,

24 See: Frattarelli Fischer, Vivere fuori dal ghetto: Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno (secoli XVI-XVIII), 166–167. 25 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 346–7. Toaff provides interesting bio- graphical information about the rabbis of Livorno until the beginning of the seventeenth century. See: ibid., 348–358. 26 See: Gershom Scholem, The Mystical Messiah 1626–1676, Trans. R.J. Zwi Werblowsky (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1976), 478. 27 See: ibid., 485–6. 28 Rabbi Yacob Sasportas (1620–1698) was a distinguished Talmudist and one of the most famous rabbis of his time. He served as rabbi in various Sephardi communities, in Hamburg, Amsterdam, London and Livorno. See: Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 223–4. 29 Cassandro, Aspetti della storia economica e sociale degli ebrei di Livorno nel seicento, 18. 30 Although Livorno’s port already functioned as a free port earlier, this was the official date. See: Giuseppe Marcocci, “Itinerari marrani: I portoghesi a Livorno nei secoli dell’età moderna” [“Marrano Itineraries: the Portuguese in Livorno in the Centuries of the Modern Era”], in: Livorno 1606–1806: Luogo di incontro tra popoli e culture [Livorno 1606–1806: A Place of Encounter Between Peoples and Cultures], ed. Adriano Prosperi (Turin: Allemandi, 2009), 414.

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” 175 famed for its facilities, such as warehouses and sanitary structures.31 Livorno successfully competed with Venice and Ancona,32 both on the Adriatic shore, especially since Livorno faces the Ligurian sea, a fact that made it a favoured port among ships arriving from the west. Much of the English commercial and naval power in the Mediterranean relied on the port of Livorno, which became Italy’s chief port by the mid-seventeenth century.33 Livorno facilitated the English and Dutch expansion in the Mediterranean, turning the city into a successful emporium of merchandise, and allowing it to avoid the economic crisis that struck major parts of the Mediterranean area at the time.34 Not all the New Christians who arrived in Livorno returned to Judaism.35 Some chose to remain Christians, whereas others continued to practice Judaism in secret, living outwardly as Christians.36 As Frattarelli Fischer explains, the legal and religious conditions of the Jews of Tuscany differed between the sixteenth and seventeenth century, and influenced the immigrants’ decisions: whereas in earlier times, New Christians who arrived following the safe-conduct offered by Cosimo I were still compelled to live as Christians, and risked being accused by the Inquisition of secretly practicing Judaism, the seventeenth century witnessed an almost general return to Judaism on the part

31 Lucia Frattarelli Fischer and Stefano Villani, “‘People of Every Mixture.’ Immigration, Tolerance and Religious Conflicts in Early Modern Livorno,” in: Immigration and Emigration in Historical Perspective, ed. Ann Katherine Isaacs (Pisa: Plus, 2007), 96. Regarding the uniqueness of the port of Livorno, see: Francesca Bregoli, “The Port of Livorno and its ‘Nazione Ebrea’ in the Eighteenth Century: Economic Utility and Political Reforms,” Quest 2 (October 2011), online: http://www.quest-cdecjournal.it/focus .php?id=227 (accessed 29 October 2014). 32 Frattarelli Fischer contextualizes the privileges Cosimo conferred on the Jews in 1556 within the context of the persecutions of Ancona of the same year, which resulted in the auto-da-fé of 25 people accused of Judaizing. See: Frattarelli Fischer, Vivere fuori dal ghetto: Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno (secoli XVI-XVIII), 32–33. 33 See: Henry Roseveare, Markets and Merchants of the Late Seventeenth Century: The Marescoe-David Letters, 1668–1680 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987), 100. 34 See: Cassandro, Aspetti della storia economica e sociale degli ebrei di Livorno nel seicento, 5–6. 35 As Yosef Kaplan underlines, “only a minority of the Iberian New Christians of Jewish descent left Iberia, and not all returned to Judaism in their new places of residence.” See: Yosef Kaplan, “Amsterdam, The Forbidden Lands, and The Dynamics of the Sephardi Diaspora,” in: The Dutch Intersection: The Jews and the Netherlands in Modern History, ed. Yosef Kaplan (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 33. Regarding Italian city-states, Renée Levine Melammed finds that those conversos who chose not to embrace Judaism “seemed to have been in the minority, these individuals were tempted by the prospect of the social advantages available to them in the Christian world.” See: Levine Melammed, A Question of Identity: Iberian Conversos in Historical Perspective, 111. 36 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 99.

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 176 Melcer-Padon of New Christians, thanks to Ferdinand I’s protection from accusations of her- esy, extended to those who had clearly lived as Christians before arriving in Livorno.37 For the sake of appearances, and especially of maintaining a peace- ful relationship with the Church, the Duke had tried to keep the Livornine privileges secret,38 as did the heads of the Jewish community, at the pain of herem (excommunication) for those who might infringe on it.39 The Grand Duke clarified that he preferred New Christians formally returned to Judaism elsewhere before settling in Livorno, this again in order to eliminate ambigu- ity and maintain the Inquisition at bay.40 Many indeed did so in Venice,41 in Salonika or in Jewish communities in North Africa, and arrived in Livorno having been circumcised there. Nonetheless, numerous conversos were circumcised in Livorno, a fact that generated clashes between the Grand Duke and the Church officials.42 Yet when New Christians re-joined Judaism in Livorno, they were by and large protected not only by the Duke but also by the Church’s own blind eye policy.43 By the end of the sixteenth century, the favourable conditions produced by the complex relationship between the Grand duchy and the Church further

37 An important part of the Livornine assured New Christians who came to Livorno that whatever religious belief they had held before arriving there would not be held against them, a formulation that recognized that no Jew arriving from the Iberian peninsula at the end of the sixteenth century could still be living there as a Jew. See: Frattarelli Fischer, Vivere fuori dal ghetto: Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno (secoli XVI-XVIII), 21 and 30. 38 Giuseppe Marcocci points to the fragility of the relations between the Grand Duchy and the Church in the first decades following the Livornine. See: Marcocci, “Itinerari marrani: I portoghesi a Livorno nei secoli dell’età moderna,” 410. 39 Fratterelli Fischer, “Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno nel sei e settecento tra inquisizioni e garanzie granducali,” 267. 40 Frattarelli Fischer, “Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno nel sei e settecento tra inquisizioni e garanzie granducali,” 269, and 280; Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 100. 41 As Yosef Yerushalmi explains, although “the Papacy had tried to force the Venetian Republic to take action against … apostates, the Serenissima paid little heed. In this way Venice became known among the Marranos themselves as one of the more liberal cities for those who wished to return to Judaism.” See: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto: Isaac Cardoso: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Marranism and Jewish Apologetics (Seattle: Washington UP, 1971), 196. 42 Frattarelli Fischer, “Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno nel sei e settecento tra inquisizioni e garanzie granducali,” 266–284. 43 Fratterelli Fischer, “Gli Ebrei, il principe e l’inquisizione,” 221. Frattarelli Fischer also mentions a letter written by the nuncio, in which he claims that the Pisa Archbishop is the source of all the decrees he later pretends to ignore. See; Fratterelli Fischer, “Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno nel sei e settecento tra inquisizioni e garanzie granducali,” 261, fn 31.

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” 177 encouraged a return to Judaism.44 Nevertheless, from the seventeenth century, Livorno also attracted greater attention on the part of the Pisan Inquisition, and the Grand Duke could not always protect his Jewish subjects, not even prominent ones, from its far-reaching hands.45 Yet even when accused of Judaizing by the Inquisition, no Jew was condemned to death in Livorno.46 More often than not, cases of suspected apostasy were secretly resolved by diplomatic means,47 or by the convenient disappearance of the condemned.48 Religious tolerance and dissimulation were the means the Tuscan Grand Dukes adopted to guarantee the continued settlement of merchants of various nations and creeds in Livorno.49 Thus, the Jewish community of Livorno had a central role in the return to Judaism of many New Christians arriving from Spain, Portugal and France.50 Renzo Toaff points out that it was easier for New Christians to openly live as Jews, as part of a community of conversos who had returned to Judaism and

44 Cecil Roth lists many famous conversos who returned to Judaism in Livorno, among whom the famous poet Miguel de Barrios and Rehuel Jessurun, one of the known figures of the early years of the Sephardi community of Amsterdam. See: Cecil Roth, “I marrani di Livorno, Pisa e Firenze” [“The Marranos of Livorno, Pisa and Florence”], La rassegna Mensile [The Monthly Review of Israel], VII(9) (1/1933): 395. 45 Frattarelli Fischer, “Gli Ebrei, il principe e l’inquisizione,” 224; “Ritratti di donne dai pro- cessi dell’Inquisizione: Rachele e Antonia portoghesi, Caterina schiava morisca e Sara Nunez donna e Rabina” [“Women’s Portraits from the Trials of the Inquisition: Rachele and Antonia Portuguese, Caterina Moor Slave and Sara Nunez a Woman and a Rabbi”], in: Sul filo della scritura: fonti e temi delle donne a Livorno [On the edge of writing: sources and subjects regarding women in Livorno], eds. Michele Luzzati and Lucia Frattarelli Fischer (Pisa: Pisa UP, 2005), 344. Already in 1538, Ercole of Este issued similar safe conducts for “all Spaniards and Portughese” who came to live in Ferrara (Emilia-Romagna), and in 1550 issued another safe conduct, this time referring explicitly to the Portuguese and Spanish Jews, which allowed them to live in Ferrara “in accordance with Jewish law and assuring them that they would not be molested if for any reason they had claimed that they were not Jews and passed themselves off as Christians.” See: Ravid, “A Tale of Three Cities and their Raison d’ Etat: Ancona, Venice, Livorno and the Competition for Jewish Merchants in the Sixteenth Century,” 141–2. 46 Fratterelli Fischer, “Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno nel sei e settecento tra inquisizioni e garanzie granducali,” 268. 47 Ibid., 265. 48 Ibid., 267. Frattarelli Fischer mentions the example of the Esperiel family, who had man- aged to escape the Church officials in 1604. They succeeded to do so thanks to fair warning, resulting from the fact that the visits of the Archbishop or of the inquisitor of Pisa were known in advance and their every step monitored. Ibid., 269–70. 49 Fratterelli Fischer, “Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno nel sei e settecento tra inquisizioni e garanzie granducali,” 270. 50 Ibid., 272.

