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Body Parts, Veins and Pathologies in Judeo-Italian and Latin in Hebrew Characters

Body Parts, Veins and Pathologies in Judeo-Italian and Latin in Hebrew Characters[1]

This short study focuses on the analysis of medical terms in Judeo-Italian and Latin in Hebrew characters that pertain to body parts, veins, conditions and illnesses, discovered in a fifteenth-century Hebrew medical miscellany copied in Provence: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Ms Hébreu 1181 (hereafter siglum P). At the back of this manuscript, on folio 264v, is an illuminated ink drawing of a Homo signorum et venarum (zodiac and vein man), namely, a naked (circumcised here) man adorned with the signs of the zodiac on various parts of his body. This illustration is accompanied by red lines stemming from different locations on the body and leading to short Hebrew guidelines on letting blood, which describe the veins to incise for various illnesses and bodily dysfunctions.[2]  It is the sole known surviving example in a Hebrew manuscript of zodiacal melothesia.[3]

Zodiac and Vein Man. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Ms Hébreu 1181, fol. 264v.

The illustration of a zodiac and vein man belongs to an iconographical tradition well-known in medical astrology[4] but found predominantly in Latin and vernacular medieval manuscripts, mainly of Western Europe.[5] Consequently, considering the great number of witnesses these languages preserved from the Middle Ages,[6] the fact that only one image of a Homo signorum et venarum in a medieval Hebrew manuscript is known today is even more remarkable.

Summary of the recently published parallel-text edition and commentary

The bloodletting injunctions surrounding this image were recently the object of a parallel-text edition and commentary, in an attempt to identify their path of textual transmission and likely place of production. In the study, the Paris manuscript was compared with three nearly identical sources, with slight variations in spelling and wording, all produced in Italy. These sources include: in Hebrew, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms Vat. ebr. 376, 15th century, textual format (hereafter siglum V);[7] in Italian, Padua, Biblioteca Universitaria, Ms 604, 14th century, figurative format (hereafter siglum Pa);[8] and in Latin, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Ms Clm 10268, 14th century, figurative format (hereafter siglum M).[9]

The recent study of manuscript P began with an overview of the humoral theory and its relation to phlebotomy. Next, a chronological survey of treatises on phlebotomy and their literary genres was outlined, describing in particular a last genre, which appeared during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Western Europe. It consisted of anonymous independent treatises of a popular and empirical character, laid out in textual or figurative formats in Latin and European vernaculars,[10] as well as textual formats in Hebrew and Yiddish.[11] The bloodletting precepts in all four manuscripts were identified as belonging to this last group of literary genres. A parallel-text edition and tabular comparison then illustrated the identical, similar, or divergent bloodletting precepts appearing in P and in the three comparable texts in Hebrew, Italian and Latin (V, Pa and M). The results demonstrated that taking into consideration the numerous identical and similar precepts between P, V, Pa and M, as well as the minor scribal errors, omissions and additions in all manuscripts, all four texts were copied through intermediary Italian and Latin channels, from a common older Latin source. Furthermore, since Pa and M were both copied during the first half of the fourteenth century in Padua[12] and share much identical and similar content, phrasing and wording with P and V, it was suggested that these Hebrew versions, produced a century later, during the first half of the fifteenth century in Italy, may also have been copied in Padua or its surroundings.

Italian production of the Zodiac and Vein Man in P

It is noteworthy to mention that the last text of the manuscript — a summary of the treatise De Judiciis astronomiae (or De astrologiae) by the Catalan physician Arnald de Villanova (ca. 1240–1311), in Hebrew translation by Solomon ben Abraham Avigdor from Provence (b. 1384), titled Panim ba-Mishpaṭ (fols. 265v–266r),[13] was copied in an Italian square script, instead of the Provençal-Sephardic script used for the previous texts in the manuscript. Furthermore, the ink drawing of the zodiac and vein man (fol. 264v), enhanced with watercolours, is accompanied, on the top of the following folio 265r, by an ink drawing of the bust of a man, also painted, and whose left eye contains an enlarged cross-section, surmounted by the title: ‘image of the eye (with) its membranes and its humors’ (צורת העין כתנותיו וליחותיו).[14] These two images laid out on blank pages of the manuscript also feature an Italian script but in book hand, differing from the text Panim ba-Mishpaṭ on the following folios. The volume, therefore, must have travelled from Provence to Italy at some point after 1430, perhaps some ten to twenty years afterward, since the drawings date to between 1440 and 1450.[15] Several medical recipes and brief owners’ notes appear in Italian book hand scripts on the flyleaves at the end of the volume (fols. 268v–269r), also attesting to the peregrination of the manuscript. Consequently, the illustration of the zodiac and vein man (fols. 264v) and text (fols. 265v–266r) were copied in Italy later than the rest of the manuscript.

Use of Italo-Romance and vulgarised Latin in Hebrew characters in texts P and V and their similarity to the Italian and Latin comparable texts Pa and M

A considerable number of terms in Italo-Romance and vulgarised Latin in Hebrew characters[16] are included in the bloodletting precepts of P and its lacunary and identical sister-text V.[17] Both Hebrew texts are compared to the Italian (in Pa) and Latin (in M) versions of the same terms, listed and described below.

The four texts in P, V, Pa and M provide clear evidence of contacts between Christian and Jewish physicians and surgeons, and a cultural transfer of medical and surgical literature — and more precisely, texts on phlebotomy from Latin-into-Hebrew and Italian-into-Hebrew texts which, by the fourteenth century, were largely overshadowing Arabic-into-Latin translations in the medieval West.[18] In a recent study, Cyril Aslanov explains that in Provence and Spain, but also in Italy, “the Latin and the vernacular cultures formed a continuum, a fact that is reflected in the existence of an intermediate register,” which he labels an “interlanguage”. This term refers to “an intermediate space between a speaker’s first and second (acquired) languages, which exists while he or she is still in the process of acquiring active mastery of the latter” and “a zone of interference between two languages that come into contact, e.g., Hebrew and Romance vernaculars in the context of traditional Jewish diglossia.”[19] Aslanov goes on to observe that medieval Jewish translators living in Romance-speaking areas, who had assimilated to the spoken vernacular — that is, Italo-Romance in Italy in our case — were likely also to comprehend written material in Latin and in volgare illustre (written vernacular), since both followed similar syntactic and grammatical patterns, and that the latter would have functioned as a bridge between the spoken vernacular and Latin.[20] However, as these Jewish scholars regarded Hebrew as their sole literary language, they depended on a Hebrew superstratum, rather than a Latin one, in their translations, leading them to perceive all Romance languages indiscriminately as laʿaz (foreign language as a Romance vernacular). From this heteroglossic perspective, Aslanov suggests that they “tended to blur the boundaries among several dialects and included Latin as part of their indistinct medley of languages,” which could “explain their habit of quoting Latin words in a vulgarised form, that is, without the Latin declension ending or with a different ending, more appropriate to the vernacular than to Latin.”[21] Furthermore, a certain hybridization of the Latin/Vulgar interlanguage with Hebrew takes place, as we shall see below.

             The Italo-Romance and vulgarised Latin terms in Hebrew characters, as well as hybrid Hebrew-Italian and Hebrew-Latin ones found in the precepts of P and V, have been organized in the following categories, according to chronological order of the numbered precepts in the aforementioned edition on which this present short study is based: the names of parts of the body, the names of veins and the names of illnesses and conditions (some variants of the same terms found in different places in the edition are located in the footnotes). They are compared here to the Italian and Latin counterparts found in the texts in Pa and M, where present.

