A Sixteenth-Century Hebrew Map from Mantua

ABSTRACT

A unique Hebrew map of the Exodus and the Holy Land was printed in Mantua, Italy, in the mid-sixteenth century. This map is graphically and artistically different from all other Hebrew maps, both earlier and later. The aim here is to analyze the map and the text that is printed on it, explore the reasons for, and the context of, its printing, and identify its sources within contemporary Jewish scholarship and Christian cartography. The only known exemplar of this map is in the Zentralbibliothek in Zürich, Switzerland.

Une remarquable carte hébraïque de l'Exode et de la Terre Sainte fut imprimée à Mantoue en Italie au milieu du XVIe siècle. Cette carte est graphiquement et esthétiquement différente de toutes les autres cartes hébraïques publiées avant comme après. Le but est ici d'analyser la carte et le texte imprimé dessus, d'explorer les raisons et le contexte de sa publication, et d'identifier ses sources dans l'érudition juive et la cartographie chrétienne contemporaines. Le seul exemplaire connu de cette carte est conservé à la Bibliothèque centrale de Zurich en Suisse.

Eine einzigartige hebräische Karte des Exodus und des Heiligen Landes wurde in der Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts in Mantua gedruckt. Sie unterscheidet sich graphisch und künstlerisch von allen anderen hebräischen Karten, sowohl den älteren als auch den jüngeren. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es, die Karte und den auf ihr gedruckten Text zu analysieren, die Gründe und die Hintergründe ihres Drucks zu erforschen und ihre Quellen in der zeitgenössischen jüdischen Gelehrtenwelt und in der christlichen Kartographie zu identifizieren. Das einzige bekannte Exemplar dieser Karte befindet sich in der Zentralbibliothek Zürich (Schweiz).

A mediados del siglo XVI se imprimió en Mantua (Italia) un singular mapa hebreo del Éxodo y de Tierra Santa. Dicho mapa es desde el punto de vista gráfico y artístico diferente de todos los demás mapas hebreos, tanto anteriores como posteriores. El propósito de este artículo es analizar el mapa y el texto que lleva impreso, explorar las razones y el contexto de su impresión, e identificar las fuentes dentro de la erudición judía contemporánea y la cartografía cristiana. La única copia conocida de este mapa está conservada en la Zentralbibliothek en Zúrich, Suiza.

KEYWORDS:

• sixteenth century
• maps in Bibles
• maps of the Exodus
• Bible reading and interpretation
• Hebrew cartography
• relations between Christian and Jewish cartography
• Holy Land
• Mantua
• Renaissance Italy
• Rashi

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Professor Aaron Maman, Department of Hebrew Language, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for his indispensable comments on this text; and Dr Zur Shalev, Department of History, Haifa University, who read an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

Notes and References

1. On Rashi's maps see, Mayer I. Gruber, ‘What happened to Rashi's pictures?’ Bodleian Library Record 14:2 (1992): 111–24; idem, ‘Light on Rashi's diagrams from the Asher Library of Spertus College of Judaica’, in The Solomon Goldman Lectures, 6 (Chicago, Spertus College of Judaica Press, 1993), 73–85; idem, ‘Notes on the diagrams in Rashi's Commentary to the Book of Kings’, Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 19 (1994): 29–41; idem, ‘The sources of Rashi's cartography’, in Letters and Texts of Jewish History, ed. Norman Simms (Hamilton, NZ, Outrigger Publishers, 1998), 61–67; idem, ‘Rashi's map illustrating his Commentary on Judges 21:19’, Proceedings of the Rabbinical Assembly 65 (2004): 135–41; Catherine Delano-Smith and Mayer I. Gruber, ‘Rashi's legacy: maps of the Holy Land’, The Map Collector 59 (1992): 30–35. The Babylonian Talmud is a literary work of monumental proportions, which draws upon the totality of the spiritual, intellectual, ethical, historical and legal traditions produced in rabbinic circles from the time of the destruction of the Second Temple until the beginning of the seventh century. See Stephen Wald, ‘Talmud, Babylonian’, in Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, 2nd ed. (Detroit, MI, Macmillan Reference, 2007), 19: 470–81.

