Il libro ebraico a Roma fra XIII eXIV secolo

In this study, the author illustrates the corpus of Roman Hebrew handwritten books produced between the 12th and the 13th centuries. The production of the Hebrew book in Rome, in this early period, is the first and most important witness of a centre of production of rich literary works, illuminates with artistic miniature of a Jewish culture developed and fully matured in the Western world. This is due to the richness of manuscripts, the beauty and elegance of the scriptures, and the splendour of the illuminations and beautiful decorations. This is true even if the Jewish culture flourished in Rome in the 13th century was preceded by two or three centuries by a most ancient Jewish culture and literature developed in the Hebrew Academies of Apulia, from which reached us only a few manuscripts copies in the 11th and 12th centuries and without illumination. The treasure of the 13th and 14th centuries Roman codices, however, if it does not have the primacy chronologically, is surely the most important for the quality and quantity of illuminated manuscript and miniature of the Italian and Western world.