Names of parts of the body:

Chin (Lat. mentus): P n°7: המינטן (ha-menṭon) / V sent. 9: המונטוניא (ha-monṭoni ͗a) / Pa n°6a–6b: mento[22] / M: mento

Jaw (Lat. maxilla): P n°7: המשיל’ (ha-maśil) / V sent. 9: משיל (maśil) / Pa n°6a–6b: maxille / M: maxillarum

Throat (Lat. guttur, gula): P n°9: הגוצו  (ha-gotso)[23] / V sent. 8: גוטא (guṭ ͗a)[24] / Pa n°9,14: golla, glotior[25]/ M: guturis, galys

Diaphragm (Lat. diaframa): P n°11: דיאפלימא (di ͗aflem ͗a)[26] / Pa n°17: diaflammata / M: diaframatibus

Stomach (Lat. stomachus): P n°13: והאסטומכא (ve-ha-͗esṭomac ͗a)[27] / Pa n°15: stomaco / M: stomaci

Muscles (Lat. musculi): P n°25: ולמוסקולי (u-le-musqoli)

Groin (Lat. inguen, inguina): P n°29: לאינגינלי (l ͗inguinali) / Pa n°30: languinaia[28]/ M: anguinalli

Knee (Lat. genu): P n°30: יינוקלו (genoqelu/genuqulu)[29] / Pa n°26: cenochi / M: genibus

Kidney (Lat. ren): P n°30: הריני (ha-reni) / M: renum

Hips (Lat. coxis): P n°35: האנקא (ha- ͗anq ͗a) / Pa n°27: ancha[30]

In these examples, many of the terms in P constitute a hybridization of Hebrew-Italian, with a Hebrew prefix of either ha- (הא), e.g.:המינטן (ha-menṭon), הריני (ha-reni), האנקא (ha- ͗anq ͗a) or le/li), e.g.: ולמוסקולי (u-le-musqoli/musquli), לאינגינלי (l ͗inguinali), followed by the Italo-Romance variant in Hebrew characters. The termהגוצו  (ha-gotso) used in P is spelled gozzo in Italian and is an abbreviation of gorgozza, which is the area of the throat. Conversely, V has opted for a vulgarised Latin variant of throat with גוטא (guṭ ͗a), from guttur in Latin. Lastly, the term יינוקלו (genoqelu/genuqelu) stems from the Latin genuculo, which is the singular dative or ablative declension of genuculum.

Names of veins:

Jugular veins (Arab. widāğīyya/ approximative latinized variant guidoch;[31] Lat. guide): P n°8: גווידי (guide)

Axillary vein (Lat. asselaris): P n°11: אצילירים (͗atsilirim)[32]

Circular vein (Lat. circularis): P n°11: צירקולים (tsirqulim) / Pa n°17: circular / M: circhularis[33]

Basilic vein (Lat. basilica): P n°12, 18: בסיליקא (basiliq ͗a) / Pa n°16, 23: basilica del ficao[34] / M: bassilicha[35]

Hepatic vein (Lat. hepatica): P n°12: איפאטיקא (͗epaṭiq ͗a) / M: epaticha[36]

Cephalic vein (Lat. cephalica): P n°14, 20, 21: ציפאליקא (tsef ͗aliq ͗a)[37] / V n°13: ציפאליקא (tsef ͗aliq ͗a) / Pa n°14, 20: vena de la testa[38] / M: cephalica[39]

Salvatella vein (Arab. širyān/ approximative latinized variant: sceylen;[40] Lat. salvatella): P n°21: הסַלְוָטילא (salvaṭel ͗a)[41]

Saphenous vein (Lat. saphene): P n°34: הצפיני (ha-tsafene) / Pa n°28: saphene / M: saphene

In the vein category, only the axillary, circular and saphenous veins in P utilize a hybridization of Hebrew and vulgarised Latin, with a suffix -im (ים) for אצילירים (͗atsilirim) and for צירקולים (tsirqulim), and a prefix ha- (הא) for הצפיני (ha-tsafene). 

Names of illnesses and conditions:

Migraine (Lat. emicranea, emigrane): P n°1, 4: ולמיגראניאה (u-le-migr ͗ani ͗ah) / V sent. 1: ולמיגרנא (u-le-migran ͗a) / Pa n°1a–1b: migragna / M: emigrane

Ophthalmia (Lat. ophtalmia)[42]: P n°1, 31: ולאוטולמיא (u-le- ͗oṭolmi ͗ah) / V sent. 1:ולאוטולמיא (u-le- ͗oṭolmi ͗ah) /Pa n°1a–1b: postema dei ochi[43] /M: vissui occulorum

Styes (Lat. bothor): V sent. 5: בוטור (boṭor)[44]

Rheumatism (Lat. rheuma): P n°8: ולריאומה (ha-re ͗umah) / V sent. 7: ולריאה  (u-le-re ͗ah)[45]

Quinsy (Lat. squinantia)[46]: P n°8, 9: ולאישקנינציאה (u-l- ͗eśqinintsi ͗ah) / V sent. 7: ולְסקויננציאה (u-le-squinintsi ͗ah)[47] / Pa n°9: squinancia[48] / M: essquilencie

Tumor (Lat. tumeo): P n°9: ולטימוני (u-le-ṭimone) / V sent. 9: ולטומוניא (u-le-ṭomoni ͗a)[49] / M: tumefaçionibus

Difficulty breathing (Lat. anhelitus): P n°11: אניליטו (͗aneliṭo) / M: difficulta in anelitus

Hepatic (Lat. hepaticus): P n°16: לאפאטיצי (le- ͗ep ͗aṭitsi) / M: eppactis

Paralysis (An. Gr. παράλυσις / parálusis): P n°18: פרליסי (paralisi)[50]

Atrophy (An. Gr. ατροφία /atrophia): P n°24: לאיטרופיצי (le- ͗irofitsi)

Melancholy (An. Gr. μελαγχολία / melankholía): P n°25: מלינקוניצי (melinqonitsi)

Tympanites (An. Gr. τύμπανιτες / tumpanites): P n°27: לטינפנינו (le-ṭinpanenu)

Sciatic (nerve) (An. Gr. ἰσχιαδικός /iskhiadikós) (Lat. sciaticus): P n°35: השיאטיק/ השיטיקא(ha-śi ͗aṭiq/ ha-śi ͗aṭiq ͗a) / M: sciatic

For the words ולמיגרנא (u-le-migran ͗a) in V,ולמיגראניאה (u-le-migr ͗ani ͗ah) in P, and ולטומוניא (u-le-ṭomoni ͗a) in V, all three are spelled according to a phonological feature in Italian, i.e., the suffixes -na,  -nia  or -niah  (with a final ‘he’ (ה) as in Hebrew), denoting their singular feminine form. The same can be observed in the terms אניליטו (͗aneliṭo), with an -o suffix in singular masculine form, and in ולטימוני (u-le-ṭimone) in P, with a suffix in -e for the feminine plural form. Furthermore, the following adjectives in P, לאפאטיצי (le- ͗ep ͗aṭitsi), פרליסי (paralisi), לאיטרופיצי (le- ͗iṭrofitsi) and מלינקוניצי (melinqonitsi), all have suffixes in -i, corresponding to the plural masculine form. Again here, many terms in both P and V contain Hebrew hybridization prefixes ha- (הא) or le-) in almost all the Italo-Romance and vulgarised Latin words in the list, as well as the Hebrew possessive pronoun suffix -nu (נו) in לטינפנינו (le-ṭinpanenu). Lastly, the term ולאישקנינציאה (u-l- ͗eśqinintsi ͗ah) in P includes a prothetic vowel -e, resembling the Latin version in M with essquilencie, but absent from the Italian version squinancia in Pa.

In conclusion, this famous and sole known surviving image of a zodiac and vein man with surrounding bloodletting precepts (P), and its lacunary identical sister-text (V), both including body parts, veins and pathologies, enunciated in Italo-Romance and vulgarised Latin terms in Hebrew characters, with Hebrew hybridization for some of them, convey the breadth of medical terminology used by Italian Jewish physicians and surgeons, not only in written but probably also in spoken form. It is noteworthy to conclude that the study of medieval Hebrew primary sources, such as the manuscripts examined here, ultimately provides modern research with more evidence of the rich cultural transfers of medical and surgical literature in Latin and Italian into Hebrew that took place in Northern Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.


[1] This short analysis is based upon a recent publication by the author: “A Zodiac and Vein Man in a Medieval Hebrew Manuscript: Edition and Commentary,” Sudhoff’s Archiv. Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Journal for the History of Science and Medicine), 107.2 (2023), p. 131–203.