2. Aaron Rothkoff et al., ‘Rashi’, in Encyclopaedia Judaica (see note 1), 17: 101–6. A. Grossmann, Rashi (Jerusalem, Zalman Shazar Centre, 2006) (in Hebrew).

3. Eliah Mizrahi, Commentary on Rashi (Venice, Bomberg, 1545; 1st ed. 1527), 280 verso (in Hebrew).

4. See, for example, Shimeon ha-Levi Osehnburg, Sepher Devek Tov (Venice, 1588) (in Hebrew); Mordechai Yaffe, Sepher Levush ha-Ora (Prague, 1604) (in Hebrew).

5. The styling of maps has been discussed by Catherine Delano-Smith; see, for example, her ‘Smoothed lines and empty spaces: the changing face of the exegetical map before 1600’, in Combler les blancs de la carte: Réflexions à propos de la construction des savoirs géographiques (XIV–XIX siècles, ed. J.-F. Chauvard, G, Odile and I. Laboulais-Lesage (Strasbourg, Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 2004), 17–34, and ‘For whom the map speaks: recognising the reader’, in Mappae antiquae: Liber Amicorum Günter Schilder, ed. Paula van Gestel–van het Schip and Peter der Krogt (‘t Goy-Houten, HES & De Graaf, 2007), 627–36.

6. Catherine Delano-Smith and Elizabeth M. Ingram, ‘La Carte de la Palestine’, in Mercator Cosmographe, ed. Marcel Watelet (Antwerp, Fonds Mercator Paribas, 1995), 268–83.

7. Tilemann Stella's first map is known only from the copy in Gerard de Jode's Speculum orbis terrarum (1578). Giovanni Francesco Della Gatta's Palaestinae sive Terrae Sanctae descriptio (1557) was a one-sheet version of Wolfgang Wissenburg's map of c.1537. See Catherine Delano-Smith, ‘Maps in sixteenth-century Bibles’, The Map Collector, 39 (1987): 2–14, and relevant entries in Robert W. Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps (Chicago, Speculum Orbis Press for The Newberry Library, 1993). For reproductions of the three large maps, see Kenneth Nebenzahl, Maps of the Holy Land (New York, Abbeville Press, 1986).

8. Yaacov Ben Abraham Zaddiq (Justo), Map of Canaan (Amsterdam, Abraham Goos, 1621) (in Hebrew), with examples in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (copy 1: BNF, GE BB–246 (17–43/44 RES); copy 2: GE C–4921 (RES)); see also Kenneth Nebenzahl, ‘Zaddiq's Canaan’, in Theatrum orbis librorum: liber amicorum presented to Nico Israel, ed. Ton Croiset van Uchelen, Koert van der Horst and Günter Schilder (Utrecht, HES, 1989), 39–46. Abraham Bar Yaacov, ‘Map of the Holy Land’, in the Amsterdam Haggadah (Amsterdam, 1695) (in Hebrew); see also Harold Brodsky, ‘The seventeenth-century Haggadah map of Abraham Bar Yaacov’, Jewish Art 19–20 (1993–1994): 148–57.

9. Christian van Adrichom, ‘Situs Terra Promissionis’, in his Theatrum Terrae Sanctae (Cologne, Officina Birckmannica, 1590). For a reproduction see Nebenzahl, Maps of the Holy Land (note 7), plate 35.