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 178 Melcer-Padon provided a strong support group, than to live as Christians.51 Nonetheless, belonging to the Jewish community was certainly less crucial to the wealthier New Christians than to those who depended on the community’s financial assistance for survival. Naturally, as Yosef Kaplan explains, the Jewish Sephardi community could only exercise its authority on those who wished to belong to it, and could employ financial and social pressure only on those who were in need.52 Regardless of their choice, the “Portughese” New Christians and New Jews shared a lively social and cultural life in Livorno.53

3 The Attitude of Livorno Jews to Iberia

New Christians and New Jews alike continued to treasure the place where they—or their parents—had been born and raised, to read its literature and speak in Spanish and Portuguese, and to maintain family and business relationships with those they had been constrained to leave behind. Kaplan underlines the paradox of the Sephardi communities outside of the Iberian Peninsula: though they were established thanks to their members’ continued trade relationships with their partners in Spain and Portugal, these communities wished at the same time to consolidate their members’ Jewish identity.54 Accordingly, the Jewish Community of Livorno tried to prevent its members from returning to Spain. The community’s book of regulations (Libro di Haskamot) constituted in 1655, published by Renzo Toaff,55 allows one to assess the means with which the leaders of the community tried to enforce their authority and safe-

51 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 364. 52 See: Yosef Kaplan, “Attitudes Towards Circumcision Among the Early Modern Western Sephardim,” in From Sages to Savants. Studies Presented to Avraham Grossman, eds. Joseph Hacker, Yosef Kaplan and Benjamin Z. Kedar (Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center, 2009), 355–392 [Hebrew]. An English translation of this article is: Yosef Kaplan, “‘This Thing Alone Will Preserve Their Nation Forever’: Circumcision and Conversion in Early Modern Western Sephardi Communities,” in: The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond, Volume 3 Displaced Persons, eds. Kevin Ingram and Juan Ignacio Pulido Serrano (Leiden: Brill, 2015). 53 Frattarelli Fischer, “Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno nel sei e settecento tra inquisizioni e garanzie granducali,” 284. 54 Yosef Kaplan, “Between Christianity and Judaism in Early Modern Europe: The Confessionalization Process of the Western Sephardi Diaspora,” in: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in The Course of History: Exchange and Conflicts, eds. Lother Gall and Dietmar Willoweit (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2011), 329–331. 55 Renzo Toaff, “Statuti e leggi della ‘Nazione Ebrea’ di Livorno” [“Statutes and Laws of the ‘Jewish Nation’ of Livorno”], La rassegna mensile di Israel, XXVIII (3) (Rome: UCEI, 1968): 25, 46–7.

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” 179 guard the members of the community from going back to Spain or Portugal, thereby risking their lives and compromising their Jewish identity.56 According to regulation 25 (Haskama 25), limitations would be imposed on community members returning to Livorno from a voyage to Spain or Portugal: whoever travelled to the “lands of idolatry,” would not be called to read from the Tora at the synagogue, nor perform the Hagomel rite, (a prayer of thanks, usually after a person is saved from danger) for two years after his return; in addition, the returnee would not be allowed to hold any public office in the community for two years, a period in which he would be under observation.57 An earlier set of community rules, dating from 1644, of the important Confraternita di Maritar Donzelle, (the dowry confraternity), is even harsher in its treatment of returnees. According to one of its regulations, any member of the confraternity returning to Spain or Portugal for more than a year would be considered dead. This regulation assured that no adversity would deplete the funds of the confraternity, guaranteed that the capital of the confraternity would remain in Livorno and continued to constantly increase.58 Beyond safeguarding their

56 Cecil Roth lists those conversos who, having lived in Livorno as Jews, returned to Spain and were burned at the stake in Madrid. See: Roth, “I marrani di Livorno, Pisa e Firenze,” 405. 57 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 287. The text of haskama (regulation) nr. 25 is published on p. 562. Yosef Kaplan describes the sanctions operative in the Sephardi community of Amsterdam, where returnees were only allowed back into the fold of the community after four years from the date of their return. Returnees, especially those who had already been circumcised in the lands of freedom before going back to Iberia, found themselves in a liminal state upon their return: they could only rejoin the community after a rite of transition was performed. Treated as a deviant, the returnee had to beg the community’s forgiveness and be publicly humiliated before he could be rein- tegrated. Kaplan notes that the effect of the humiliating ceremony was often irrevocable. See: Yosef Kaplan, “Devianza e punizione nella diaspora sefardita occidentale del XVII secolo: i portoghesi ad Amsterdam” [“Deviance and Punishment in the Western Sephardi Diaspora of the XVII Century: The Amsterdam Portuguese”], La rassegna mensile LVIII (1–2) (1992): 176 and 179. Kaplan further compares the regulations of the Amsterdam community on this issue to those of the communities of Livorno, Hamburg and London. Although the Livorno and Hamburg communities did not demand the returnee to ask forgiveness in a public ceremony, they did deny him various honors in the synagogue for a period of two years, whereas in London the period of suspension lasted three years. See: Kaplan, “Amsterdam, The Forbidden Lands, and The Dynamics of The Sephardi Diaspora,” 44–46. The regulation concerning returnees to Amsterdam can be found in: Yosef Kaplan, “The Travels of Portuguese Jews from Amsterdam to the ‘Lands of Idolatry’ (1644–1724),” in: Jews and Conversos, ed. Yosef Kaplan (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1985), 205–206. 58 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 267.

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 180 Melcer-Padon investments,59 this regulation also served as a warning against prolonged and risky trips. Above all, as Francesca Trivellato points out, the internal cohesion of the community was indispensable for a minority group such as the Sephardi community,60 and indeed the rules the community leaders agreed upon reflect this well.

4 Jewish Wills of the Period in Various Locations

As opposed to the Jews in Livorno, Jews who found refuge from the Iberian Inquisition in many other parts of Europe at the time could not openly pro- fess their faith. Such for example was the case of the Jews of Bayonne, one of the cities on the escape route from Iberia, a city that probably harboured the majority of New Christians escaping Spain and Portugal by way of land.61 As Gérard Nahon noted in wills he examined from Bayonne, these were drafted before Christian notaries and Christian witnesses. Nonetheless, as transpires in about 100 wills from 1684 to 1791, when facing death, these New Christians manifestly reverted to their Jewish identities.62 Although the formulae employed in the wills depended on the notaries’ wordings, rather than on the testators’, the notaries adapted the wills to their Jewish clients, omitting their common usage of Christian references and appellations, and producing very dry texts. Direct reference to Judaism was thus exclusively noticeable in the choice of burial, and in the concern that it be done in a separate cemetery, that of ‘the Portuguese.’63 As to pious or charitable expressions, those are noticeable only from 1695 onward, and only in 1745 are donations for the Holy Land mentioned. While the Christian religious expression in Christian wills weak- ens during the course of the eighteenth century, the religious expression of the

59 Moises Orfali points out that in order to secure it, the capital of this confraternity was declared sacred, and members were not allowed to demand their invested money back under any circumstance. See: Moises Orfali, “The Portuguese Dowry Society in Livorno and the Marrano Diaspora,” Studia Rosentaliana 35(1) (2001): 150. 60 Francesca Trivellato, “Juifs de Livourne, Italiens de Lisbonne, hindous de Goa: Résaux marchands et échanges interculturels à l’époque moderne” [“Jews from Livorno, Italians from Lisbon, Hindus from Goa: Trade Networks and Cultural Exchanges in the Modern Period”], Annales: Histoire, Science Sociales 3 (May-June, 2003): 594. 61 See: Gérard Nahon, Métropoles et périphéries Sefarades d’occident: Kairouan, Amsterdam, Bayonne, Bordeaux, Jérusalem [Western Sephardic Métropolies and Outskirts: Kairouan, Amsterdam, Bayonne, Bordeaux, Jerusalem] (Paris: Cerf, 1993), 254. 62 See: ibid., 265 and 285. 63 Ibid., 296.