[2] The manuscript has been described in the following catalogues: Hermann Zotenberg, Catalogue des manuscrits hébreux et samaritains de la Bibliothèque impériale (Paris: 1866), p. 217; Michel Garel, D’une main forte. Manuscrits hébreux des collections françaises (exhibition catalogue, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, galerie Mansart, 1991–1992) (Paris : 1991), n°137, p. 187; Gabrielle Sed-Rajna and Sonia Fellous, Les manuscrits enluminés des bibliothèques de France (Paris, Louvain: 1994), p. 76–78. For a recent description of the manuscript, see Isserles, “A Zodiac and Vein Man,” p. 142–147.

[3] Assigning the twelve zodiacal signs to various parts of the body (e.g., Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms Ashmole 391, ca. 1440, fol. 3r; London, British Library, Arundel Ms 251, 15th c., fol. 46r). See also the association of the seven planets (e.g., Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Ms Crawford 9145, 1464, fol. 73v). On melothesia, see Otto E. Neugebauer, “Melothesia and Dodekatemoria,” in: Astronomy and History: Selected Essays (New York: 1983), p. 352–357, and Justine Isserles, “Bloodletting and Medical Astrology in Hebrew Manuscripts from Medieval Western Europe,” Sudhoffs Archiv: Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 101.1 (2017), p. 19–22.

[4] Considered part of the judicial branch of astrology, medical astrology provided specific prognostications on a patient’s health and the right time for performing an action. Furthermore, these predictive aspects interacted with the classical theories of humoral medicine; see Isserles, “Bloodletting and Medical Astrology,” p. 19–27.

[5] For examples, see Isserles, “A Zodiac and Vein Man,” p. 132, n. 7.

[6] Carl Sudhoff, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Chirurgie im Mittelalter. Graphische un textliche Untersuchungen in mittelalterlichen Handschriften (Leipzig: 1914), vol. 1.

[7] Isserles, “A Zodiac and Vein Man,” p. 147–148.

[8] Id., p. 148–151.

[9] Id., p. 151–152.

[10] For examples, see Sudhoff, Beiträge.

[11] See Isserles, “A Zodiac and Vein Man,” p. 140–141.

[12] In addition, Pa contains three words which are part of the Paduan dialect. These are sora, a dialectal variant of sopra; beldelo, a dialectal variant of budello; and petenegio, a dialectal variant of petenecchio; Dizionario tascabile del dialetto veneziano come viene usitato anche nelle provincie di Padova, di Vicenza, di Treviso coi termini toscani corrispondenti or ora abbreviato e ridotto a comodità di tutti (Padua: 1847), p. 17, 89, 119.

[13] See Moritz Steinschneider, Die Hebraeischen Uebersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher. Ein Beitrag zur Literaturgeschichte des Mittelalters, Meist nach Handschriftlichen Quellen (Berlin: 1893), p. 489. The work was translated from Latin into Hebrew in 1393; see Mauro Zonta, “Medieval Hebrew Translations of Philosophical and Scientific Texts. A Chronological Table,” in: Gad Freudenthal (ed.), Science in Medieval Cultures (Cambridge: 2012), p. 17–73 (esp. p. 62). See also Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Ms Hébreu 1061, fols. 197r–209v, which contains the whole treatise (Zotenberg, Catalogue, p. 195).

[14] The text includes Latin medical terms in Hebrew characters, formed by a hybridization of Hebrew and Latin such as ketoneṭ qoniṭivah (כתונת קונייטיבה), ‘conjunctive membrane,’: ‘cornea’ (qorne ͗ah/קןרניאה) or ‘uvea’ (͗uve ͗ah /אוביאה). On sketches of eye anatomy, see Luke Demaitre, Medieval Medicine. The Art of Healing, from Head to Toe (Santa Barbara (CA): 2013), p. 155–156.

[15] Garel, D’une main forte, p. 178.

[16] Transliteration system for Hebrew and Judeo-Italian: א = ͗; ב = b/v; ג = g;  ד= d;  ה= h ; ו|וו = au/o/u/v;  ז= z; ח = ḥ;  ט= ṭ; יי|י = g (sound ‘dg’)/i/yi/e/ei; כ|ך = k/kh;  ל= l;  מ|ם= m;  נ|ן= n;  ס= s;  ע=ʿ;  פ|ף= p/f; צ|ץ= ts;  ק= q;  ר = r; ֹש= sh;  שֹ= ś;  ת= t. This system is based on Randall K. Barry, compiler and editor. ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Transliteration Schemes for Non-Roman Scripts. Washington, D.C., 1997. Updated at www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html.

[17] Although the bloodletting precepts in V are incomplete and only include thirteen rules (sentences 1–13), they are not only identical but are also very useful for the understanding of the Hebrew texts because they supplement portions of phrases and words missing in P, which is not as complete a copy of these instructions as V. The precepts shared by P and V pertain to the head, the neck and the right arm and hand.

[18] As Freudenthal notes on page 113, “The proportion of medical works in the total corpus of works translated from Latin to Hebrew in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries abruptly increased when Latin medicine began to overshadow its Arabic forebear in the fourteenth century;” see Gad Freudenthal, “The Father of the Latin-into-Hebrew Translations. ‘Doeg the Edomite.’ The Twelfth-Century Repentant Convert,” in: Resianne Fontaine, Gad Freudenthal (eds.), Latin-into-Hebrew: Texts and Studies (Leiden: Boston: 2013), vol. 1, p. 105–119.

[19] See Cyril Aslanov, “From Latin into Hebrew Through the Romance Vernaculars: The Creation of an Interlanguage Written in Hebrew Characters,” in: Latin-into-Hebrew, vol. 1, p. 69–84 (esp. p. 71–72).

[20] Id., p. 72–73.

[21] See Aslanov, “From Latin into Hebrew,” p. 74, 78.

[22] Emanuele Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna” di Bruno da Longobucco in volgare. Edizione del codice Bergamo MA 501, commento linguistico, glossario latino-volgare (Berlin, Boston: 2020), p. 559 s.v. mentus.

[23] P n°14: ושגוצו (u-she-gotso); see Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna,” p. 546 s.v. guttur.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Variant of glotidor, meaning ‘throat’; ibid.

[26] Variant of the Italian word diaflama or diaflamma, an older anatomical term for diaphragm; see Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna, p. 538 s.v. diafragma.

[27] P n°18: לאסטומכא (l ͗esṭomac ͗a).

[28] Id., p. 547–548 s.v. inguen, inguinalis.

[29] Variant of the Latin genu or genuculum, becoming in Italian ginocchio or cenochi as in Pa; see Id., p. 545, s.v. ginocchio.

[30] See Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna,” p. 523 s.v. anca.

[31] See guidoch for the jugular veins in Arabic, and their Italian counterparts vene guide (giugulari) del collo or also vene organiche in Mario Tabanelli, La chirurgia italiana nell’alto medioevo (Florence: 1965), vol. 2, p. 1059, 1016–1017.

[32] The word אצילי for axillary vein is used in Natan ha-Meati’s (Rome, 13th c.) Hebrew translation of Avicenna’s Canon, and is another name for the basilic vein: והבסיליק הוא בזרוע למטה מן הגיד האמצעי לעמת הלב ויקרא גם כן האצילי  (‘the basilic vein; this is the one situated on the inner side termed also the axillary vein…’). While the axillary vein and its benefits are indeed mentioned in Avicenna’s Canon (see English translation by Mones Abu-Asab, Hakima Amri, Marc S. Micozzi, Avicenna’s Medicine: A New Translation of the 11th-Century Canon with Practical Applications for Integrative Health Care (Toronto: 2013), p. 380) and Galen’s On the Anatomy of the Veins and Arteries (in Peter Brain, Galen on Bloodletting. A Study of the Origins, Development and Validity of his Opinions, with a Translation of the Three Works (Cambridge: 1986), p. 141), it is rarely mentioned in an image of a vein man or a treatise on bloodletting (e.g., one exception being the Latin term acellari found in the treatise on bloodletting in Arnaldus de Villanova, Tractatus de Consideracionibus Operis Medicine Sive de Flebotomia, Luke Demaitre (ed.), Praefatione et Commentariis Hispanicis et Anglicis Instruxerunt Pedro Gil-Sotres et Luke Demaitre (Barcelona: 1988) (Arnaldi de Villanova Opera Medica Omnia, vol. IV), p. 158).

