La Parabola dei Tre Anelli: A proposito di alcuni antecedenti in siriaco e in ebraico rispetto alle versioni di Giovanni Boccaccio e di Gotthold E. Lessing

This article focuses on the Aramaic and Hebrew variants of the Parable of the Three Rings. The paper pays particular attention to the parable of the pearl, as a metaphor of the ‘true religion’, in the Syriac epistle n. 59 of the Nestorian Patriarch Timothy I (eight century), a source which records the contents of a dispute in Baghdad between Timothy I and the Abbasid Caliph al-Mahdi. Furthermore, the article discusses the Hebrew circulation and transmission of the Parable of the Three Rings, particularly the text which is extant within Solomon Ibn Verga's chronicle Shevet Yehudah (sixteenth century). The paper includes an Italian translation of both sources (i.e. the Syriac parable of the pearl and the Hebrew parable of the precious stones). The various versions of the parable allow focusing on the suspension of violence and the interfaith dialogue as decisive elements for the affirmation of religious pluralism.