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” 181

Jews of Bayonne, finally able to reveal their feelings freely, increases, diverging from their previous similarity with Christian wills.64 Thus, as David Malkiel points out, “the notarial wills of pre-modern European Jews reflect the cultural, as well as legal, norms of their general envi- ronment.” As such, the Jewish notarial will “speaks in two voices,” in a particularly Jewish voice, as well as in the voice of the Christian surrounding culture in which it was written.65 In the Italian peninsula of the Early Modern Period, as in many other places, Jews generally turned to Christian notaries to formulate their wills, since this profession was closed to them. Consequently, such wills can be found today in state archives of various Italian towns. According to Carla Boccato, Jews were required by Venetian law to use a notary’s services in order to validate their wills.66 The Venetian wills Boccato examines were mostly written in Italian, though Sephardi wills also contained ‘iberisms,’ and Judeo-Venetian specific to the ghetto, especially those of women.67 These wills were not drawn up according to the Jewish law, both because they were made before a Christian notary, often involving Christian witnesses, and because they did not follow the traditional Jewish male succession, since the testators frequently left property and assets to their daughters and other relatives. As Elisabeth Borgolotto and Emilia Garruto exemplify, through the instructions left in the will of a Florentine woman called Dolcetta, the widow of Salomone di Matassia of Perugia, a last will and testament often served to guarantee female beneficiaries would be able to handle their inheritance without their husbands’ intervention, as was also the case in the Christian world. The writers point out that Dolce was the only woman under their consideration who wrote her testament when her husband was still alive, since the state of widowhood

64 Nahon, Métropoles er périphéries Sefarades d’occident: Kairouan, Amsterdam, Bayonne, Bordeaux, Jérusalem, 315. 65 See: David Malkiel, “Jews and Wills in Renaissance Italy: A Case study in the Jewish- Christian Cultural encounter,” Italia XII (1996): 7. 66 See: Carla Boccato, “The Testament of Jacob Cohen Ascanasi: The Family and Commercial Enterprise in the Venetian Ghetto at the End of the Sixteenth Century,” Mediterranean Historical Review 8(1) (June 1993): 110. Boccato explains the difference, according to Venetian law, between a ‘solemn’ testament drawn up before a notary and an unofficial one, which was deprived of juridical effectiveness. Ibid., 111 n.8. 67 See: Carla Boccato, “Aspetti patrimoniali e beneficiari nei testamenti di donne veneziane del seicento” [“Matrimonial Aspects and Beneficiaries in the Testaments of Venetian Woman of the Seventeeth Century”], http://www.storiadivenezia.net/sito/donne/ Boccato_Aspetti.pdf [accessed 13 September 2015], 2. See also: Carla Boccato, “Ebree nella vita a Venezia nel seicento attraverso i testamenti” [“Jewish Women Through their Wills in Seventeenth Century Venetian Life”], in: Donne nella storia degli ebrei dÍtalia, eds. Michele Luzzati and Cristina Galasso (Florence: Giuntina, 2007), 266–267.

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 182 Melcer-Padon certainly gave wider access on the part of the women to the instrument of the testament.68 Yet Stefanie Siegmund specifies that “even in widowhood, a woman was not automatically emancipated. However, if her father were dead, even a married woman could make autonomous legal decisions,” such as writing a will.69 Howard Adelman points out that the result of the use of notarial services for the drawing up of Jewish wills was that the validity of these wills was often ad- dressed both by rabbis and by Christian legal scholars.70 Leon Modena himself not only considered testaments made before Christian notaries to be reliable and religiously acceptable, but drafted his own testament before one. Adelman goes on to mention rabbinical responsa of the same time that considered these testaments valid, based on the Talmudic principle that the law of the land was binding for Jews. As Siegmund stresses, notarial formal documents ensured their validity and at the same time “registered the compliance of these Jews [using notarial services] with local law.”71 Elka Klein, for her part, stresses that Catalan Jews of the later thirteenth century were indeed “open to the broader society and influenced by it in many ways.” Nonetheless, “they did not sim- ply copy what Christians did.” Klein notices this especially in their resistance to privileging a single heir in their testaments. “Acculturation,” she concludes, “may have been an unconscious process, but it was not an automatic one.”72

5 Writing a Jewish Will in Livorno

In some cases, probably involving litigation over the contents of the will, the party who felt the Jewish court had wronged him or her, could turn to the of- ficers of the Grand Duke of Tuscany for arbitration, and present wills as part of the evidence. Some such wills, written in Italian, can be found in the Livorno

68 See: Carla Elisabeth Borgolotto and Emilia Garruto, “Testamenti Toscani del quatrocento” [“Tuscan Testaments of the Fifteenth Century”], in: Donne nella storia degli ebrei dÍtalia, eds. Michele Luzzati and Cristina Galasso (Florence: Giuntina, 2007), 67–68 and 72. 69 See: Stefanie B. Siegmund, The Medici State and the Ghetto of Florence (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2006), 381. 70 See: Howard Tzvi Adelman, “Jewish Women and Family Life, Inside and Outside the Ghetto,” in: The Jews of Early Modern Venice, eds. Robert C. Davis and Benjamin Ravid (Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 2001), 149. 71 See: Stefanie B. Siegmund, “Division of the Dowry on the Death of the Daughter: An Instance in the Negotiation of Laws and Jewish Customs in Early Modern Tuscany,” Jewish History 16(1) (2002): 75. 72 See: Elka Klein, “Splitting Heirs: Patterns of Inheritance among Barcelona’s Jews,” Jewish History 16(1) (2002): 64.

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” 183

State Archives.73 Yet the powerful Jewish community in Livorno did not need to resort to Christian notaries to formulate wills. Having deposited a will with the Livorno Massari, the testator could be assured—as much as anyone ever can be—that his last wishes would be respected, since such a will was as legally binding as wills made before a Christian notary. Since the community’s lay leaders were its representatives and judges, wills were often validated by the Massari’s own attestations.74 The Cancelleria, or registry office of the community, administered the Massari tribunal, and the Cancelliere carried out the functions of a notary, such as the formulation of contracts, registration of ownerships, issuing invitations to appear in court, translation and authentica- tion of documents and signatures, including wills, as well as period-specific and community-specific tasks such as the wording and publication of a herem (excommunication).75 Though it is unclear how many were employed in the Cancelleria, the office of Cancelliere was instituted in 1597, when the Livorno community gained independence from the Pisan community. Many of the wills discussed here were signed by Daniel di Jacob Serrano, the Cancelliere from 1625, when he took over from his father, who had held this office for nearly thirty years. Serrano continued holding office until his death in 1670, despite many complaints regarding the inefficiency of the Cancelleria under

73 A few Jewish wills have been found in in the Livorno State Archive, in files of the “Governatore e Auditore, suppliche civili,” and of the “Dogana.” The Dogana (customs office) was a central institution in Livorno: set aside for dealing with the traffic of merchan- dises and taxation issues, it was the main owner of houses, and many Jews rented houses directly from it, or from one of the two other institutions that rented out houses, namely the Ordine de Cavalieri di Santo Stefano [Order of the Knights of Saint Stefano] and the Ceppi di Prato [Shackles of Prato]. The rent was usually reasonable, and the contracts were valid until the third generation, of both male and female descent. See: Cassandro, Aspetti della storia economica e sociale degli ebrei di Livorno nel seicento, 45. 74 This is also the case with Jewish wills written in other places, especially wills of the wealthy, as for example in Amsterdam. See: Tirtsah Levie Bernfeld, Poverty and Welfare among Portuguese Jews in Early Modern Amsterdam (Oxford: Littman, 2012), 175. Levie Bernfeld stresses that this practice was more typical of the seventeenth century, when the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam rallied around their community and its leaders. The eighteenth century saw a considerable increase in the number of poor and at the same time of private initiative regarding poor relief in Amsterdam, as it did in Spain. This resulted in testators leaving charitable donations in their wills but prohibiting the intervention of anyone other than the executors. Levie Bernfeld considers this a sign of a rising lack of trust in the institutional leadership of the community and in its capacity to provide for an ever-increasing flow of poor arriving in town, or of residents who had become destitute. Ibid., 175–178. 75 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 235–241.

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 184 Melcer-Padon his command, and despite two major attempts to remove him from office.76 Many of the testators had held the role of Massari themselves, and were members of various confraternities. It is thus noteworthy that wills drawn up before the leaders of the community, as opposed to wills drafted before a Christian notary, acquired a greater degree of publicity, disclosing details about fortunes and family relationships to people outside the immediate family, but within the same circle of socio-economic peers.

6 Specific Requests of Testators: Regarding Judaism

The thirty wills discussed here were thus deposited with the leaders of the Jewish community of Livorno. The majority of these wills are mostly written in Spanish and in Portuguese (one was written in Italian, probably a copy), and many display a combination of these languages, and include Hebrew words and expressions, some in Latin characters and some in medieval Hebrew script. Many Jews had continued to reside in Spain as Christians prior to their arrival to Livorno, and were clearly fluent in Spanish. Nonetheless, their use of Spanish to write their wills also demonstrates their perception of their personal identities, as well as the links they maintained with members of the family left behind, and the business relationships they kept with Spanish partners. Many wills that are written in Spanish are attested by the witnesses in Portuguese, the community’s formal language, as can be seen in other files, containing various community deliberations. What is interesting for the present reading of the wills is the testators’ knowledge and adherence to Jewish wording and customs. This is particularly noteworthy since the testators had been immersed in the Christian world for a long period of time before arriving in Livorno. In addition, the port of Livorno allowed for the constant intermingling of peoples of various faiths

76 Toaff discusses these issues in detail. Most interesting is the nature of the relations between the community and the Grand Duke in this context, as they can be understood from the petitions he received on the part of those who were vying for Serrano’s office. While neither applicant received their wish, and the Grand duke preferred to leave the power in the hands of the Massari, and choice of Cancelliere to their discretion, he did so for a hefty sum of money, almost equal to that which one of the applicants offered to pay in return for the post. According to Toaff, Serrano’s salary was not recorded, but it is known that he lived in a whole house he rented at 414, Via della Sinagoga, parts of which he sublet. See: Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 236–239 and 452. Some of the Massari who signed the petition to the Duke against selling the Cancelleria were Jacob Abram Perera (will of 1631), Jacob Israel Amnon (will of 1670) Jacob de Soria, (will of 1690), whose wills are discussed below.