[33] The axillary vein is called the ‘circular vein’ by P, Pa and M because it encircles the clavicle, and it originates lower down from the union of the basilic and brachial veins.

[34] See vena del figado in Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna,” p. 582 s.v. vena.

[35] On the origins of the naming of the basilic and cephalic veins, see Linda E. Voigts, Michael R. McVaugh, A Latin Technical Phlebotomy and its Middle English Translation, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 74.2 (1984), p. 1–69 (esp. p. 2 with n. 2).

[36] A common assumption going back to Antiquity, adopted by Galen, and subsequently by the great scholars of medieval humoral medicine, was that the basilic vein in the elbow of the right arm was venesected for illnesses related to the liver, hence the use of the appellation “hepatic” (in Brain, Galen on Bloodletting, p. 142). Likewise, the basilic vein in the elbow of the left arm was venesected for illnesses of the spleen (see P n°18; Pa n°22 in the recent publication), hence the term ‘splenetic’; see Villanova, Tractatus, p. 158: Nam Basilica in dextro specialiter epatica vocatur, basilica vero in sinistro splenetica dicitur nomine speciali.

[37] P n°22: מיזבליקא (mi-zevaliq ͗a).

[38] See vena del capo, vena de la testa in Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna,p. 583, s.v. vena.

[39] Also called the vena nigra (black vein) by Avicenna, Liber Canonis (Venice: 1507), Lib. I, Fen 4, Chap. 20, fol. 75r, because of its deeper location in the arm. It is also called the cardiaca because it evacuates blood directly from the heart and stomach; Villanova, Tractatus, p. 98–99.

[40] See Id.,p. 100.

[41] This term was vocalised in the manuscript. Compare with P n°22: הסלווטילה (ha-salvaṭelah).

[42] This condition can be related to an inflammation of the eye, with runny eyes and accumulation of crust, possibly making it difficult to see in daylight, as mentioned above; see Demaitre, Medieval Medicine, p. 159.

[43] Aposteme of the eyes (localized swelling).

[44] Latin loan word of bothor in Hebrew characters, found in Avicenna’s Latin translation of the Canon, within an instruction regarding the two angular veins in the corner of the eyes (Iuvamentum vero flebothomie ipsorum duarum existit in dolore capitis, et in dolore emigraneo et ophtalmia antiqua et lacrymis, et panno et scabie palpebrarum et earum bothor et noctilopis); see Avicenna, Liber Canonis, Lib. I, Fen 4, Cap. 20, fol. 76r–v; Isserles, “A Zodiac and Vein Man,” p. 157.

[45] The scribe of V wrote the word lung (ולריאה), instead of ולריאומה  (u-le-re ͗umah) as in P. This could be a spelling mistake or perhaps not; see Isserles “A Zodiac and Vein Man,” p. 161, P n°8 and V sent. 7, lines 13–16.

[46] Known in English as quinsy, it is an outdated term for angina, pharyngitis; see Villanova, Tractatus, p. 103, 154.

[47] V n °8: ולסקויננ’ (u-le-squinin’).

[48] See Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna, p. 298–299, 732 s.v. squinantia.

[49] Ṭomoni ͗a, or the variant in plural form ṭimone, as in P, are possibly vulgarised Latin variants from the Latin verb tumeo, meaning ‘to swell;’ Ventura (2020), p. 740 s.v. tumor.

[50] Compare with the term פארלייא (parali ͗a) found in a fifteenth-century bloodletting treatise from Ashkenaz in Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms RIV 2, fols. 45r/v (esp. fol. 45v).

Dr Justine Isserles (EPHE-PSL, SAPRAT, Paris). Her main areas of research in which she has published focus on the material aspect of Hebrew manuscripts, as well as the cultural, calendrical, halakhic, liturgical, linguistic and medical history of medieval Jewry in Western Europe.
Categories
Judeo-Italian

On a Seventeenth-Century Philosophical and Scientific Glossary in Hebrew and Judeo-Italian (Bodleian Library, Ms. Mich. Add. 39) 

This post is based on research undertaken during Dr Ilana Wartenberg’s stay at the OCHJS as an Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages Visiting Fellow in Trinity Term 2024.

***

Ms. Mich. Add. 39 from the Bodleian Library is a fascinating testimony to intellectual and linguistic aspects of Jewish life in seventeenth-century northern Italy. Its core is a Hebrew/Judeo-Italian glossary, featuring many philosophical and scientific terms. This glossary contains both sections from earlier glossaries and lexemes directly derived from various literary works. The codex also contains Hebrew astronomical and astrological lexemes translated into the vernacular, a Latin translation (in the Latin alphabet) of the books of the Hebrew Bible, as well as various philosophical and other terms  together with comments and memoranda added by the owner of the codex.[1]

MS. Mich. Add. 39, fol. 1r (© Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)

In the age of print, codex Ms. Mich. Add. 39 stands out as an eloquent, handwritten document bearing witness to the diffusion of knowledge and its lexicon into seventeenth-century northern Italy across a variety of domains: philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, Kabbalah, the Jewish calendar, Halakha, ethics, grammar, and medicine. That being said, it also contains everyday, non-technical, terms. The compiler of the glossary clearly invested much thought in selecting and putting together approximately 1,000 Hebrew terms whose vernacular translations he believed were necessary to learn. The rich choice of textual sources by earlier and contemporary authors from different geographical and cultural settings not only reflects contemporary intellectual interests but also sheds light on the content of Jewish scholarly libraries during the Italian Renaissance.

A small and lightweight paper codex, Ms. Mich. Add. 39 was clearly intended as a pocket book, a notebook that one could carry around easily. It is approximately 13cm long and 10cm wide, and contains 23 folios. Despite its modest size and several empty folios, the codex’s extremely small—at times almost micrographic—handwriting made it possible for some of the densely written folios in the Hebrew/Judeo-Italian glossary to contain close to 100 terms. They are written in Hebrew script almost entirely, with some vernacular or Latin words written in the Latin alphabet—a phenomenon well-accounted for in the seventeenth century, when Jews were gradually shifting from the Hebrew to the Latin alphabet. 

Two very similar handwritings, both in a typical central-northern cursive Italian script common in the seventeenth century, are discernible in the codex. One of them belongs to the anonymous compiler of the glossary while the second belongs to an early owner who was one of the most important manuscript and book collectors in seventeenth-century Italy, Abraham Joseph Solomon Graziano. Originally from Pesaro, Graziano eventually became a rabbi in Modena and was known for his lenient rulings. He often referred to himself in the colophons as איש גר (‘a foreigner’), which is an abbreviation of his first names and surname but also alludes to his feeling that he was a stranger in Modena.[2] The copy was marked as censored (מזוקק), but the identity of the censor is unknown. Furthermore, no censorship erasures are visible; this phenomenon is probably due to the absence of heretical contents rather than the (not unusual) sloppy work of the censor. On Folio 1r, we find two colophons: one by the compiler in the bottom half and another by Graziano above it. 

Graziano’s colophon reads:

בהא”נו

זה הוא ספר שפותר המלות של הפלוסופיא וההגיון, היינו מלות הזרות שבחכמות הללו, והוא כמו ע”ד אור לוסטרו והפתרון הנ”ל הוא בלשון לעז ואיטאליאנו, והוא שלי זעירא וכישא דירקא אברהם יוסף שלמה ב”כמה”ר מרדכי גראציאנו זצו”ל, אשר קניתי אותו מכל יורשי הזקן כמה”ר גרשון פורמיזיני בכ”ר מנחם ז”ל ביום א’ ג’ סיון, שנת תי”ט לפ”ק, פ’ נשוא, היא שנת אלף תרנט לחשבונם, פה מודונא, ו”לוי”א [=ולברכה ולשלום יהיה אמן] ]…[ החכם השלם החסיד כמו”הר”ר שמואל אבוהב נר”ו

איש גר אנכי בארץ

‘With the help of God, Amen, we shall do, and we shall succeed.