10. Hans Jacob Haag, ‘Hebräische karte des Heiligen Landes um 1560’, in Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Schätze aus vierzehn Jahrhunderten (Zürich, Zentralbibliothek, 1991), 66–71, 173–74; idem, ‘Die vermutlich älteste bekannte hebräische Holzschnittkarte des Heiligen Landes (um 1560)’, Cartographica Helvetica 4 (1991): 23–26; idem, ‘“Elle mas'e vene Yisra'el asher yatz'u me-eretz Mitzrayim”: eine hebräische Karte des Heiligen Landes aus dem 16. Jahrhundert’, in Jewish Studies between the Disciplines = Judaistik zwischen den Disziplinen: Papers in Honor of Peter Schäfer on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday, ed. Klaus Herrmann, Margarete Schlüter and Giuseppe Veltri (Leiden, Brill, 2003), 269–78. The map was also presented as ‘Anonymous’ in Holy Land in Maps, ed. Ariel Tishbi (Jerusalem, Israel Museum; New York, Rizzoli, 2001), 120–21.

11. Numbers 33:1. Unless otherwise stated all biblical references and quotations are taken from The New Jewish Publication Society Translation, 2d ed. (Philadelphia, Jewish Publications Society, 2003). Where the quotations are in a different place in Christian versions of the Bible, the King James (authorized version) is given as well.

12. See also Rashi's commentary on Numbers 34:6, where he used the French word ‘isles’ to denote the islands as part of the coastal border.

13. The representation of a country by a city sign could have been because both Egypt and Cairo are known in Arabic as Misr. The confusion between the name of the country and its principal city might also account for other lands being represented in the same way.

14. David Ben-Gad Hacohen, ‘The southern boundary of the Land of Israel in the Tannitic literature and the Bible’, Cathedra 88 (1988): 15–38 (in Hebrew).

15. No reference is made to the land held by half of the tribe of Manasseh, however.

16. A sketch of a similar construct for carrying the cluster of grapes by eight bearers is printed in a slightly later edition of a commentary on Rashi by Nathan Shapira; see Nathan Ben Shimshon Shapira, Supercommentary on Rashi (Beurim al Rashi) (Venice, Justinian, 1593) (in Hebrew).

17. Thomas O'Loughlin, ‘Map as text: a mid ninth-century map for the book of Joshua’, Imago Mundi 57:1 (2005): 7–22.

18. Psalms 114:1: ‘These were the marches of the Israelites who started out from the land of Egypt’; 115:1: ‘Not unto us, O Lord’; 115:12: ‘The Lord is mindful of us, He will bless us’; 116:1: ‘I love the Lord for He hears my voice; 118:5: ‘In distress I called’; 118:26: ‘May he who enters be blessed’.

19. ‘A fox in his season’ is an Aramaic proverb, תעלא בעידניה סגיד ליה, from the Babylonian Talmud, Moed, Megilah, 16, which means that one should ‘worship a fox in his season’. It is also cited by Rashi on Genesis 47:31. The phrase, quoted twice on the Mantua map (lines 26 and 35), is the negative form of a Talmudic pun, תעלא בלא עידניה, which means that one should not ‘worship a fox not in his season’. The pun refers to Joseph who, when he became the governor of Egypt, was honoured even by his father.

20.  David Werner Amram, The Makers of the Hebrew Books in Italy (Philadelphia, J. H. Greenstone, 1909), 290, 323–24; Joshua Bloch, Hebrew Printing in Riva di Trento (New York, New York Public Library, 1963), 8; Giulio Busi, Libri Ebraici a Mantova (Firenze, Edizioni Cadmo, 1996), 1: 38–39, 54, 117, 132.

21.  Tehilim: Hahodesh ha-zeh lakhem rishon . . .(Mantua, ha-Shutafim (the partners) [Meir Sofer and Josef Ben Yaacov of Padua], 1562) (in Hebrew and Yiddish).

22.  Basan created the illustrations for Seder Hagaddah shel Pessah . . . (Mantua, Rufinelli, 1560) (in Hebrew); see Shlomo Simonsohn, History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantua (Jerusalem, Kiryath Sepher, 1977), 655, n.263.