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” 185 and origins. In general, the wills that are mentioned here follow a set format, a fact that in itself turns them into part of a communal institution. This format is not specific to the Livorno community, and can be found in other Jewish communities of the period, and in essence also in wills drafted by Christians.77 Philippe Ariès notes that wills in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries did not divulge as intimate a confession as today’s researchers might wish to read, but despite an adherence to notarial formulas, their variety indicates a certain liberty of expression.78 If we follow Ariès’ model, this period falls into his second category of “baroque death,” a public death, accompanied by many members of the community, with the dying person at the centre of the ceremony.79 Accordingly, the wills under discussion here were often attested by many, frequently providing the impression of a scene of a very crowded room around the testator’s bed. After a heading, usually including the date (often using the Jewish date) and the place of writing, most testators acknowledge that she or he is about to die, often due to illness.80 Such wills belong to the Jewish classification of “shkhiv me’ra” wills, that is wills written by a dying person on the verge of death and with no hope of recovery.81

77 Samuel Cohn, whose in-depth research covers thousands of wills from six Tuscan city states in the Middle Ages, finds “a fairly uniform legal culture … of customary law” among Christians, “in which male kin had rights of inheritance over female kin and in which property succeeded through the male line.” See: Samuel K. Cohn, Jr.. The Cult of Remembrance and the Black Death: Six Renaissance Cities in Central Italy (Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1992), 16–17. 78 See: Philippe Ariès, L’ homme devant la mort [Man Facing Death] (Paris: Seuil, 1977), 196. 79 See: ibid., 26. 80 One testator, Jacob Hai Senhor (1710), leaves his assets to Lady Doña Estrella, his consort, stressing that the gift should be made as if it “were stipulated by the hand of a Florentine public notary, with all its necessary details and circumstances to similar instruments, valid and firm [so that] it may have the same substance and force and vigor before any tribunal or magistrate.” The testator was probably healthy of body and soul when he wrote his will, and his wishes could thus be challenged according to Halakhic rules. This is probably why he stressed particularly that his wishes should be honoured as if they were drawn up before a Christian notary, in front of any court, both Christian and Jewish. :רמב“ם, משנה תורה, הלכות זכיה ומתנה, פרק ח, הלכה ב :Regarding a “shkhiv me’ra” will, see 81 “החולה שתשש כוח כל הגוף וכשל כוחו מחמת החולי עד שאינו יכול להלך על רגלו בשוק However, when a person becomes ill to the] והרי הוא נופל על המיטה-הוא שכיב מרע” extent that he feels weak throughout his entire body—indeed, because of his illness, his strength has dwindled to the extent that he cannot walk on his feet in the market place, and he is confined to his bed—he is referred to as a shkhiv me’ra.] Maimonides, Mishne Torah, Volume 12, Zechiya umattanah, Chapter 8, Halachah 2 (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1955), 235. (For the English translation, see: http://www.chabad.org/li brary/article_cdo/aid/1365802/jewish/Zechiyah-uMattanah-Chapter-Eight.htm (accessed

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 186 Melcer-Padon

The testator then commends his or her soul to God, and begs Him to have pity and pardon all sins, as does for example Abraham Ribero Enriquez, Massaro in 1661,82 and whose will dates from 1681, while Abraham Salomon Yeshurun,83 in a will from the same year, also mentions that he has said his vidui (confession of his sins). There follow instructions regarding the burial. Many specifically mention their wish to be buried in Beth Ha-hayim, or the house of the living, a common Jewish euphemism for the cemetery.84 Ester Levi (1681), Samuel Levi’s widow, declares in her will that she has a plot that has already been paid for, near her late husband’s grave. Some testators mention that they want a stone put on their grave “as is the custom,” or “according to the custom of all Jews.” Several specify that they wish to have a black stone on their grave, while Jacob Israel Mendes (1675)85 asks for a blue tombstone. Often the will includes a detailed list of alms to be given to the poor on the day of burial, to those who will take care of the body, and sometimes also

June 4, 2018). In fact, the very premise that a person can bequeath his property is not accepted by Jewish Law. The only possibility for a legal will is a shkhiv me’ra will, a category introduced by the sages over the ages, which allows a person who is terminally ill to bequeath his property not only to his default legal heirs (giving precedence to the first-born male and other males in the family) but practically to anyone. For a definition of Shkhiv me’ra wills, see: Chaim Povarsky, “Tzava’at shiv me’ra’—mahutah utxulatah” [“The Shchiv Me’ra will—its essence and application”], in: Diney Israel: Shnaton leXeqer haMish- pat HaIvri baAvar uVaHoveh [Annual for the Study of Hebrew Law in the Past and in the Present], ed. Aharon Kirshenbaum (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1975), 191–203 [Hebrew]. For a Halakhic (Jewish law) discussion of the differences between wills written by a healthy person and by a dying person, see: Yosef Rivlin, “Al haXovah leshayer layorshim” [“Regarding the Duty of Bequeathing Heirs”], in: Diney Israel: Shnaton leXeqer haMishpat HaIvri baavar ubahoveh, ed. Aharon Kirshenbaum (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University and Touro College, Tel Aviv, 1985–87), 167–192 [Hebrew]. For a discussion of the concept of ‘shiv me-ra’ and its relevance to the disposition of property, as well as its parallels in Greek and Roman law, see: Reuven Yaron, Gifts in Contemplation of Death in Jewish and Roman Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), 85–89. 82 Abraham Ribero Enriquez was also one of the petitioners to the Duke regarding maintaining the functions of the Cancelliere in the hands of the Massari. See: Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 456, 573 and 679. 83 Abraham Salomon Yeshurun was on the list of candidates for the post of Massari in 1643, and his wealth was valued at 4000 scudi. See: Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 74. 84 Avriel Bar Levav considers that this name “reflects a vital connection between the living and the dead.” See: Avriel Bar-Levav, “We Are Where We Are Not: The Cemetery in Jewish Culture,” Jewish Studies 41 (2002): 46. 85 Jacob Israel Mendes held the office of Cancelliere in Pisa until 1659, and is mentioned as participating in the Pisan community’s Maamad deliberations. See: Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 82 and 528.

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” 187 to those who will say the Tres Cumplimientos, the prayers that, according to Jewish custom, are said on three occasions: on the seventh day after the burial, after thirty days, and a year later, as well as on all following annual days of remembrance.86 These prayers are usually said at the synagogue, since, as Avriel Bar-Levav explains,

the ritual of saying the qaddish, which is central among Jewish mourn- ing rituals, can be said only in a minyan, that is a group of ten men. One needs to have a community in order to mourn properly or to mark properly days of remembrance.87

Jacob di Soria (1680)88 not only leaves money to charity to be given to the poor every Friday during the first year after his death, but also specifically indicates that money should be given to bury those poor people who could not afford to pay for a traditional Jewish shroud (tahrihim). In addition, he leaves money to the community’s institutions for poor relief, the hebra degemilut hasadim and the comp[a]gn de bahele tesuba, as well as to the community yeshiva, the

86 Abraham Ribero Enriquez (1681), one of the Massari in 1661 according to Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 456, leaves money for his burial as well as money to be given to the poor on the day of his burial, as well as for the Tres Cumplimientos. Esther (1699), wife of Mordechai de Medina, who officiated as Gabbay Zedaka in 1654 and as Massaro in 1674, leaves similar instructions, as does David Lopes Faro (1682), who also asks that a Menorah of 12 arms be lit in the “Jesiba,” and adds money for a barrel of oil, to light the Menorah on Sabbaths and festive days. Jacob Lopes Moreno (1670) asks that an oil lamp be lit for a whole year in the synagogue, besides giving money to the poor and for the performance of the Tres Cumplimientos. Jacob di Soria, (mentioned in note 64), also specifies the monies given on the Tres Cumplimientos should be handed out at the synagogue, perhaps to ensure prayers will be said on these occasions. David Ferro (1687) instructs that his son’s house should be sold to pay for his burial and the Tres Cumplimientos. Rica Machoro Santigliana (1673) commends her soul to God and orders a lamp to be lit to mark the Tres Cumplimientos, giving money after each. She also donates money to the community of Pisa and to the Haham (Rabbi) and his wife. Her husband may be Mosé Machoro of Pisa, mentioned by Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 443 and 496. 87 See: Avriel Bar-Levav, “Jewish Attitudes towards Death: A Society between Time, Space and Texts,” in: Death in Jewish Life, eds. Stefan C. Reif et al. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 6. 88 A Jacob de Soria is mentioned by Toaff as one of the merchants active in Livorno before 1645, and as having occupied the post of a Massari four times. He is also one of the found- ers of the dowry confraternity. See: Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 152 and 665; Cristina Galasso mentions Jacob de Soria as one of three de Soria brothers who handled the monies of their female relatives, and used them, among other ventures, to give loans to Christians. See: Galasso, Alle origini di una communità: ebree ed ebrei a Livorno nel seicento, 77.

