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Abstract
This article focuses on a large group of Hebrew manuscripts that members of the Jewish community in Candia sold to an anonymous Christian in 1541–1543. Not only was selling Jewish books to Christians on such a large scale unusual in the Jewish context, but also many aspects of the acquisition remain unknown. Largely based on the owners’ entries and purchase notes found in the acquired manuscripts and other documentary sources, this study examines the circumstances of the acquisition and its details from both Jewish and Christian perspectives and scrutinizes how each of the parties involved approached the acquisition.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. See, for example, Jacoby, “Candia between Venice, Byzantium, and the Levant,” 43–5.
2. See Georgopoulou, “Venice and the Byzantine Sphere,” 489–93; and Holton, Literature and Society.
3. See Labowsky, Bessarion’s Library; Mondrain, “Copistes et collectionneurs,” 354–85.
4. Stevenson, Codices manuscripti palatini graeci, xvii–xxxvii.
5. Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 29–44. Some of the Vatican volumes contain several manuscripts later bound together.
6. Ibid.
7. Cassuto, Codices Vaticani hebraici.
8. Beit-Arié and Richler, Hebrew Manuscripts in the Vatican.
9. Lehmann, Eine Geschichte, vol. 1, 73–88; Mittler, Bibliotheca Palatina. Katalog, vol. 1, 368–85; and Corazzol, “Gli ebrei a Candia,” respectively. Other studies that examine interreligious exchange and intercultural interaction in Crete do not discuss these manuscripts; for instance, Arbel, “Jews and Christians,” 281–94; Jacoby, “Jews and Christians,” 243–79; Lauer, Colonial Justice; and Papadia-Lala, “The Jews in Early Modern Venetian Crete,” 141–50.
10. See the references in Appendix.
11. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (henceforth BAV), Pal. lat. 1925, fols. 109v–120r; Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 8–9. The dates appear in its Greek and Latin sections: fols. 103v (1553), 122r (1555), 124r (1555).
12. For more on the Fugger family and their activities, see Häberlein, The Fuggers of Augsburg; Kluger, Kleiner, Baumgartner, and Peter Geffcken, Jakob Fugger; and Steinmetz, Der reichste Mann der Weltgeschichte.
13. Lehmann, Eine Geschichte, vol. 1, 72–88.
14. Ibid., 76; and Schunke, Die Einbände der Palatina, vol. 1, 170.
15. Mittler, Bibliotheca Palatina. Katalog, vol. 1, 368–9.
16. Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 9.
17. Lehmann, Eine Geschichte, vol. 1, 93; and Morrison, “A Scholarly Intermediary,” 54.
18. See Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 35 and 80, who also assumed that the Cretan collection was sold to Ulrich later.
19. For Ulrich’s economic situation, see Häberlein, The Fuggers of Augsburg, 103.
20. A Heidelberg inventory of Fugger’s books in BAV, Pal. lat. 1921, compiled by the notary Philipp Ludwig of Schwechenheim, and its copy in BAV, Pal. lat. 1915 (with some additions) are arranged according to the boxes’ numbers. These inventories are discussed in Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 13–16; also see Mittler, Bibliotheca Palatina. Katalog, vol. 1, 376–7. An alphabetical index of BAV, Pal. lat. 1921 from 1571 is preserved in Hamburg (Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. hist. litt. 2° 20; described in Hoffmann, “Über ein Inventarium,” 289–300, 305–9).
21. Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 17.
22. It is described in Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 49–67.
23. Thomas, A House Divided, 79.
24. Boyle, “The Hebrew Collections,” 14; and Mittler, “The Bibliotheca Palatina,” 1–20. For a detailed description of the journey of books from Heidelberg to Rome, see Beltrani, “Relazioni sul trasporto della Biblioteca Palatina,” 5–31; Mazzi, Leone Allacci e la Palatina di Heidelberg; and Saracino, “Leon Allatios’ Entführung der Bibliotheca Palatina,” 158–89.