23.  About Rabbi Isaac Ben David Port-Katz (d. 1577), see Simonsohn, History (see note 22), 415, 622, 727 and elsewhere.

24. Yael Israeli, ed., LeOr HaMenorah [By the Light of the Candelabrum] (Jerusalem, Israel Museum, 1998) (in Hebrew).

25. King James, Psalms, 36:9; Vulgate Psalms 35.10; מקור חיים באורך נראה אורכי עמך.

26. ח = 8, י = 10, י = 10, ם  = 40, ב=2, ר = 200, נ = 50, ר = 200, א = 1, ה = 5. In order to calculate a year according to the Jewish era in the common era in the last millennium, one should add 1240.

27. Nebenzahl, ‘Zaddiq's Canaan’ (see note 8); Brodsky, ‘The seventeenth-century Haggadah map’ (see note 8). Such claims to the ‘first’ printed maps do not, of course, include exegetical maps and Mizrahi's similarly schematic map.

28. Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, 7 vols. (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 3: 270–71.

29. Yoel Elitzur, ‘Sources of the Nebi Samuel tradition’, Cathedra 31 (1984): 75–90 (in Hebrew).

30. Zvi Ilan, Tombs of the Righteous in the Land of Israel (Jerusalem, Kana, 1997), 364 (in Hebrew).

31. Avraham Ya‘ari, ‘Illustrations of Jerusalem and the Temple as decoration for Hebrew books’, Qiryat Sepher 15 (1938–1939): 377–82 (in Hebrew); Shalom Sabar, ‘Messianic aspirations and Renaissance urban ideals: the image of Jerusalem in the Venice Haggadah, 1609’, in The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art, ed. Bianca Kühnel (Jewish Art 23–24 (1997–1998): 295–312).

32. Avraham Ya‘ari, ‘The drawing of the seven walls of Jericho in Hebrew manuscripts’, Qiryat Sepher, 18 (1941–1942): 179–81 (in Hebrew).

33.  Christophe Froschauer, Zurich, 1525 (the map is in mirror-image); Jacob van Liesvelt, Antwerp, 1526 (the map is correctly printed). The title ‘Die ghelegentheit ende die palen des lants van Beloften’ [The position and borders of the Promised Land] was added by Froschauer: Delano-Smith, ‘Maps in sixteenth-century Bibles’ (see note 7), 2–14, esp. 4; Catherine Delano-Smith and Elizabeth M. Ingram, Maps in Bibles 1500–1600 : An Illustrated Catalogue (Geneva. Droz, 1991), 25–26, no. 2.1. See also Eran Laor, Maps of the Holy Land (New York and Amsterdam, A. R. Liss, 1986), 28, no. 226.

34. Descripcio Terrae Promissionis, Quae alia Palestina, Canaan, vel Terra Sanct nuncupatur. The map was printed covertly, with the text, probably in Cologne for Miles Coverdale's translation of the Bible. Coverdale's version was smuggled into London in 1535 and reprinted there in 1536 by James Nicolson: Delano-Smith and Ingram, Maps in Bibles (see note 33), 27–27, and Elizabeth M. Ingram, ‘The map of the Holy Land in the Coverdale Bible: a map by Holbein?’ The Map Collector 64 (1997): 26–31.

35. Delano-Smith and Ingram, Maps in Bibles (see note 33). See also The Geneva Bible, a Facsimile of the 1560 Edition, ed. Lloyd J. Berry (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1969). Rouland Hall's 1560 edition of the Geneva Bible was the first English-language edition; the 1559 edition was in French. Both were printed in Geneva.

36. Amram, Makers of the Hebrew Books in Italy (see note 20), 290, 323–24; Joshua Bloch, Venetian Printers of Hebrew Books (New York, New York Public Library, 1932).

37. Denis Cosgrove has described and analyzed the historical and cultural reasons for the development of Venice as world centre of cartography, and David Woodward has discussed the role of Venice as a centre of map production and marketing. Denis Cosgrove, ‘Mapping new worlds: culture and cartography in sixteenth century Venice’, Imago Mundi 44 (1992): 65–89; David Woodward, Maps as Prints in the Italian Renaissance: Makers, Distributors & Consumers (London, British Library, 1996).