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 188 Melcer-Padon

Talmud Thora. Other testators also leave money to the various bodies of the community, such as to the synagogue, the school, or its confraternities. In some cases, the testator stipulates certain conditions, when he asks that his relatives perform certain rites or say prayers, and they will receive money depending on their faithfulness and performance. Josef Gonzalez (1691) was a member of the dowry confraternity from 1674, and started his own society for religious charity (opera pia) in 1681.89 He gave annual donations to eight girls, as well as money for clothes for boys of the Talmud Tora90 and in his will left money to the dowry confraternity. Concerning his direct heirs, he left his son and a niece money under the condition that they each keeps his or her house according to Jewish law and custom. In addition, he left money to a nephew of his first wife, presently living in Spain, as stipulated in his first wife’s will and still pending to be fulfilled, if he returned to Judaism.91 Indeed, several wills reflect the difficult situation of families torn apart by circumstances: Jacob Lopes Moreno (1670) mentions he married his cousin Rachel, who is at present in Spain. Ester Levi (1681) leaves money with her nephew, pertaining to people who are in the “bandas de Poniente” to be given [to them] “after they should come to Livorno or to any other place of Judaism,” and Lea Cohen (1658)92 makes provisions for relatives who might come from Spain or Portugal, if they “have a part in the Sepher Tora (Bible) in our con- gregation”; she is particularly awaiting a young man who is supposed to ar- rive from Lisbon. Other wills refer to people who left for the New World: Sara Pereira (1663) mentions her husband has an uncle living in Brazil, and should he ever give money to her sons, these should be dealt with justly by the executors of her will. Sara Diaz (1660) also mentions family members who left for Brazil. Having settled matters related to the departing soul according to Jewish rites and to the distribution of earthly goods, the testators occasionally use the testament to settle personal accounts. Jacob di Soria, mentioned above, recognizes a son from a woman who was not his wife, and leaves him a stipend;

89 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 263 and 464. 90 Ibid., 263. 91 Cristina Galasso mentions the will of his first wife, Esther, whose sister became Josef’s second wife upon her death. Galasso points out that Joseph demanded his children reach majority to enjoy their heredity, and demanded they live openly as Jews. See: Galasso, Alle origini di una communità: ebree ed ebrei a Livorno nel seicento, 38–9, 83n and 130n. 92 At the beginning of the will, the date is mentioned as being written on “10 days of the month of July” and more specifically, in “this old style of Hamburg of the year 1658” (“deste estillo velho de Hamburgo do anno de 1658”). Clearly, the whole document is a reproduction or a copy of a document that was written elsewhere. Towards the end of the will, however, the date “1656” appears.

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” 189 and Lea Cohen writes she never mentioned her sister before because she had done “evil deeds” to her, and had gone against the laws of man and God, and therefore does not merit to be mentioned now. Complex family relationships are thus disclosed, but more pertinently, the wills bear witness to the testators’ self-image and to the attitude of New Jews to Judaism.

7 The Will of the Richest Woman in Livorno: Raquel Guttieres Pegna

7.1 Personal Background On April 4, 1662,93 Rahel Guttieres Pegna, also known as Gracia Guttieres Pegna,94 lay on her deathbed in Livorno (Leghorn). Her husband, Jacob, also known as Pedro Guttieres Pegna,95 was in Spain at the time, probably on business, and probably for an extensive period of time. An expression used by Rahel in her will, examined from a linguistic point of view, sheds light on her conception of Judaism as a defining element of her identity, as well as that of her family, during the troubled times of seventeenth-century Europe. By the time Rahel wrote her will, the Jewish community of Livorno had already become an important centre of the Western Sephardi diaspora. We do not know in what year Rahel arrived in Livorno, nor the itinerary of her journey. Rahel identifies herself as “the legitimate daughter of Pedro Fernandes Caseres

93 There is some uncertainty regarding the date of the will: on the frontispiece, as well as on the margins of the first page, the year 1662 appears quite clearly. Yet this date is probably the year in which the will was probated and deposited in the community archive, perhaps the actual year of Rahel’s death. In the text of the will it is hard to decipher whether the date is indeed 1662, or perhaps 1652 or 1659. 94 In Livorno, Rahel could live openly as a Jew, and therefore mentioning her Christian name, which she probably used when she was living in Spain, is meant for identification by relatives still living there. Interestingly, Carla Boccato mentions that Venetian Jews who made their will before a Christian notary also used their Christian names, without provoking any interference on the part the Inquisition. See: Boccato, “Ebree nella vita a Venezia nel seicento attraverso i testamenti,” 266. 95 It is particularly difficult to trace conversos’ names and kinship, since they often used two or three names in order to evade the persecution of the Inquisition. It was common that members of the same family used different names, and the same name could also be used by different generations. See: Anita Novinsky, “The Myth of the Conversos Names,” Revue des Études Juives 165 (2006): 447. According to the 1644–45 census, one Jacob Penha is included in a list of shop owners on one of Livorno’s main streets, close to the port. A Jacob Pegna is mentioned on a 1663 list as having paid taxes to the amount of 8 scudi. There is no certainty that the two are the same, nor that in either case this is Rahel’s husband, although the dates would make it possible. See: Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 139 and 451.

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 190 Melcer-Padon and Doña Beatriz de Fonseca.” When she is writing her will, her father is already dead, but her mother and one of her sisters are alive and living in Spain. Rahel’s mother and sister were evidently leading their lives as New Christians, and Rahel herself had experienced this kind of life before openly returning to Judaism in Livorno. Yet returning to Judaism three or four generations after living as conversos was quite difficult: the fear of the Inquisition was deeply rooted in these people’s souls, and many were diffident in taking the decisive step and proclaiming themselves Jews. In addition to political and physical dif- ficulties, the life-change resulting from the newly declared Jewish identity was a challenging one, since many ignored Jewish texts and customs.96Although Yerushalmi claims that by and large, the conversos “must have known at the very least that a post-biblical Jewish tradition existed” while still in Spain and Portugal, and adds that the intellectuals among them “gleaned a mass of Jewish information from the works of Christian scholars.” Nonetheless, Yerushalmi concedes that when he actually joined an existing Jewish community outside of Iberia, the converso had to “acquire rapidly and artificially” the knowledge of Judaism that his fellow Jews “had absorbed … organically” over the years, and this “was not an easy task.”97 Converso families in Spain had obviously abstained from circumcising their sons, due to the great danger such a clear sign of Judaism would entail. The men who openly returned to Judaism in Livorno therefore had to undergo circumcision. Many of the Jews who did publicly return to Judaism in Livorno, led a Jewish life and attended synagogue prayers, deferred their circumcision so as not to expose themselves to perilous exposure should they return to Spain, as Rahel’s husband did, to keep in touch with family or to conduct business. The Jewish Sephardi community of Livorno seems to have been less rigorous in this respect than others:98 a man who was not circumcised was not allowed

96 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 99–101. See also: Cecil Roth, “The Religion of The Conversos,” The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, 22(1) (July, 1931): 4. 97 See: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, “The Re-education of Marranoes in the Seventeenth Century,” in: The Faith of Fallen Jews: Yosef Haim Yerushalmi and the Writing of Jewish History, eds. David N. Myers and Alexander Kaye (Waltham, MA: Brandeis UP, 2014), 164–165. Renée Levine Melammed provides an account of the views of various scholars regarding “the degree of Jewishness or religious attachment” of the conversos. See: Levine Melammed, A Question of Identity: Iberian Conversos in Historical Perspective, 62. 98 Yosef Kaplan discusses the way various Jewish communities, such as Amsterdam, Livorno and London, dealt with the issue of circumcision of New Christians who returned to Judaism. See: Kaplan, “Attitudes Towards circumcision Among the Early Modern Western Sephardim,” 1–39. The London community did not bury an uncircumcised man in the communal cemetery, except by special dispensation of the Ma’amad. See: Lionel D. Barnett, El Libro de los acuerdos (Oxford: University Press, 1931), 23, as quoted by Yerushalmi, From

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” 191 into the synagogue, nor to touch sacred objects, such as the Torah scroll, especially if the reason he did not undergo circumcision was on account of so- called “laziness,” which served to maintain trade relationships with the Iberian peninsula.99 Yet he was not banned from the community, and was instructed to pray by himself in his home until he was circumcised. The leaders of the Jewish community tried to eliminate the delay in fulfilling the rite by imposing a time limit on the performance of the circumcision upon the newly arrived, or they could be banned from entering the synagogue. It is therefore possible that Rahel’s husband had returned to Judaism in Livorno, where he was circumcised and formally took his Jewish name, before traveling back to Spain, where he would undoubtedly use his Spanish name. If indeed he was circumcised, Rahel had an additional reason to worry, both about his safety while in Spain and the likelihood of his return.

7.2 Economic Aspects of the Will In the absence of her husband, Rahel was constrained to secure the family business as well as the inheritance of her children, and she dictated her will in front of several witnesses. As Galasso mentions,100 Rahel was the wealthiest woman of the Sephardi Jewish community of Livorno at the time whose will has reached us, and accordingly, her will includes not only sums of money, but also a detailed list of her precious belongings, such as “various gold jewels, pearls and garments and worked silver and linen of trousseau and wedding dress,” as well as “household items such as chairs, desks and beds.”101 Her husband’s business partners are present at Rahel’s bedside. These are his brother in law, Abram Nunes Silva,102 as well as Abram Attias103 and Jacob

Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto: Isaac Cardoso: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Marranism and Jewish Apologetics, 201. 99 See: Kaplan, “Attitudes Towards Circumcision Among the Early Modern Western Sephardim,” 9. 100 Cristina Galasso stresses the differences between those left by men and those left by women. See: Galasso, Alle origini di una communità: ebree ed ebrei a Livorno nel seicento, 72–84. 101 All references to this will from here on are to the will designated “Lettera R” in the above mentioned file of testaments found in AJCL. 102 Abram Nunes Silva is mentioned by Renzo Toaff as a “Gabaiy of Zedaqa” (collector in charge of charity), who relinquished the duty in 1655, and as one of the Massari of the year 1666. See: Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 461 and 457. 103 Abram Attias is the most famous member of the community present, if indeed it is one and the same man. According to documents published by Renzo Toaff, he was a “Gabay of Zedaqa” in 1647, and eight times a Massari in the years 1655–1685. According to Toaff, Abram Attias was one of the Massari responsible for the 1693 reform of the community’s regulations regarding the election of Massari, approved in a series of deliberations and