This is a book which translates the words of philosophy and logic, i.e., the uncommon [lit. unknown, foreign] words in these sciences, and it is in the way [i.e. format] of ʼOr-Lustro,[3] and the translation mentioned above is in la‘az, i.e., italiano, and it belongs to me, the young and the insignificant[4] Abraham Joseph Solomon, the son of the honourable righteous teacher Rabbi Mordecai Graziano of blessed and pious memory, which I purchased from all the heirs of the elder, the honourable teacher Rabbi Gerson Formiggini,[5] the son of the honourable Rabbi Menachem, in blessed memory, on Sunday, 3 Sivan, in the Jewish year [5]419, Torah portion Naso, which is the year 1659 according to their calendar [lit. calculation, and the equivalent Gregorian date is 25 May 1659], here, Modena, may it be in blessing and in peace, Amen […] the grand sage, the pious, our honourable teacher, Rabbi Samuel Aboab,[6] may God protect and redeem himʼ.

I am a foreign man in this country

The compiler’s colophon reads:

עירוך וסדור <קטן והוא> פי’ מילות זרות הנמצאות כתובות בחכמת הפילוסופיא, מהפלוסופים <ובעלי ההגיון> האלקיים[7] היינו בעל עקידת יצחק, עולת שבת, עולת תמיד, ס’ העקרים, נוה שלום, דברי שלמה, אור עמים וספרי’ אחרים, מפלוסופי עמנו, נפשם בטוב תלין, אשר פירושן וביאורן ופתרונן, הוא מלשון הקודש, ללשון לעז, היינו איטאליאנו, ולקטתי הפי’ והפתרון הנ”ל, מהרבה מקומות וחבורים, היינו מביאור מלות זרות הרבה, מס’ מורה הנבוכים, שחבר החכם הכולל כמוהר”ר                 זצ”ל, והחבור קטן מכמו”הר’ שמואל אבואב נר”ו מויניציאה, ומס’ פי אריה מכמוהר”ר יהודא אריה ממודונא, היינו התוספת מהביאור שהוספנו אחרי כותבי ביאור הרבה מלות אחרות, וכתבנו קו אחד אחריהן, הכלל הזה יהיה בידיך <קורא אהוב וחביב ונחמד> בעירוך וסדור קטן הלן, כדי שתדע מוצאו ומובאו של הפי’ […] מלות זרות מהפלוסופיא וההגיון הנ”ל – והפי’ הזה הוא כגון דִִיצְייוׄנַא”רְיוׄ בלעז.  

‘A small glossary and arrangement––it is an explanation of uncommon words which are found written in [books pertaining to] the science of philosophy, from the divine philosophers and the logicians, i.e., the author of ‘Aqedat Iṣḥaq [The Binding of Isaac],[8] ‘Olat Shabbat [Sacrifice of the Sabbath],[9] ‘Olat Tamid [Daily Burnt Offering],[10] Sefer ha-‘Iqqarim [Book of Principles],[11] Neve Shalom [Abode of Peace],[12] Divrey Shlomo [The Sayings of Solomon],[13] ʼOr ‘Amim [The Light of Peoples][14] and other books, by philosophers of our people, their soul shall abide in prosperity [cf. Ps. 25:13], whose explanation, elucidation, and translation are from the Holy Tongue into la‘az, i.e., Italian. And I have gathered the above-mentioned explanation and translation from many places and compositions, i.e., from the elucidation of many uncommon words from the book Guide for the Perplexed, which the grand sage, our honourable teacher, Rabbi [Maimonides],[15] may the memory of the pious be blessed, composed, and a small composition by our honourable teacher, Rabbi Samuel Aboab from Venice,[16] may God protect and redeem him, and from the book Pi ʼAryeh [The Mouth of a Lion] by our honourable teacher, Rabbi Aryeh [Leon] of Modena,[17] i.e., the addition to the explanation we have added after the composers of the explanation of many other words, and we wrote a hyphen [lit. one line] after them. This rule [or: order] will be given to you [lit. in your hands], beloved, lovely and pleasant reader, in this edition and small arrangement mentioned above so you will know the origin and the aim [cf. Ezek. 43:11] of the explanation of the uncommon words from [the fields of] philosophy and logic––and it is as a dictionary, dizionario [in Hebrew letters] in la‘azʼ.

In addition to the authors and texts cited in the colophons, many other authors and texts are mentioned throughout the glossary including: the famous trilingual encyclopaedic dictionary (in Hebrew, Latin, and Italian) Ṣemaḥ David (The Plant of David)—composed by the linguist, philosopher, and physician David de Pomis (ca. 1524 – ca. 1594)—which is primarily a biblical and rabbinic dictionary of impressive scope widely known among Jewish scholars as well as Christian Hebraists; a scientific-philosophical glossary (Ms. 479 in the Montefiore Library) compiled by Kabbalists Aharon Berachia of Modena (1549–1639) and his contemporary Samuel Shaʿar Aryeh (or Portaleone); numerous works related to Maimonides—apart from The Guide for the Perplexed itself, there are explicit references to Samuel Ibn Tibbon’s explanation of uncommon words usually included at the end of the Guide, as well as Maimonides’s Mishne Torah, Shmoneh Prakim (Eight Chapters) and Hilkhot Yesodey ha-Torah (The Laws which are the Foundations of the Torah); Sefer ha-Gdarim (The Book of Definitions, also known as Mikhlol Yofi, i.e., Perfection of Beauty) by the philosopher Menaḥem ben Abraham Bonafoux of Perpignan, which is a dictionary of philosophical, ethical, and medical terms, many of which are derived from the GuideDialoghi di Amore by Leone Ebreo (Medico), Judah Abravanel (ca. 1465–ca. 1525), a philosophical treatise on love which enjoyed a widespread reception in the Christian world; Fiore di virtù, an extremely popular, anonymous fourteenth-century book, translated into several languages and intended for the moral education of youth; as well as references to Ovid and Aristotle. Furthermore, Graziano added philosophical terms translated into the vernacular from a dictionary by the preacher Isaac Alatrino (or Alatrini) ben Abraham of Cingoli.[18]

The three memoranda in Ms. Mich. Add. 39 emphasize the importance of the study of Hebrew and vernacular scientific, philosophical, and lexicographical sources for preachers (דרשנים, active in synagogues or in Jewish accademie) for the sake of increasing their intellectual Italian vocabulary, embellishing their sermons, impressing their more-or-less educated listeners, and thus enhancing their authority. The mentioned sources are Calepino,[19] Mattioli,[20] Nofet Ṣufim (The Book of the Honeycomb’s Flow),[21] Divrey Shlomo (which, according to Graziano’s acquaintances, was cited from by Judah Aryeh [Leon] of Modena during his sermons in Venice), ‘Aqedat IṣḥaqSefer ha-‘Iqqarim, Judah ha-Levi’s Sefer ha-Kuzari, and Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed.

It is important to remember that for Jews in Italy, the vernacular—Italian—was their native tongue used on a day-to-day basis. However, as we know all too well from our own mother tongue(s), being a native speaker of a language does not entail knowledge of its highly specialized terminology, which needs to be studied separately and often over a prolonged period. Unlike other Judeo-Italian sources, e.g., Siddurim (prayer books), which were written entirely in Judeo-Italian in order to help the readers understand the Hebrew sources, such philosophical glossaries tell a different story. My research of Ms. Mich. Add. 39 shows that the translation of philosophical terms into Judeo-Italian did not serve as a linguistic bridge to the Hebrew terms, but instead was intended to teach readers to express known Hebrew terms in the vernacular, help them integrate intellectually into the surrounding society and access its literature, and, as reflected from the memoranda, also help preachers embellish their language. The multiple references to Hebrew sources, such as Maimonides’s Guide among many others, together with the Hebrew colophons suggest that the immediate users of the glossary were well-versed in Hebrew philosophical literature. 