25. Mittler, Bibliotheca Palatina. Katalog, vol. 1, 463. On Leone Allacci, also see Hartnup, On the Beliefs of the Greeks, 53–84.
26. The inventory of Hebrew books compiled in Heidelberg in 1581 mentions the bindings of Heidelberg Hebraica, but does not include Ulrich’s Hebrew manuscripts (BAV, Pal. lat. 1930; Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 12–13, 163–7). For Ottheinrich’s bindings, see Metzger, “Die Bibliothek Ottheinrichs,” 73–96; Metzger, “Ottheinrich von der Pfalz,” 1–20; and Schunke, Die Einbände der Palatina, 47–58. The bindings of Ulrich Fugger’s non-Hebrew books are discussed in Schunke, Die Einbände der Palatina, 168–236.
27. See, for example, MS BAV, ebr. 123.
28.. MSS BAV, ebr. 33, ebr. 42, ebr. 44, ebr. 58, ebr. 62, ebr. 66, ebr. 73, ebr. 76, ebr. 83, ebr. 84, ebr. 98, ebr. 99, ebr. 103, ebr. 137, ebr. 141, ebr. 142, ebr. 145, ebr. 147, ebr. 170, ebr. 185, ebr. 199, ebr. 200, ebr. 206, ebr. 207, ebr. 215, ebr. 221, ebr. 222, ebr. 225, ebr. 226, ebr. 231, ebr. 263, ebr. 302, ebr. 306, ebr. 314, ebr. 324, ebr. 335, ebr. 342, ebr. 343, ebr. 345, ebr. 349, ebr. 350, ebr. 381, ebr. 384, ebr. 385, ebr. 386, ebr. 393, ebr. 397, ebr. 418, and ebr. 431 (see Appendix). See also Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 30–3.
29. MS BAV, ebr. 103, fol. 1r.
30. Venice began its year on 1 March. Being a Venetian colony, Crete often used the Venetian system of dating as well. For that reason, regarding the months of January and February, a year should be added to the one stated in the purchase notes. This means the manuscript that the purchase note says was acquired on 21 February 1541 was actually acquired on 21 February 1542, for example MS BAV, ebr. 66. This is also the case for MSS BAV, ebr. 42, ebr. 83, ebr. 141, ebr. 302, ebr. 314, ebr. 324, ebr. 385, and ebr. 418 (see Appendix).
31. MSS BAV, ebr. 302 and ebr. 385 (see Appendix).
32. MSS BAV, ebr. 33, 44, 58, 73, 76, 83, 98, 99, 141–142, 185, 199, 200, 206–207, 215, 221–222, 225, 231, 263, 302, 306, 314, 324, 342–343, 345, 349–350, 381, 384, 385–386, 418, 431 (see Appendix).
33. MSS BAV, ebr. 199, fol. 1r; ebr. 221, fol. 1r; ebr. 231, fol. 5v (see Appendix).
34. On Elijah Capsali as a scholar and his historiographical writings, see Corazzol, “On the Sources of Elijah Capsali’s Chronicle,” 151–60; and Diana, “Il Seder Eliyyahu Zuṭa.” On the communal institutions in Crete, see Starr, “Jewish Life in Crete,” 59–114.
35. MSS BAV, ebr. 200, fol. 1r; ebr. 206, fol. 1r (see Appendix). See also Abrams, “כתב היד הקדום ביותר של הזוהר,” 315–20.
36. MS BAV, ebr. 345, fol. 1r (see Appendix).
37. E.g. Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 163–5. Some of these manuscripts still preserve the symbols on their flyleaves (MSS BAV, ebr. 45, fol. 1r; ebr. 146, fol. 1r; ebr. 152, fol. 3r).
38. Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 29–33.
39. MS BAV, ebr. 145 fol. 1r (see Appendix). The transcription reflects all the peculiarities of the original inscription.