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 192 Melcer-Padon

Zacuto,104 and Rahel has convened them as executors and as witnesses of her will. Each of the three signs the testament, confirming he is “due the money which passes to my power,” and all three collectively attest that Rahel was of sane mind when she dictated her will:

We, the witnesses undersigned in this testament, having entered to visit by Doña Rahel Penha, found her in full capacity of her powers of judgment, having asked her in detail about all that is contained in this testament, and she responded after having been read that this is her last will and that what she wanted to be observed and having examined her […] she responded very much to the point, yes to yes and no to no,105 and she signed it in our presence and thus we signed on the same said day,

decisions, which involved the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I. See: Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 172, 456–58 and 461. Lucia Frattarelli Fischer provides further details regarding Abram Attias: having studied law in Salamanca, he arrived in Livorno in 1640, where he became one of the city’s wealthy and influential Jewish merchants, and where he bought a house in 1644 for 4000 scudi in cash. Attias is also mentioned as one of the rich merchants who moved later on to Pisa in order to evade the taxes of Livorno. In addition, Frattarelli Fischer points out that Abram Attias was the father of Giuseppe Attias, from a second marriage, whose outstanding library—and character— are the subject of her research. See: Frattarelli Fischer, Vivere fuori dal ghetto: Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno (secoli XVI-XVIII), 131, 172, 175, 194–5 and 311. Frattarelli Fischer mentions Abram Attias as the first Livorno Jew to use the fidecommesso system of inheritance in favour of his son Moisé, ensuring that the son respects the father’s wishes regarding the inheritance. See: Lucia Frattarelli Fischer, “Proprietà e insediemento ebraici a Livorno dalla fine del cinquecento alla seconda meta del settecento” [Jewish Property and Settlementin Livorno, from the end of the sixteeth century to the second half of the eiteenth century English translation], Quaderni Storici 54/a. XVIII(3) (December 1984): 884. 104 Renzo Toaff writes that the Zaquto or Sacuto family was of undoubted Portuguese converso origin, and traces the family’s trajectory from Portugal to Amsterdam, Venice and later Pisa, where Selomò Zaquto was one of the Massari in 1599, and on to Livorno. Toaff includes a Yosef de Jacob Zaquto in the list of members of the dowry confraternity, which he joined in 1679. See: Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 57 and 465. 105 The words: “she responded … yes to yes and no to no” are part of a set phrase, common in Jewish wills. The same phrase appears, for example, in a will Cecil Roth wrote about, of the Italian Jewish woman Rosa Guastalla from Verona, whose will was written in Hebrew. See: Cecil Roth, “The will of a Jewish Businesswoman of the 17th Century,” Zion (1936): 2. Nonetheless, this expression seems to have its origin in a different context, in which a man’s sanity must be determined: a Talmudic discussion regarding the validity of a man’s wish to divorce. במסכת גיטין פרק ז משנה א: “מי שאחזו קורדייקוס ואמר כתבו גט לאשתי לא אמר כלום אמר כתבו גט לאשתי ואחזו קורדייקוס וחזר ואמר אל תכתבו אין דבריו האחרונים כלום נשתתק ואמרו לו נכתוב גט לאשתך והרכין בראשו בודקין אותו שלש פעמים אם אמר על לאו לאו ועל הן הן הרי אלו יכתבו ויתנו:

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” 193

month and year and we are witnesses to all that has been undertaken in this testament.106

If indeed these witnesses were members of the leading elite of the community, as there is reason to believe,107 their testimony is doubly important: as witnessing a legal document which pertained to substantial assets, and as attesting to Rahel’s central position in the community and to the weight of her wishes. Significantly, as the will clarifies, Rahel herself was taking care of business locally in her husband’s absence. As can be seen in the wills of Sara Diaz from 1660, and of Ester Levi from 1681, both of whom were widows, women did not shy from assuming their late husbands’ responsibilities and economic activities.108 Sara Diaz continued her late husband’s commercial endeavours with his partner, and Ester Levi maintained her late husband’s shop, which she sold shortly before she died, leaving the money to her daughters, under her brother’s supervision. Rahel had full power to organize and order matters as she saw fit regarding a patrimony worth more than 10,000 pieces, and span- ning from Smyrna to Tunis.109 The family business thus exemplifies the intri-

[“Whoever suffers from kordeikus [temporary dementia due to hypoglycemia] and says ‘Write a get for my wife,’ his words are of no effect. If he says, ‘write a get for my wife’ and is then seized with a kordeikus and then says, ‘do not write it,’ his later words are of no effect. If he becomes silent and they tell him “We shall write a gett to your wife” and he nods, he is to be checked three times whether he says no about no and yes about yes, and then the following shall be written and given.” Talmud, Tractate Gittin, Chapter VII, Mishnah A.] 106 The will is witnessed by three other people: Malahy Monte, “present at all that has been said,” as well as Isaque Lopes Penha and David Penha, yet they are only mentioned at the end of the will, and only as witnesses, whereas Abram Attias, Jacob Sacuto and Abram Nunes Silva not only witness the will but are its executors: they are present in order to receive Rahel’s instructions regarding the money they are to receive, as well as their du- ties. Finally, the will is signed by Daniel de Fonseca and Daniel de Jacob, the notaries, who attest to the identity of the witnesses. 107 The dates regarding the identity of Jacob’s three business partners, mentioned in the above references 90, 91, 92, coincide with the date of the will. It would also be reasonable to assume that the business partners and necessary witnesses to a large fortune were emi- nent members of the community. 108 The above-mentioned will of Rosa Guastalla of 1642 also reflects well this woman’s in- dependent economic activity. See: Roth, “The Will of a Jewish Businesswoman of the 17th Century,” 125–136. Cristina Galasso also mentions the wills of Ester Levi (1681), who maintained her husband’s shop after he died, and Sara Diaz, (1660), who ran her late husband’s commercial activities with his partner. See: Galasso, Alle origini di una communità: ebree ed ebrei a Livorno nel seicento, 78, 78 n, 79, 79n and 138n. 109 As Michele Cassandro specifies, Smyrna was particularly important to many Jewish merchants in Livorno, where they often maintained subsidiaries. See: Cassandro, Aspetti della storia economica e sociale degli ebrei di Livorno nel seicento, 119.

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 194 Melcer-Padon cate networks typical of Livorno’s Sephardi Jews of the period, which extended not only across the Mediterranean, but also to Europe’s new colonies in the Americas, to Africa, to India and to China.110

7.3 Spiritual Aspects of the Will Rahel Guttieres Pegna’s will is not interesting only from an economic point of view.111 Indeed, reading Rahel’s will provides fascinating details pertaining to her own family and household, and at the same time it delineates a wide panoply of the lives of many Sephardi Jews of that period. Particularly noteworthy is her perspective of Judaism as she may have experienced it, and as can be observed from the wording of her will. Rahel declares in her will that she and her legitimate husband “have had various sons and presently we have three children who are Abraham, Isaque and Moseh, all minor of age.” There is no indication how many children the couple had in the past who may have died, but given the fact that at the time she is dictating her will Rahel mentions her three living minor children, all under the age of 13, we can assume that she is still a relatively young woman. Since her mother and sister remained in Spain, while Rahel and her young children are living in Livorno, it would seem safe to conclude, as mentioned earlier, that she was probably born and raised in Spain before arriving to Livorno. As opposed to the other women testators, whose wills mention arrangements for the children, and who were all widows, Rahel was the only married

110 Jonathan Israel discusses the fruitful commercial links between New Jews in Dutch Brazil and Mexico and those living in Pisa, Florence and Livorno, as well as the prominence of Jewish colonists, particularly from Livorno, who settled in Cayenne. See: Israel, Diaspora Within a Diaspora: Jews, Crypto-Jews and the World Maritime Empires (1540–170), 118 and 401. Yosef Kaplan points to the Sephardi Jews’ experience in international trade, which turned them into “an attractive economic factor during the age of mercantilism.” See: Yosef Kaplan, “The Self-definition of the Sephardi Jews of Western Europe and their Relation to the Alien and the Stranger,” in: Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World (1391–1648), ed. Benjamin R. Gampel (NY: Columbia UP, 1997), 121. A great deal has been written about the extent, volume and importance of the Jewish mercantile connections within the Muslim Mediterranean. An especially interesting account of the extensive commercial relations of the Sephardi Jews in Livorno can be found in Francesca Trivellato’s The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven: Yale UP, 2009). 111 The will of Sara Abudiente of Pisa (1649), written in Italian and found in the Dogana file of the Livorno State Archive has an even more impressive list of beneficiaries, including the sums they are to be given; interestingly, the list of women beneficiaries’ names is especially long.

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” 195 woman to leave detailed instructions regarding her children and their future upbringing:112

it is my will than in the meantime as their father, may God keep him well, is thus [away], they should be under the authority of my sister Doña Sara Nunes Silva, her husband the said Sr. Abram Nunes Silva so that they should raise them and educate them and teach them as good Jews and that they should feed them and dress them from my above-mentioned wealth. I demand of my said sons to obey and respect them, which they owe to their father and to myself.