A future publication of the entire lexicon of this codex will be of great scholarly value, since it will reveal numerous scientific-philosophical vernacular terms and ideas taught among Jewish circles in seventeenth-century northern Italy. Given that most Hebrew and vernacular terms have been vocalized, the lexicon also possesses valuable phonological information, providing rare insight into contemporary pronunciation of these words, at least in theory.[22] The Judeo-Italian elements of the lexicon also reflect emulations of written Italian just before the Hebrew script was replaced by the Latin script, for example the doubling the consonants and rendering l’ as ל’.

To give one lexical example, consider the Judeo-Italian evolution of the medieval Hebrew term for geometry, תשבורת(tishboret), as reflected in the glossary, a term which was coined in the twelfth century by Abraham bar Ḥayya via a calque from the Arabic تكسير (taksir). Both etymological roots originally denote ‘break’. The Hebrew term is usually pronounced tishboret but is vocalized as tashboret in Ms. Mich. Add. 39, reflecting its immediate source, Pi ʼAryeh. This is one of the terms Rabbi Aryeh Judah Leon Modena had silently ‘borrowed’ from a sixteenth-century glossary preserved in Ms. Or. Fol. 1618 at the State Library in Berlin in which we find the translations: פרטי די גיאומטריאה, דיספארטירי (‘divide’, ‘part related to [lit. of] geometry’). Modena did not include the translation ‘divide’, and one reads only parte di geometria in the printed edition of Pi ʼAryeh, but with the addition per l’algebra, which also found its way into Ms. Mich. Add. 39.[23] If this is indeed Modena’s addition, then perhaps he deserves at least partial forgiveness for his inclusion of the term (along with many others) from the earlier glossary, because his updated vernacular translation mirrors the contemporary mathematical trend. The sixteenth century was a time in which algebra was flourishing in Italy owing to the efforts of mathematicians such as Tartaglia, Cardano, and Ferrari, and geometry played a vital role in the history of algebra (and vice versa), as is beautifully reflected in this translation.[24]

Finally, I shall briefly mention that there is an abundance of scientific-philosophical Hebrew/Judeo-Italian glossaries produced in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It seems to me that this profusion is directly related to the conspicuous absence of entire scientific-philosophical treatises in Judeo-Italian, which is not accidental given that many educated Italian Jews were able to read original vernacular (and Latin) sources. Therefore, the need for this type of glossaries seems to have been solely for the study of specialized vernacular vocabulary through the Hebrew.  


[1] For previous mentions of Ms. Mich. Add. 39, see Giuseppe, Sermoneta, Un glossario filosofico ebraico-italiano del XIII secolo (Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, Roma, 1969), Alessandro, Guetta, An Ancient Psalm, a Modern Song: Italian Translations of Hebrew Literature in the Early Modern Period, (Boston: Brill, 2022), 116, and idem, ‘Traduzioni e lessici filosofici manoscritti nell’Italia ebraica, tra fine Cinquecento e inizio Seicento’, in Philosophical Translations in Late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. In Memory of Mauro Zonta, eds. Irene Kajon, Luisa Valente, and Francesca Gorgoni (Rome: Aracana Edizioni (Genzano di Roma), 2022), 203, 207. An article of mine which presents the codex in great detail is due to appear in a book deriving from the Oxford Seminar in Advanced Jewish Studies on Books in Judeo Languages: Popular Reading and Scholarship

[2] For details on Graziano’s life, oeuvre and collection, see S. Jona, ‘Abraham Joseph Salomon Graziani, poète hébreu du ΧVIIe siècle,’ Revue des études juives vol. 4–7 (1882): 113–126; Yael Okun (Mayer), The Library of the manuscripts of Abraham Joseph Graziano (ca. 1620 1685)(Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1991) [M.A. thesis, in Hebrew].

[3] ʼOr-Lustro (אור לוסטרו) by David ben Abraham Modena, a dictionary for young pupils, was published at the end of the sixteenth century. It was named after its first entry (אור, Heb. light) and its adjacent vernacular translation (לוסטרו, Ital. light), and it is also referred to as Dabber Tov (Speak Well). It is comprised of approximately 400 words, divided into semantic categories such as foods, body parts, animals, astrological signs, etc. Versions of this dictionary were also published in Judeo-Spanish and Judeo-Portuguese. 

[4] Lit., ‘a bundle of vegetables’, cf. BT Bava Batra, 146b.

[5] For further details on the purchase, see Okun (Mayer), The Library of the manuscripts of Abraham Joseph Graziano, 112. Formiggini is a prominent Jewish Italian family surname. Graziano wrote a wedding poem on the occasion of the marriage of another member of the Formiggini family, Joseph Eliezer, the son of Elijah Formiggini, to Clara, the daughter of Michael Ṣemaḥ from Verona, which was signed on 6 Kislev 5435 (4/5 December, 1674). This is part of the collection of the National Library of Israel: ARC. 4* 1537 1 12: https://www.nli.org.il/he/manuscripts/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL990034440710205171/NLI. See also Jona, ‘Abraham Joseph Salomon Graziani’, 119.

[6] Samuel Aboab (1610–1694) was born in Hamburg to a family of Portuguese Marranos who returned to Judaism. He became one of the greatest rabbinic authorities in seventeenth-century Italy. Besides his rabbinic education in Venice, Aboab was also learned in the sciences and mastered several languages. 

[7] A Hebrew rendition of the Renaissance term filosofo divino.

[8] By the Sephardic rabbi, head of rabbinic academies and philosopher, Isaac ben Moses ‘Arama (ca. 1420–1494), who wrote philosophical sermons on the weekly portions which served as a model for many preachers in subsequent generations. 

[9] Weekly Sabbath sermons written by Joel Ibn Shu‘eib, a Sephardic rabbi, a biblical commentator and an important preacher from the fifteenth century whose extant works reveal both an extensive rabbinic knowledge as well as a broad cultural and scientific education.

[10] An exegetical work by the Sephardic preacher, rabbi and philosopher, Moses ben Jacob Albelda (1500–1583), active in Arta (Greece) and Valona (Albania).

[11] Completed in 1425 by the Sephardic philosopher and rabbi, Joseph Albo, who discusses the fundamental principles of Judaism and Jewish philosophy. This work is one of the most important philosophical-theological books written between the 1391 persecutions and the 1492 expulsion.

[12] A series of homilies on aggadic passages from tractate Berakhot intertwined with philosophical interpretations. It was composed by Abraham ben Isaac Shalom, a rabbi and philosopher from Catalunya, who died in 1492. He was also a translator from Latin into Hebrew and a defender of Maimonidean philosophy.

[13] A book of sermons by Solomon ben Isaac ha-Levi (1532–1600), who was a rabbi and preacher in Salonika in the sixteenth century and well-versed in Greek and Arabic grammar, as well as in philosophy and the Kabbalah. 

[14] A treatise on religious philosophy by ‘Ovadyah Sforno, the famous Italian rabbi, physician, philosopher, and biblical exegete (ca. 1475–1550).  

[15] It is unclear why Maimonides’s name is omitted despite the fact that a space was left for it—perhaps there was an intention to add his name in colour.

[16] According to my lexical research, the ‘short treatise’ seems to be Aboab’s work on ethical conduct, entitled Sefer ha-Zikhronot (Book of Memoranda).

[17] Pi ʼAryeh was compiled by the famous and rather complex figure of Rabbi Aryeh Judah Leon Modena (1571–1648), the rabbi of Venice, a preacher, a vehement attacker of Kabbalah, and a gambler in his free time. In his dictionary, Modena also included an earlier sixteenth-century lexicon, found in Ms. 1618 at the State Library in Berlin, without any accreditation to its author.

[18] Active in Modena, in 1621, he was allowed by the duke to teach Hebrew to Christians. It is important to note that authors of Hebrew/Judeo-Italian philosophical glossaries were prominent scholars who possessed the technical knowledge, linguistic sensitivity, and intellectual skills to effectively transfer notions from the Arabic-Hebrew philosophical world into the Latin-Christian realm.  

[19] The reference is to the dictionary by Ambrogio Calepino (1435–1511), the famous Italian lexicographer, who composed a Latin dictionary in 1502 with translations into various languages. 