40. Jewish multilingualism in Crete is mentioned in Arbel, “Jews and Christians,” 287. The practice of mixing letters of foreign alphabets, often Greek and Hebrew, to form encrypted Latin words is well attested in Western manuscript culture; see, for example, Bischoff, “Übersicht über die Geheimschriften,” 127–8.
41. Regarding fifteenth- and sixteenth-century cryptographic practices, see for example Strasser, “The Rise of Cryptology,” 278–97.
42. Nevertheless, 11 manuscripts dating mainly from the fifteenth century that preserve the uses of this code alphabet show that the most frequent use was for encrypting the names of the manuscripts’ owners. See Bischoff, “Übersicht über die Geheimschriften,” 132–3.
43. Cassuto, “תולדותיו של אוסף,” 63.
44. Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 38–9.
45. The consecutive Hebrew numbers were also apparently intended for record-keeping rather than functioning as library shelf marks (cf. Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 40). I am not aware of any Hebraica collection in which the shelf marks are expressed by Hebrew letters alone.
46. Cf. Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 34–5.
47. MSS BAV, ebr. 58, fol. Vv and ebr. 431, fol. 91r (see Appendix).
48. MSS BAV, ebr. 187, and ebr. 195 (see Appendix). In MS BAV, ebr. 187, there is a Hebrew title identifying the text as Sefer ha-Kanah (fols. 1r and 3r). These kinds of titles appear also in other manuscripts from the Cretan group, and seem to have been added later in Ulrich Fugger’s library.
49. MS BAV, ebr. 99, fol. 1r and ebr. 263, fol. 1r (see Appendix). In MS BAV, ebr. 99, a later hand added a Hebrew title: קבלת כל התלמוד (Kabbalah of the entire Talmud).
50. See, for example, the description of Moreh nevukhim in one of the manuscripts of the Lauingen Hebraist, Caspar Amman: “Moreh nevuhim: dicitur liber perplexorum quem fecit rabi moises egiptius et est liber cabalisticus” (“Moreh nevukhim: called The Book of the Perplexed that was made by the Rabbi Moses of Egypt and is a kabbalistic book”); Munich, Universitätsbibliothek der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, 4° Cod. MS 757, fol. 125r. The issue is discussed in Steimann, Jewish Book – Christian Book, 190–1.
51. Campanini, “Die Geburt der Judaistik,” 135–241.
52. Steimann, “Jewish Scribes and Christian Patrons,” 1235–81.
53. Hacker and Shear, “Introduction,” 1–16.
54. Ruderman, Early Modern Jewry, 99–105; see also Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book.
55. Idel, “Printing Kabbalah,” 85–96; Nielsen, “Daniel van Bombergen,” 72–5; and Ruderman, Early Modern Jewry, 104. For more on the debate within the Jewish community about printing Kabbalah, see Tishbi, “הפולמוס על ספר הזוהר,” 134–5, 138–9.
56. In a similar vein, Martin Gerstmann’s inventory of Ulrich Fugger’s Hebraica (1553–1555) differentiates between Hebrew texts that could only be found in manuscripts and texts that were potentially widespread due to printing (BAV, Pal. lat. 1925, fols. 109v–120r). For more on this subject, see Steimann, “A Good Book is an Old Book?”
57. Marcus, “הרכב הישוב,” 63–76. On the integration of the newcomers into the Cretan communities, see Schoenfeld, “Immigration and Assimilation,” 1–15. On the demographics of the Candiote Jewish community, see Tsiknakis, “Οι Εβραίοι του Χάνδακα,” 225–6.
58. Benayahu, “עסקי ספרים,” 266–66; Morrison, “A Scholarly Intermediary,” 32–57; and Riegler, “היהודים באיי אגן הים התיכון המזרחי,” 75–90.
59. Among the vast literature on this subject, see Raz-Krakotzin, The Censor, the Editor, and the Text, esp. 32–5; Stow, “The Burning of the Talmud in 1553,” 435–59; and Van Boxel, “Hebrew Books and Censorship,” 73–99.