Rahel entrusts both her wealth and her children to her sister and brother-in- law, Abram Nunes Silva, should God not allow her husband “to enjoy his present life.” If, however, “God should deign keep my husband well they should hand them [the children] over to him so that as their legitimate father he should raise them as he wishes.” Clearly, while Rahel trusts her husband would raise the children as Jews, she does not expect him to be back in the near future—if at all. She is therefore careful to specify that her children be raised as “good Jews,” and appoints the children’s aunt and uncle to see to it, as well as take care of their inheritance until they come of age.113 The children were probably born in Italy, free from the constraints Rahel must have known as a conversa in Spain, and Rahel ensures they will continue to be raised as Jews. In addition to her own adherence to Judaism, and consequently her wish that her sons be educated as Jews, she is adamant that the children continue to live as Jews also in order to secure their eligibility

112 See: Galasso, Alle origini di una communità: ebree ed ebrei a Livorno nel seicento, 81. 113 Once more, Rosa Guastalla’s will is similar: she leaves very detailed instructions regarding her son’s fortune and education, and several guardians. See: Cecil Roth, 1936: 125–136. As Julius Kirshner underlines, testators of this hectic period “as a rule took the prudent precaution of appointing multiple guardians for their orphaned children.” The norms “regarding arrangements relating to guardianship in the Italian communities were … inspired by long-standing notions of paternalism and social reproduction grounded in an orderly devolution of family property.” See: Julius Kirshner, “Guardianship and Inheritance: The Ways of Medieval and Early Modern Jews,” Jewish History 16(1) (2002): 13. As Rebecca Lynn Winer notes regarding the medieval Jewish community of Perpignan, “the welfare of fatherless children was the concern of the entire Jewish community…. the ideal of the male community leader as guardian is what made effective group action possible.” Interestingly, Winer adds that “an ideal of male community leaders looking after Jewish widows and their children … resulted, perhaps paradoxically, in facilitating and enhancing women’s legal and financial powers.” See: Rebecca Lynn Winer, “Family, Community, and Motherhood: Caring for Fatherless Children in the Jewish Community of Thirteenth-century Perpignan,” Jewish History 16 (2002): 42.

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 196 Melcer-Padon to their inheritance. Her concern was thus both of a religious nature and a pragmatic one. As far as inheritance rights were concerned, had Rahel and her husband continued to practice Judaism in secret, rather than doing so openly, their estate would nonetheless still be safe from the Inquisition’s long arm: under the Duke’s guarantees, even if a person was accused by the Inquisition of Judaizing, his possessions could not be sequestrated. In case a condemnation took place despite the Duke’s protection, the possessions of the condemned would not be confiscated by the Church but rather given to his heirs, who were considered Catholics. The property of New Christians who had continued to live as Christians in Livorno was thus protected even in cases of condemnation of a Judaizing past when they lived as New Christians in Spain or Portugal.114 Upon arriving in Livorno, New Christian and converso couples who decided to openly return to Judaism were expected to marry according to the Jewish rites, even if they had already been married in their land of origin, since this marriage had no value once they returned to Judaism. The Jewish marriage was crucial for their children to be considered legitimate heirs.115 Some couples performed the Jewish ceremony immediately upon arrival, and some deferred it by several months, yet the importance of the ceremony was such that couples insisted on performing it even when one or both spouses was very ill and about to die.116 Once again, the insistence on performing a wedding ceremony even on the brink of death shows its crucial importance not only for the departed spouse, but also for the living spouse and the couple’s offspring and relatives. Clearly, what mattered most to a citizen of Livorno regarding inheritance rights was to remain faithful to one’s given religion—be it Jewish or Christian— in order to enjoy the fruits of one’s inheritance. Since Rahel’s children were in all probability born Jewish, their chances of enjoying their parents’ inheritance relied on their remaining Jews, protected as such by both rabbinical laws and state privileges.

114 Lucia Frattarelli Fischer, “Percorsi di Conversione di ebrei nella Livorno di fine Seicento,” Nuovi Studi Livornesi (XIII) (2006): 222. 115 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 102. Yosef Yerushalmi points to the custom to “place any children who had been born in the Peninsula under the bridal can- opy (huppah) together with their parents” apparently upon their parents’ request who believed they were thereby “legitimizing their children.” See: Yerushalmi, The Faith of Fallen Jews: Yosef Haim Yerushalmi and The Writing of Jewish History, 164. This practice was merely of symbolic importance, since according to Judaism, even if their parents’ former Christian marriage was not considered valid in the Jewish community, the children were legitimate all the same. 116 See for example the Responsa of Rabbi Moshe Benveniste, Part I, Constantinople 1655, 138–141, as published by Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 700–701.

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” 197

Aside from entrusting her children to the sister living in Livorno, Rahel specifies that she has in her house “a girl named Rosa, a Jew, and it is my will that she should be employed helping and serving my sons until the eldest should be of the age and ability to manage himself.” Rahel thus ascertains the children continue to be raised as Jews, both by their guardians and by their day-to-day caretaker Rosa, who is to be given 100 pieces of eight “in order that she should be placed,” that is married, once her sons are of age and Rosa’s services are no longer necessary. She is also careful to leave 20 pieces of eight to “a young man whom I raised in my house called […] Manuel, who is today in Amsterdam” and who is to be excluded “from any pretension which he may have.” We do not know under what circumstances the young Manuel came to be raised in Rahel’s house, nor the reason for his departure for Amsterdam, but Rahel clarifies that he is not to be considered an additional heir, at par with her sons. This clarification supports the inference that Manuel too is a Jew, since he is now in Amsterdam, the seat of the largest Western Sephardi community of the time. To Doña Ana, the sister living in Spain, Rahel leaves “a two-sided embroi- dered dress.” She instructs that her mother be given

“500 pieces of eight reales,” and adds that “coming to this city or to any place to Judaism she should be given from the best of said wealth and in the house from before coming to Judaism. Should she come to any urgent need I dispose and order that it should be possible to come to her aid with 100 pieces of eight from the said 500 […] of the administrators.”

In other words, Rahel has either reason to expect—or at least to hope—that her mother would leave Spain to come to Livorno, or to another place where she could return to Judaism, an expectation she does not extend to her sister. If her mother indeed leaves Spain and returns to Judaism, Rahel instructs she be given 500 pieces of eight, but only 100 pieces of eight, should her mother stay in Spain and be in some danger—the “urgent need” probably stemming from her concealed Judaism. The other 400 pieces of eight are apparently set apart as an incentive, and at any rate as assistance, for her mother to leave Spain, and to practice Judaism openly.

7.4 “Coming to Judaism:” The Expression and Meaning of the Term The most interesting part of Rahel’s testament seems to be the part in which she bequeaths money to her aunt, yet upon a specific condition. Rahel dictates as follows: “I order and donate 150 pieces of eight reales which are to be given to my aunt Doña Manuela de Fonseca y Acosta and her two sons who

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 198 Melcer-Padon

[at] present she has coming to Judaism and not in another way, to whom the above-mentioned administrators will give of the best of my wealth.” Rahel’s apparent wish was that all the members of her family live safely as Jews: her children and household members who could do so openly in Livorno, as well as family members she had more or less hoped would be able to do so in some unknown future. Rahel’s wishes are characteristic of those of many New Jews of her time, who used their wills not only to express the wish that members of their family be reunited but that they would also openly return to Judaism.117 Such wishes, when written in one’s testament, no doubt had both a moral and a pragmatic power over the inheritors. Nonetheless, the wording of this last instruction is particularly interesting from a linguistic point of view. It is worthwhile to look at the original text in Spanish:

Item mando j hago donacion de piezas ciento y cinquenta deaocho reales los quales se den a mi tia Dona Manuela de Fonseca j a Costa j sus dos hijos que dep[resent]te tiene viniendo a Judaismo j no en otra manera los quales les daran sosdichos administradoes de la mas bien parado della dicha asienda.

Doña Manuela de Fonseca y Acosta, Rahel´s aunt, is to receive the money along with her two sons. The status of these two sons, most probably minors, is described as dependent on their mother, Doña Manuela: “… dos hijos que dep[resen]te tiene viniendo a Judaismo …” The rather rare if not unusual periphrastic verbal form118 underlined here, tener + GERUNDIO, appears only once in the will. The use of tener clearly implies that Doña Manuela is responsible for her own sons’ education and that their situation derives from her actively applied intention for them to “come to Judaism.” Furthermore, both parts of the construct are indicative: tener implies the situation and viniendo denotes the process as well as a significantly mean- ingful length of time.119 “Coming to Judaism” is neither short nor incidental, it

117 Cristina Galasso mentions that wills left by men of Livorno of this period often include a condition that converso relatives return to Judaism in order to receive the inheritance, or if they already have, that they do not return to Catholicism. See: Galasso, Alle origini di una communità: ebree ed ebrei a Livorno nel seicento, 83. 118 A verbal form consisting of two parts, an “auxiliary” verb and a gerund (converb). 119 The periphrastic construct tener + GERUNDIO is rare in Modern Spanish as well. It is mentioned and explained in the Nueva gramática de la lengua española—Manual [New Spanish Language Grammar—Manual] (Madrid: Real Academia Española, 2009), in sections 28.1.3 (p. 533) and 28.4.3(a) and 28.4.3(e) (p. 551 and 553). Section 28.4.3(e) deals with