[20] Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1500–1577) was an Italian physician and naturalist who translated Dioscorides’s Materia Medica from Latin into the vernacular (and was the first person to describe cat allergy!). The reference here is probably to the medical lexicon within Mattioli’s work. 

[21] A highly praised book by Rabbi Messer Leon on rhetoric, discussing the possibility of Hebrew becoming a rhetorical language and aiming to sharpen the persuasive power of the speaker. Messer Leon, the fifteenth-century physician and philosopher, established a yeshiva academy in Ancona, where he combined the traditional study of Jewish texts with lectures adhering to the medieval secular curriculum.

[22] Albeit with some inconsistencies, as in the case of תשבורת.

[23]תַשְבּוֹרֶת, פַּארְטֵי דּי גִיִאיאוׄמֶיטְרִיאָה, פֵּיר לֵ’אלְגֶיבְּרָא  (fol. 14v), and on fol.14r, where we find another vernacular translation––a more basic one––in two forms of transliteration: תשבורת, יִיִאוׄמֶיטְרִיאָה <גִיִיִאיאוׄמֶיטְרִיאָה> . Note that in this case תשבורת is not vocalized, as was probably the case in the (unidentified) source used by the compiler.

[24] In Salerno’s glossary we find the term תשבורת but its translation is ריטוליקא, a corruption of ריגוליקו or ריגוליקא, i.e., [the science of] measurement [lit., the ruler]; see Sermoneta, Glossario filosofico, 351. The terms rigolica and rigolico reflect the medieval vernacular perception of geometry. 

Dr Ilana Wartenberg
OSRJL Visiting Fellow,
Trinity Term 2024, OCHJS;
Senior Researcher and Head of
Italia Judaica, Goldstein-Goren
Diaspora Research Centre,
Tel Aviv University

Categories
Announcements Haketia Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Italian Judeo-Moroccan Judeo-Neo-Aramaic Judeo-Persian Judeo-Spanish Ladino Old Yiddish Yiddish

Michaelmas Term 2024 Applications

We are delighted to announce that applications for Oxford School of Rare Jewish Language’s classes beginning in Michaelmas Term 2024 are now open! These classes include those on the following languages:

  • Haketia
  • Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic
  • Classical Judeo-Arabic
  • Judeo-Italian
  • Judeo-Moroccan
  • Judeo-Neo-Aramaic
  • Judeo-Persian
  • Ladino
  • Old Yiddish
  • Yiddish

The deadline to apply is 16 September at 12 noon UK time.

For more information and to apply, check out the programme’s page on the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies’ website. If you have any questions, please email us at osrjl@ochjs.ac.uk.

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Announcements Haketia Judeo-Arabic Judeo-French Judeo-Hamadani Judeo-Italian Judeo-Moroccan Judeo-Neo-Aramaic Judeo-Persian Ladino Old Yiddish Yiddish

OSRJL Applications Open for Michaelmas Term 2023

We are pleased to announce that applications for classes beginning in Michaelmas Term 2023 through our Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages are now open! For more information and to apply, please consult this page.

The deadline to apply is 5 September 2023 at 12 noon UK time.

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Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Italian

The ‘Maḳre dardeḳe’ Manuscript with Judeo-Italian and Judeo-Arabic Glosses

On 8 August 1488, Joseph ben Jacob Ashkenazi Gunzenhauser printed in Naples an abridgement of David Kimḥi’s Sefer ha-shorashim entitled Maḳre dardeḳe (מקרי דרדקי). This work is attributed to Menaḥem ben Peretz Trabot and includes a number of Judeo-Italian and Judeo-Arabic glosses. It seems that it was intended for a readership of Italian Jews, as well as Arabophone Jews in Sicily and Sephardic Jews who had come to Italy from the Iberian Peninsula beginning in the late thirteenth century. What is remarkable about Gunzenhauser’s edition is that it is not only the earliest printing of Maḳre dardeḳe, but also the earliest dated witness of this text with Judeo-Italian and Judeo-Arabic glosses.

Maḳre dardeḳe, printed by Joseph ben Jacob Ashkenazi Gunzenhauser (Naples, 1488), München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Res/2 A.hebr. 183.

Maḳre dardeḳe exists in manuscript form in six different manuscripts, dating from the end of the fifteenth century to the seventeenth century, and presenting notorious variants. These variants include the replacement of Judeo-Italian and Judeo-Arabic glosses by Yiddish or Judeo-Spanish glosses, or even the omission of glosses altogether. Three manuscripts contain Yiddish or Judeo-German glosses (Dortmund, Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, F 212, the oldest Maḳre dardeḳe witness; München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod.r. 63; and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Opp. 634); one contains Judeo-Spanish and Judeo-Arabic glosses (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hunt. 218); another one has no glosses at all (Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, ebr. 429); and the last one contains Judeo-Italian and Judeo-Arabic glosses (San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Real Biblioteca, MS G-IV-9). In other words, this last manuscript is the only one containing Judeo-Italian and Judeo-Arabic glosses, like the Naples edition, and therefore deserves special attention.

Maḳre dardeḳe, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Real Biblioteca, MS G-IV-9, fol. 22v. © Patrimonio Nacional, Ministerio de la Presidencia.

The manuscript in El Escorial does not contain the entire text of Maḳre dardeḳe, but only an excerpt of it. In fact, the manuscript, with 224 folios, is a composite or non-homogeneous miscellany containing several exegetical works, some materials relating to Jacob ibn Ḥaviv’s ‘En Ya‘aḳov, the printed work Sha’are teshuvah by Yonah ben Abraham Girondi (probably a copy of the Venice edition, 1544) and other miscellaneous materials. The excerpt from Maḳre dardeḳe is copied on folios 22v to 24v and includes the beginning of the work (roots אב to אפז from the letter א). Previous mentions of this manuscript described it as containing Judeo-Italian glosses only, but folio 24v includes several Judeo-Arabic glosses as well.

Being a non-homogeneous miscellany, this manuscript is the result of previous existing materials having been gathered into a single binding. Yet this process was not a random selection of material done at the library at El Escorial. Rather, it had already been completed in sixteenth-century Italy by one of the manuscript’s owners, who selected the different constituent parts according to their own interests. We know this because when the manuscript arrived at El Escorial at the end of the sixteenth century, it was already in its present form. The book contains two different colophons, which describe the copying of parts of it in 1516 and 1518, and we therefore can surmise that the gathering of all materials was probably done later in the sixteenth century, sometime prior to the arrival of the manuscript at El Escorial in 1599. The different watermarks in the paper used for its many constituent parts also confirm this dating.

David Curbelo, a student under my supervision at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, edited the brief text of Maḳre dardeḳe in this manuscript in his Master’s thesis and discovered that the text of the El Escorial manuscript is an abridgment of the text printed by Gunzenhauser. The El Escorial text retains the biblical roots, the Judeo-Italian glosses (and on folio 24v, the Judeo-Arabic glosses, too) and the biblical verses, although most of the exegetical texts and references from the Naples edition are absent. For instance, the first root in both texts (אב) is followed by the first Judeo-Italian gloss (מיור/מיורי, ‘maggiore’, translated as ‘elder’) and the biblical verse including the word אב with this meaning, וישימני לאב לפרעה (Gen 45:8). Then, the text in the El Escorial manuscript skips Rashi’s explanations that appear in the Naples edition, and provides the reading for the following gloss for אב, which is פטרי (‘patre’, translated as ‘father’), and so on. 

Many questions arise from this manuscript witness of Maḳre dardeḳe. Was the scribe in possession of a copy of the Naples edition that served as a model? Was the scribe interested in the glosses only, given the fact that most of the exegetical passages were omitted? Or was the scribe copying from other manuscript witnesses not known to us but that were circulating along with the Naples edition? And why were the Judeo-Arabic glosses copied only on the last page, and not from the beginning of the text? This being the only manuscript version of Maḳre dardeḳe with both Judeo-Italian and Judeo-Arabic glosses that was produced shortly after Gunzenhauser’s printing, the El Escorial manuscript definitely merits a thorough study. This study should include the glosses, their comparison with the ones included in the Naples edition and the nature of the relationship between both witnesses.