60. The documents related to this event were published in Castellani, “Documenti circa la persecuzione,” 304–7. See also Grendler, The Roman Inquisition, 92 and note 84; Tsiknakis, “Μέτρα κατά της κυκλοφορίας εβραϊκών βιβλίων,” 164–7; cf. Algazi, תולדות אדם, 21.
61. Castellani, “Documenti circa la persecuzione,” 307.
62. On later activities of the Roman Inquisition in the Venetian Maritime States, see for example, Birtachas, “Deviant Ideas,” 41–64.
63. This intellectual profile is not unique to Cretan Jews, but was typical of Byzantine Jewry in general; see Freudenthal, “Introduction: Science and Philosophy,” 21.
64. MS BAV, ebr. 349, fol. 1v (see Appendix).
65. The manuscript consists of two different codicological units. Before being joined, the second unit was a separate manuscript owned by Joseph ben Jacob, who listed the works contained in it on its first page (MS BAV, ebr. 349, fol. 52r). The author of the first list may be the one who bound the two manuscripts together.
66. Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria (henceforth BU), MS 3574b, front pastedown and fol. 1r; Modona, “Catalogo dei codici ebraici,” 350–8. Nomico’s book list was published in Modona, “Deux inventaires,” 117–35. A recent analysis of the list can be found in Corazzol, “Gli ebrei a Candia,” 159–205. Although Modona assumed that the list was compiled in the late sixteenth century (Modona, “Deux inventaires,” 134–5), Corazzol has convincingly demonstrated that the second half of the fifteenth is a more likely dating (Corazzol, “Gli ebrei a Candia,” 179–82). Also see Corazzol, “Jewish Medicine in Venetian Crete,” 354.
67. Corazzol, “Gli ebrei a Candia,” 179 and note 727.
68. These were MSS BAV, ebr. 214, ebr. 250, and ebr. 530 (see Appendix).
69. For biographical details, see Corazzol, “Gli ebrei a Candia,” 209–15.
70. Cambridge University Library, Add. 511.1; Reif, Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge, 404. On Galeano’s compendium, see Langermann, “A Compendium of Renaissance Science,” 285–318.
71. MSS BAV, ebr. 201 and ebr. 202 (see Appendix). Morrison, “A Scholarly Intermediary,” 56.
72. MS BAV, ebr. 393, fol. 1r (see Appendix).
73. See the documents mentioned in Corazzol, “Gli ebrei a Candia,” 213, note 904, for instance.
74. MS BAV, ebr. 342, fol. 5v (see Appendix).
75. See, for example, Arbel, “The List of Able-Bodied Jews,” 22–5.
76. MS BAV, ebr. 62, fol. IIv (see Appendix). On the members of the Candiote Jewish community named Immanuel, see the community’s regulations from these years: Hartom and Cassuto, תקנות קנדיאה,166.
77. MSS BAV, ebr. 343 and ebr. 350 (see Appendix). On Aphenta Delmedigo, see Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 30, note 2 and Corazzol, “Gli ebrei a Candia,” 17 and 43. On the Delmedigo family, see Arbel, “Notes on the Delmedigo,” 119–130.
78. MS BAV, ebr. 206 (see Appendix).
79. See MS BAV, ebr. 302, fol. 1r, for example (see Appendix).
80. Except for one of the four manuscripts sold by Capsali for 9 ducats (mentioned above: MSS BAV, ebr. 200, ebr. 206, and ebr. 345), all the other codices could be identified: MSS BAV, ebr. 42, ebr. 44, ebr. 66, ebr. 76, ebr. 83, ebr. 84, ebr. 99, ebr. 141, ebr. 145, ebr. 147, ebr. 226, ebr. 263, ebr. 302, ebr. 314, ebr. 381, ebr. 385, and ebr. 418 (see Appendix).
