This richly illustrated volume offers the most comprehensive and updated survey on about sixteen thousand Hebrew manuscript fragments reused as book-bindings and preserved in hundreds of libraries and archives in Italy. Contributions by the leading scholars in the field elucidate specific collections and genres no less than individual fragments, bringing to new life a forgotten library of medieval Jewish books, as almost 160 Talmudic codices, which include the Mishna, Tosefta, Palestinian Talmud and, for the most part, the Babylonian one, and several hitherto unknown texts. The contribution of these fragments to the ongoing research on the “European Genizah”, as the Books within Books Project, and to Jewish Studies in general cannot be overestimated.
Mauro Perani, Ph.D. h.c. by the Hebrew University, was full professor of Hebrew at the Bologna University until 2019 and has served as director and editor of the Associazione Italiana per lo Studio del Giudaismo’s review
Materia giudaica since 2000. In 2008 he founded the Corpus Epithaphiorum Hebraicorum Italiae book series. He has published dozens of books and hundreds of articles on themes pertaining to Judaism. His publications can be found on the website
https://unibo.academia.edu/MauroPerani.
Acknowledgments List of Illustrations
1
Foreword Israel Ta-Shma, zal
2
Introduction Mauro Perani
Part 1: General Description and History
3
Manuscripta manent: “Books within Books”, an Overview Emma Abate and Judith Olszowy-Schlanger
4
“The Italian Genizah”: an Unexpected New Source of Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts Benjamin Richler
5
Death and Rebirth of Hebrew Manuscripts Mauro Perani
6
Ashkenazic Responsa in the Italian Genizah Simcha Emanuel
7
The “Italian Genizah”: Features and Report on Forty Years of Research Mauro Perani
8
The “European Genizah”: Between Hope and Reality Simcha Emanuel
Part 2: Bible and Its Commentaries
9
11th–12th-Century Biblical Manuscripts from the “Italian Genizah” and Their System of Vocalization Chiara Pilocane
10
The Importance of the “Italian Genizah” for the Study of Yosef Qara’s Biblical Commentaries Avraham Grossman
Part 3: Talmudic and Halakhic Texts
11
The Talmudic Fragments of the “European Genizah” Yaaqov Sussmann
12
An Important Manuscript of the Mishnah in the “Italian Genizah” Gad Ben-Ammi Sarfatti, zal
13
The Most Ancient Fragment Found in the “Italian Genizah”: the Tosefta of Norcia (ca. 1000 BCE) Mauro Perani and Günter Stemberger
14
Eight New Pages of an 11th-Century Talmud Yerushalmi Megillah and Ḥagigah from the State Archives of Bologna Mauro Perani
15
The Talmud Yerushalmi from Bologna, Probable Vorlage of Ms. Leiden: the New Fragments from Megillah and Ḥagigah Günter Stemberger
16
The She’iltot de-Rav Aḥai from the 10th–11th Century Found in Ravenna Pinchas Roth
17
The Travel of the 10th–11th-Century She’iltot de-Rav Aḥai from Sicily-Maghreb to Ravenna via Ferrara and an Important Purchase Note Mauro Perani
18
Juridical Books Bound in 16th-Century Bologna with Folios from a 12th-Century Manuscript of Halakhot Gedolot, Found in Bologna and in Leipzig University Library Mauro Perani
19
The Bologna Fragments of Halakhot Gedolot and Their Relation to the Italian Textual Tradition of the Book Roni Shweka
Part 4: Midrashic Texts
20
The Pages of the Halakic Midrashim in the Nonantola and Modena Archives Menahem Kahana
21
Pages from a New Manuscript of Sifre on Numbers and Deuteronomy in the Estense Library in Modena Menahem Kahana
Part 5: Kabbalah
22
Fragments of Kabbalistic Works from the “Italian Genizah”: An Updated Survey Saverio Campanini
Bibliography on the “Italian Genizah” and “European Genizah” 1915–2021 Mauro Perani and Emma Abate
Index
Librarians, historians of the book, (post-graduate) students, biblists, and palaeographers of the Hebrew language and writing.