Professor Javier del Barco
Associate Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature,
Research Fellow at Institute of Religious Sciences (https://www.ucm.es/iucr),
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
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Italian Judeo-Italian

A Rare Judeo-Italian Ledger of a Jewish Pawnshop in Medieval Bologna (Ms. Oxford, Corpus Christi College Library 469)

Despite the rich holdings of medieval Hebrew manuscripts of Italian origin preserved in many libraries around the world,[1] Jewish moneylending registers are rare—and, even more so, are those written in Judeo-Italian, an ancient language in danger of extinction and mostly known from early writings. It is in this context that we find an early-15th-century Jewish pawnshop’s account book that has survived the hurly-burly of life and speaks to us today, offering an original perspective on bookkeeping practices, Jewish-Christian financial networks as well as credit systems in a fascinating combination of history, economics and linguistics.

The manuscript ledger, now held at the Corpus Christi College Library in Oxford, is the earliest known volume of its kind, and was kept by two moneylenders, who practiced pawnbroking business in the Bologna area during the years 1407-1411.[2] The book is limited to debtors’ accounts, combining the functions of a borrowers’ ledger and loans register. The account for each loan is headed with details of the borrower’s name, the amount advanced and witnesses. Sometimes, guarantors are recorded, followed by particulars of the items left in pledge, as well as of repayment of the borrower or someone on his behalf. Most of this information is reported in Judeo-Italian (basically Italian of the time or vernacular inserted into the Hebrew text and written in Hebrew characters), using a specific vocabulary to describe each pledge. As is often the case with daily-life documents of a personal nature, the writing is idiosyncratic and the linguistic mixture between Hebrew and the local dialect does not make for easy reading.

Figure 1 – Courtesy Corpus Christi College Library, Oxford, Ms. 469, f. 1r.

Among the various clauses of the condotte—the bilateral agreements that regulated the relations between local authorities and Jewish moneylenders—there was one specifying that Jewish lenders had to keep regular records of transactions undertaken. Although at first Jewish pawnbrokers used to draw up ledgers in Judeo-Italian, following the notorious bull Cum nimis absurdum (“Since it is completely senseless …”) issued in 1555 by Paul IV Carafa, they were forced to abandon Hebrew characters and adopt Latin or Italian as the official language for their registers in order to be checked by Christian authorities.[3]

Today considered an example of immaterial Jewish heritage, Judeo-Italian was employed as a literary vehicle in the medieval period and survived to the end of the 16th century in local dialects spoken in the ghettos. It should be noted that the evolution of Judeo-Italian and its sub-dialects surely must have been influenced by the development of the Italian language itself, which became standardised in later times. As is known, Italian emerged in the 14th century from the Florentine vernacular thanks to the work of the “Supreme Poet” Dante Alighieri, rightly considered the father of the Italian language, and coexisted with a myriad of dialects for centuries up to the present day. Similarly, in Judeo-Italian we also can find a vast array of sub-categories of local dialects, such as Judeo-Roman, Judeo-Venetian, Judeo-Florentine or Judeo-Emilian (the language adopted in the manuscript under consideration herein).

The dialectal varieties, both within the Italian language itself and in its Jewish variants, reflected the social, cultural and political differences of the Peninsula, which could be divided into a number of oligarchic regimes and boundaries, where lineages, princes, governors and factions colluded and collided over the centuries. Despite the causes of disunity, these Italian states ended up sharing linguistic and cultural factors, which led to the Italian national movement, achieved by the Risorgimento and the eventual political unification in 1861.

The register contains a large number of words in Judeo-Italian and Judeo-Emilian, mainly used to indicate the items left in pledge as a security for the repayment of loans, such as household utensils, silver sets, private belongings, books, farm tools, weapons, jewels, precious metals, gemstones and even some sets of knightly armour. In particular, a huge quantity of clothing was left as a pledge: tunics (יופיטי – giuppetti), overgowns (יורניי giornee), cloaks (גבאני – gabani), hose (קלצי calzi), shirts (קמישי camise) and dresses (קוטי cotte) formed a fraction of the inventory.

Names, patronymics, provenance or city of origin and profession of the borrowers are written in Judeo-Italian, being essentially a transliteration in Hebrew characters of Italian names, such as Bartolomeo of Joani, tailor (Bartolomeo di Joani, sarto); Tomaso of Jacomino, wool producer from [the parish of] Saint Michael (Tomaso di Jacomino, lanarolo di San Michele); and Luca of Franceschino from Fossolo and his son Joani (Luca di Franceschino da Fossolo e suo figlio Joani).

Jewish moneylenders were able to write fluently in the sacred language of their fathers, using specific terminology or formulas borrowed from the rabbinic-normative tradition with its Talmudic debates and conclusions, which came to them through the legal compendia of Maimonides. One could therefore wonder why the register was written mainly in Judeo-Italian instead of Hebrew. The answer may lie in the fact that the Jews who lived in medieval Italy did not speak Hebrew, having adopted the predominant dialects of the place, thus creating a mixture of Italian, vernacular, Latin and Hebrew, which represented the ideal Jewish-Italian cultural combination.

The ledger gives us a reliable insight into the reality in which Jewish creditors lived: a busy pawnshop active in Bologna at the beginning of the 15th century, in a period when the conflict between the Guelfs and Ghibellines led to the domination of the city by a series of signori. It was frequented by a diverse clientele—in most cases lowly customers, but also members of the higher echelons of Christian society, in addition to many clergymen and bishops, who sometimes even pledged sacred objects—which benefited from the services of lenders. It certainly had to be a jumbled ambiance, a place of discussion and encounter, where different people and traditions overlapped, and in which, at least, the language could express itself and evolve freely as a result of a perfect Jewish-Italian symbiosis without borders as well as religious, ethnic or political limits.


[1] About a half of all the extant complete Hebrew manuscripts bear evidence of Italian provenance either because they were copied in Italy during the Renaissance, or because they were brought to Italy by Jewish immigrants. For further information see: B. Richler, Hebrew Manuscripts: A Treasured Legacy, Cleveland-Jerusalem, 1990, pp. 66-67 and 76-77; C. Sirat, Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages, trans. N. de Lange, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 8-11; B. Richler, Italy, the “Breadbasket” of Hebrew Manuscripts inS. Simonsohn-J. Shatzmiller (eds.), The Italia Judaica Jubilee Conference, Leiden-Boston, 2013, pp. 137-141; M. Perani, Italia “paniere” dei manoscritti ebraici e il loro esodo, nel contesto del collezionismo in Europa tra Otto e Novecento in Il collezionismo di libri ebraici tra XVII e XIX secolo, Supplemento al vol. 82, Nn. 2-3 (2016) de «La Rassegna Mensile di Israel», pp. 63-91.

[2] Today, kept separately from its “host volume” under the shelfmark CCC 469, the manuscript is a fine example of what has been called the “European Genizah” as its leaves were dismembered and reused to bind a different book of Italian origin. In particular, the leaves were part of a number of manuscripts compiled by Robert Proctor. Bibliographer, expert on incunabula and early typography, Robert Proctor became Junior Librarian of Corpus Christi College in 1891 and had permission to dismantle the boards of the volume which formerly hosted the account book, leaving them as separate leaves which had been bound together in a modern binding in the late 19th or early 20th century. See P.E. Pormann, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, D.S. Brewer, Oxford, 2015, p. 111.

[3] «[…] 8. Nec in libris rationum et computorum, quae cum christianis pro tempore habebunt, aliis, quam latinis literis et alio quam vulgari italico sermone, uti possint, et si utantur, libri huiusmodi contra christianos nullam fidem faciant […]». The full text of the edict may be consulted on Bullarum Diplomatum et Privilegiorum Sanctorum Romanorum Pontificum, Taurinensi editio, 1860, VI, pp. 498-500.

Dr Elena Lolli
Research Fellow, OCHJS; Rothschild Postdoctoral Fellow; Research Associate, Corpus Christi College, Oxford