81. MSS BAV, ebr. 33, ebr. 39, ebr. 64, ebr. 102, ebr. 228, ebr. 229, ebr. 249, and ebr. 257 (see Appendix). MS BAV, ebr. 228 is comprised of three different manuscripts bound together; only its first unit (fols. 1–8) is associated with Elkanah and Elijah Capsali.
82. MS BAV, ebr. 199 (psaltino is mentioned on fol. 351v), ebr. 221 and ebr. 231. Four other volumes are unidentifiable. On the four Candiote synagogues, see, for instance, Lauer, Colonial Justice, 35–6.
83. MS BAV, ebr. 103, fol. 1r (see Appendix). On the same date, the purchaser acquired three more volumes from another seller for one-and-a-half ducats: MSS BAV, ebr. 73, ebr. 306 and an unidentified codex (see Appendix). He marked these with a different symbol.
84. In Elijah Capsali’s purchase and ownership notes in a manuscript that he acquired from Judah ibn Naḥmi in 1517, for example, Capsali’s name was crossed out: MS BAV, ebr. 72, fol. 3v (see Appendix). Exactly who the new owner was is unknown, however; it is not stated there.
85. Oxford, Bodleian Library (henceforth Bod.), MS Opp. Add. Oct. 19, fol. 345v; Beit-Arié and May, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts, col. 182. The haftarah to Yom Kippur, written in this prayer book in Greek, is frequently mentioned in the scholarly literature (see for example Corazzol, “Gli ebrei a Candia,” 75–159).
86. BU, Ms. 3574b, front pastedown.
87. See, for instance, Jacoby, “Jews and Christians,” 243–79; and Lauer, Colonial Justice, 51–7.
88. On Jewish physicians and their professional training, see Jacoby, “רופאים וכירורגים יהודים,”431–44.
89. The Latin/Italian names of some non-Jewish owners appear in MSS BAV, ebr. 256, ebr. 386, and ebr. 388 (see Appendix).
90. See the responsum of Johanan Treves from 1534 (Treves, שאלות ותשובות, 52–7) and the responsum of Elijah Menahem Ḥalfan from 1544 (Kaufmann, “Elia Menachem Chalfan,” 500–8).
91. A similar explanation was suggested in Diana, “Il Seder Eliyyahu Zuṭa,” 20.
92. MSS BAV, ebr. 105, and ebr. 254 (see Appendix). The manuscript is described in Steinschneider, “Candia,” 3, 425–6 and 4, 303–8. On the dispute on metempsychosis in Candia, see Gottlieb, “ויכוח הגלגול,” 45–66; and Ravitzky, “The God of the Philosophers,” 139–70.
93. MSS BAV, ebr. 200, and ebr. 226. See Abrams, “כתב היד הקדום ביותר של הזוהר,” 315–20.
94. Vincent, “Money and Coinage,” 302–3.
95. MS BAV, ebr. 324 (see Appendix).
96. 1 Cretan ducat = 8 perperi 12 soldini (Vincent, “Money and Coinage,” 287–94). MS BAV, ebr. 397 (see Appendix).
97. 1 Venetian gold ducat = 6 liras 4 soldi; for more details about Venetian coinage that circulated in Crete and its rates, see Vincent, “Money and Coinage,” 274, 279–80. Also see Cairola, Le monete del Rinascimento. On the economic value of manuscripts among Byzantine Jewry, see Holo, Byzantine Jewry, 112–19.
98. MS Bod., Heb. C. 72, fol. 14; see Benayahu, “עסקי ספרים,”264.
99. Starr, “Jewish Life in Crete,” 87.
100. MS BAV, ebr. 72, fol. 3v, and BU, MS 3574b, fol. 1r, respectively. On the rates of Venetian denari, see Vincent, “Money and Coinage,” 270–7.
101. Cf. the sums of money in private possession, as mentioned in Starr, “Jewish Life in Crete,” 92, for example.
102. Starr, “Jewish Life in Crete,” 69. In 1541 a mob rose against the Jews because the Greeks thought they were spying for the Turks (Hartom and Cassuto, תקנות קנדיאה, 121–2).