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” 199 is a process which takes considerable time, during which the persons are in a situation of120 “coming to Judaism.” The use of “venir” to denote movement towards Judaism is also seen in the will of Isaque Torres, from 1682. In his will, Torres declares he believes “en la unidad del Dio Bendito y en santisima Ley en la qual e venido …,” that is “in the unity of Blessed God and of the most holy Law in(to) which I have come.” A similar use is found in Italian, in the 1691 will of Josef Gonzalez, who stipulates that a certain sum of money is destined to a nephew of his wife who lives in Spain and who “venendo a breismo si adempira sua volontà di detta mia moglie conforme lo dispone in suo testamento che esiste in questa canciglieria,” that is “coming to Judaism the wish of my said wife will be fulfilled according to what is stipulated in her will which exists in this chancellery.” Here we have a con- ditional: “if he comes to Judaism … / in case he comes to Judaism,” but the use of “venire” in this Italian will can be compared to the use of “venir” in the two cases of the wills in Spanish, since the writer is using the verb in an identical context. Thus, one “comes to Judaism,” and all three cases reflect a point of view, according to which Judaism is literally comparable to a place.121 In the case of Isaque Torres, since he speaks of the Law “en la qual e venido,” one notices

the predicative function of the form, that is in the fact that it tends to be used to give information and typify that which is being spoken about. This periphrastic construct is said to be found nowadays in certain areas in America, mainly Central America, the Caribbean and the Andes (areas where Spanish retained many of the forms which were common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). All the examples mentioned in these sections imply considerable lengths of time of ongoing processes and continuing situations attrib- uted to a human subject. I would like to thank my husband Ioram Melcer for the linguistic insight that illuminated this passage of the will. 120 This is the predicative sense of the verbal form. 121 A similar case is cited by José Alberto Rodrigues da Silva Tavim regarding the joint will of Manuel Francisco de Mesquita, alias Moisés de Mesquita and Isabel Luís de Mesquita, alias Raquel de Mesquita, from May 18, 1660, in which the largest sum mentioned in the will, of 5000 florins, is bequeathed to a nephew, on condition that he “vier ao Judaismo, e sendo judeu, e temente de Deus, como são seus parentes, se lhe darão [os] ditos cinco mil florins …” [on condition that he comes to Judaism, and being a Jew, and God-fearing, as are his relatives, said 5000 florins shall be given to him]. Here too, in Portuguese in this case, one “comes to Judaism,” and the Portuguese verb vir [ to come] is used in the same way as the verb venir is used in Spanish and the verb venire in Italian. See: José Alberto Rodrigues da Silva Tavim, “Diamonds are Forever. Eros Judaico: Capital Económico e Capital Social. Reflexões sobre a Relação Social entre os Judeus Portugueses de Amsterdão (séculos XVI-XVII)” [“Diamonds are Forever. Jewish Eros: Economic Capital and Social Capital. Reflections regarding the social relations between the Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam (16th-17th centuries)”], Anais de História de Além-mar 14 (Lisbon: Ponte Delgada, 2013): 78.

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 200 Melcer-Padon the unusual use of the preposition “en.” The normal form would be venir a, “to come to.” The form here, venir en is closer in meaning to the form “to come into.” This supports the view that to Torres, Judaism is a place, one from which he was previously absent. Judaism is even seen as existing in the place where the speaker finds him/herself, so that to move into the realm of Judaism means to “come,” that is to “come here,” to a specific cultural and communal environ- ment. It follows that the very fact that conversos came to a place where Judaism could be practiced attested to their being recognized as having belonged to the Jewish people from times past, before they had been forced to convert to Catholicism. Thus, they were not so much becoming Jews now, as they were returning to Jewish practice. Yerushalmi underlines that “the transition of the Marrano … to active Judaism … began with the very decision to flee, with the flight itself,” a flight which was “already an act of intense Jewish commitment.”122 We can consequently take the choice of verbal form to be significant: it indicates that Doña Manuela has her sons in a process of coming to Judaism, a process which is not only lengthy and ongoing but also describes the mother, as one of her attributes. Doña Manuela is therefore quite different from Rahel’s mother and sister: though Rahel would like both her mother and sister to leave Spain and return to Judaism, these are Rahel’s own wishes, and not nec- essarily theirs. Rahel knows of Manuela’s intention to emigrate and consequently return to Judaism, a process she has already started. More importantly, Doña Manuela has probably been teaching her sons about the faith of their ancestors, or at least has them initiated in its tenets, in view of their full conversion. The likelihood that Doña Manuela and her sons go through with this process and bring it to fulfilment is therefore considerable, and deserves every encouragement Rahel can provide to support it. Most importantly, Rahel dictates that Doña Manuela will benefit from her assistance if she brings her children to Judaism, “j no en otra manera.” Rahel’s assistance is thus pointedly conditioned on Doña Manuela and her children’s return to Judaism. Only if Manuela lives up to Rahel’s expectations, and allows this attribute of hers to overpower others, will she and her children be able to enjoy Rahel’s legacy as Jews, perhaps living in Livorno. Like Rahel, Doña Manuela seems to be the only one in charge of the children, their upbringing, and their future. The mothers become key figures

122 See: Yerushalmi, The Faith of Fallen Jews: Yosef Haim Yerushalmi and the Writing of Jewish History, 160.

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” 201 in navigating through the rough seas of their times, responsible for the welfare of their children, their identity, as well as their physical and financial future.123 Rahel dictates that she wishes to be buried in the Jewish cemetery:

It is my desire that when God should decide to take me I should be buried in Bet Ahaim [cemetery] according to our Hebrew rites and that in due time a stone should be put on my tomb and the other things that should be necessary, all according to the will of my said executors, who according to their will shall give away alms to the persons they should see fit and in the school according to the will of the executors.

If Rahel died close to the formulation of her will, she was probably not buried in the first cemetery that the Jews were allowed to use in Livorno, on Milinacci beach, which was little more than an open field where dead horses would also

123 Not all mothers were successful in convincing their children of their choice of faith: one is reminded of the case of Sara Nunes, about whom Lucia Frattarelli Fischer writes ex- tensively. Sara’s husband was burned on the stake in Spain, and after many trials, she finally arrived in Livorno with two daughters and a minor son, where they all returned to Judaism. Her son testified against his mother, claiming that she had lived as a Catholic before arriving to Livorno, and Sara consequently spent eleven years in the Pisa Inquisition prison, during which she stupefied all those who came in contact with her with her ample knowledge of Jewish texts and her steadfast decision to die a Jew. Importantly, the Grand Duke personally intervened on Sara’s behalf in Rome, in order to suspend Sara’s condemnation, rather than see the Livornine infringed upon. The son eventually con- verted to Catholicism in Rome. It is not clear why exactly Sara finally decided to convert to Catholicism as well, yet it may have had something to do with her wish to reunite with her estranged son. See: Frattarelli Fischer, Vivere fuori dal ghetto: Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno (secoli XVI-XVIII), 266–279. For an extensive discussion of the role of women in the preservation of Judaism in the first years after the expulsion, see: Renée Levine Melammed, Heretics or Daughters of Israel? The Crypto-Jewish Women of Castile (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999), 31–44; importantly, while Levine Melammed underlines the crucial part of women in upholding Jewish rites and traditions against all odds, she roots her explanation in the inherent difference between men and women in the practice of Judaism: “women were never more than peripheral in the functioning of the community. The centre of their lives was always the home, and when all the other institutions disappeared, they did not have to undergo a major transition. Thus, whereas the men lost their centre of Jewish life, the women continued, albeit under extenuating circumstances. The activities that were in the domain of the women were now the focus of attention for the Inquisition and its prosecutors.” Ibid., 32. Cristina Galasso points to the crucial role of converso women in Iberia in keep- ing the Jewish tradition within the home, when it became imperative to hide any out- ward signs. See: Cristina Galasso, “Religious Space, Gender and Power in the Sephardi Diaspora: The Return to Judaism of New Christian Men and Women in Livorno and Pisa” in: Sephardi Family Life in the Early Modern Diaspora, ed. Julia R. Lieberman (Waltham, MA: Brandeis UP, 2011), 102–103.

European Journal of Jewish Studies 12 (2018) 168–202Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 08:14:13PM via free access 202 Melcer-Padon be buried,124 but rather in the cemetery on Via Pompilia, facing the new for- tress, which functioned from 1648 till 1734, although a new Jewish cemetery was opened in Via del Corallo already in 1694.125 Rahel’s will provides a portrait of a woman determined to safeguard her property and her progeny. It also delineates the many ways she was constrained to use in order to establish her own Jewish identity and try to assist other family members to come to a place where they could do so too. Above all, she is careful to secure her children’s present and future identity: first, by reason of birth, of kinship, and of an affinity moulded through upbringing and upholding of faith and tradition, though her own Jewish upbringing was probably veiled by a Christian one, and the tradition she upheld was relatively new to her; secondly, by the way she conducted herself and her household, and by belonging to a community whose leaders recognized her prominent position by personally witnessing her will; and finally by the universally respected power of her last wishes, which she was careful to divulge in a legally binding manner, proving herself to be in full capacity of her senses, having responded “very much to the point, yes to yes and no to no, and signed” her name.

124 Toaff, La nazione ebrea a Livorno e a Pisa (1591–1700), 303. 125 See: Alfredo S. Toaff, “Cenni storici sulla Communità ebraica e sulla Sinagoga di Livorno,” La rassegna mensille di Israel XXI(9) (1955): 356. Any hope of locating Rahel’s grave is, for the time being, overly optimistic: although the old Jewish cemetery on Via Pompilia is currently being renovated, and old tombs are excavated, these date from the eighteenth century. Some more ancient tombstones have been found, and moved to the new Jewish cemetery, opened in 1837 in the Stagno area, yet they are unfortunately illegible, as I dis- covered on my visit there. Hopefully, it will be possible to decipher them in the future.

European Journal of Jewish StudiesDownloaded 12from (2018) Brill.com09/23/2021 168–202 08:14:13PM via free access