Fragments of Kabbalistic Works from the "Italian Genizah": An Updated Survey

The article presents an updated survey of all the Hebrew fragments containing Kabbalistc works found in several libraries and archives all over the Italian Peninsula, but especially in Northern and Central Italy. In comparison to other fields of Hebrew and Jewish literature, Kabbalah is not particularly abundant among this type of findings, and the reasons for that paucity are duly investigated in the article, but it is altogether not absent, allowing an assessment of the diffusion of Kabbalistic works in the libraries of the Jews at the end of the Middle Ages and in the early modern period and of the types or sub-genres that are most represented. Thus, a mere inventory becomes a precious source for reconstructing this peculiar sector of Hebrew and Jewish literacy and reading choices over a significant span of time on a diverse geographic area.