103. On the migration of Spanish refugees to Crete, see Wartell, “Rabbis on Refugees,” 165–7.
104. Economic distress caused by the war as one of the reasons for selling books has been already suggested by Umberto Cassuto (Cassuto, “תולדותיו של אוסף,” 63). Also see Lauer, Colonial Justice, 31.
105. Hartom and Cassuto, תקנות קנדיאה, 108–9.
106. Ibid., 109–10.
107. Tosafot on Baba Batra, 8b; also see Blidstein, “The Redemption of Captives,” 20–30.
108. The oldest codex in this collection is Sifra (midrash on Leviticus), copied in Iraq (?) around the tenth century: MS BAV, ebr. 66 (see Appendix). The most recent codex is the kabbalistic compilation (MS BAV, ebr. 235; see Appendix), which was copied by Elijah Kohen Ashkenazi, a member of the Candiote Jewish community (Hartom and Cassuto, תקנות קנדיאה, 88), in 1541.
109. MS BAV, ebr. 195. The manuscript does not contain a colophon, but the identity of the scribe could be established by the comparison of his hand to that of MS BAV, ebr. 220, which he copied in Constantinople in 1451 and signed; see Beit-Arié, Hebrew Codicology, 188, note 206.
110. MS BAV, ebr. 187, fol. 3r; the owner’s note is cited in Beit-Arié, Hebrew Codicology, 188–189; cf. Riegler, “Manuscripts from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea Islands,” 207.
111. MS BAV, ebr. 220 (see Appendix).
112. In addition to MSS BAV, ebr. 187, and ebr. 220, another copy of Sefer ha-peli’ah was found in Candia and sold to the Christian purchaser (MS BAV, ebr. 195), of which the author of the owner note in ebr. 187 was apparently unaware.
113. MS BAV, ebr. 105. For other autographs in the Cretan collection, see MSS BAV, ebr. 278 and ebr. 344 (Appendix).
114. Such as the book collections of Andreas Masius and Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter, for example. See De Molière “Studies in the Christian Hebraist Library of Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter,” and Dunkelgrün, “The Hebrew Library of a Renaissance Humanist,” 197–252.
115. Burnett, Christian Hebraism in the Reformation Era, 171–4.
116. The appendix is based on Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici, 39 and 86–96. The description of the textual content of the manuscripts contains main texts only. For detailed description of the manuscripts, see the respective items in Beit-Arié and Richler, Hebrew Manuscripts in the Vatican; Codices, ebr. 1–115 are also described in Cassuto, Codices Vaticani hebraici. In cases where manuscripts contain separate production units or different codices bound together in the Vatican, Roman numbers indicate the units that were acquired in Candia. The description of the content is followed by Hebrew numbers inscribed in the volumes by the Christian purchaser and his acquisition notes, when available. Encrypted phrases are Latinized and are written in Italics. In addition to the references to Beit-Arié’s/Richler’s and Cassuto’s catalogues, the references contain selected publications that specifically deal with Cretan manuscripts. For other relevant publications, see Beit-Arié and Richler, Hebrew Manuscripts in the Vatican. Most manuscripts in the Cretan group can be viewed online http://bav.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/digitized-items-hebrew-manuscripts (accessed October 2022).
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Ilona Steimann
Ilona Steimann is a researcher in the project Corpus Masoreticum, at the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg. Along with the study of Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible, her research focuses on medieval Jewish book culture, book-collecting practices, and the circulation of Jewish books between Jews and Christians. Previously, she conducted a number of individual projects in the universities of Munich and Münster, and in the Cluster of Excellence “Understanding Written Artefacts” in Hamburg. Among her recent publications is a monograph Jewish Book – Christian Book: Hebrew Manuscripts in Transition between Jews and Christians in the Context of German Humanism (2020).