38. Woodward, Maps as Prints in the Italian Renaissance (see note 37).

39. Joanna Weinberg, Azariah de’ Rossi's Observations on the Syriac New Testament (London, Warburg Institute; Turin, Nino Aragno Editore, 2005); David B. Ruderman, The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham Ben Mordechai Farissol (Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College Press, 1981); Moses Avigdor Shulvass, The Jews in the World of the Renaissance (Leiden, Brill, 1977), 253–56; Reuven Bonfil, As by a Mirror: Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy (Jerusalem, Zalman Shazar Center, 1994), 123–27 (in Hebrew).

40. Ruderman, World of a Renaissance Jew (see note 39); Shulvass, Jews in the World of the Renaissance (see note 39), 306–9; Rephael S. Weinberg, ‘Joseph Ben Yehoshua ha-Cohen and his book Maziv Gevulot Amim’, Sinai 72 (1973): 333–64 (in Hebrew).

41. Shulvass, Jews in the World of the Renaissance (see note 39), 305–9; Moses Avigdor Shulvass, Rome and Jerusalem (Jerusalem, Mosad Harav Kook, 1944), 54–88 (in Hebrew).

42. Sepher Yihus Tsadikim . . . (Mantua, Printed by Yaacov Ben Naphtali, 1561) (in Hebrew).

43. See Delano-Smith and Ingram, Maps in Bibles (see note 33), xxii–xxix.

44. The absence of maps in Catholic Bibles until the final quarter of the sixteenth century was confirmed by Delano-Smith and Ingram, Maps in Bibles (see note 33), xvi. For the complicated history of the maps in the polyglot edition, and the problems with Rome in approving publication of the final volume (Apparatus), see Zur Shalev, ‘Sacred geography, antiquarianism and visual erudition: Benito Arias Montano and the maps of the Antwerp Polyglot Bible’, Imago Mundi 55 (2003): 56–80.

45. Martin Luther, Philip Melancthon and John Calvin were the outstanding promoters not only of the vernacular Bible, but also of aids (including maps) to help the new (non-priestly) classes of Bible reader: Delano-Smith, ‘Maps in sixteenth-century Bibles’ (see note 33).

46. Shalev, ‘Sacred geography’ (see note 44), 63.

47. The map now in Zürich is the only known exemplar. It is thus impossible to say if is was an isolated production or printed in large numbers or was part of a broader project. It could have served as an illustrated interpretative aid for Bible reading, as hinted in the text, and, given its relatively large size, could have been hung in a synagogue.

48. Numbers 33:1.

49. Psalms 114:1.

50. Exodus 13:18.

51. Exodus 14:2 and 10. This is rather a paraphrase than a proper citation.

52. Psalms 115:1.

53. Psalms 115:12.

54. ‘Man of God’ is the title of Moses, see Deuteronomy 33:1; Joshua 14:6.

55. Psalms 116:1

56. In the Babylonian Talmud, Arakhin, there is a legend about the reluctance of the Children of Israel to enter the sea in order to cross it. According to a common interpretation of this legend, the Israelites did not make a direct crossing of the Red Sea. Instead, they first entered the sea and than withdrew and went around it. This legend and its interpretation are the source for the argument whether they crossed the sea once or twice.

57. Psalms 118:5.

58. On this proverb, see note 19.

59. Proverbs 1:5.

60. Psalms 118:26.

61. Deuteronomy 28:12.

62. From the Kedushah prayer that is part of Sabbath liturgy. Translated according to the Siddur Sim Shalom, A Prayer Book for Shabbat and Festivals, ed. Rabbi Jules Harlow (New York, The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, 1997), 433.

63. On the title page of the Mantua Haggadah the title of the artist is: ‘The beadle of the Synagogue of the honourable officer and the donator Yitzhak Port . . . ’, so the illegible words here should probably be read accordingly (שמש מבית הכנסת של כבוד מורנו הרב יצחק פורט כ"ץ יצ"ו). See Seder Hagaddah shel Pessach (note 22).