Seder Haggadot shel Pesah (Order of the Passover Haggadahs), Mantua: 1560

38 leaves (12 1/4 x 8 1/2 in: 310 x 215 mm). Title page in facsimile. Block printed on paper with black ink; decorated with more than fifty woodcut illustrations and eight decorative initial word panels; elaborately adorned with multipart woodblock frames on every leaf. Cropped, affecting some woodblock borders; leaves laid to size with losses to images expertly restored; strengthened at gutter. Soiled and stained. Marbled endpapers; silk placeholder. Modern brown morocco, elaborately tooled; spine with gilt titles, in matching brown morocco slipcase.

Yaari 18; Yudlov 20; Yerushalmi 22-26; Cecil Roth, "Illustrated Haggadot in Print" Areshet 3 (1961), pp.7-30 (Hebrew).

The earliest illustrated Haggadah printed in Italy

No other book in the history of Jewish printing has seen as many editions as the Passover Haggadah, including well over a thousand illustrated versions.  This magnificent haggadah, printed in Mantua in 1560 by Isaac Bassan at the press of Giacomo Rufinello, is one of only four archetypal illustrated haggadot (along with the Prague 1526, Venice, 1609 and Amsterdam 1695) which have served to influence nearly every illustrated haggadah until the twentieth century.

Attention has often been called to the apparent similarity between this edition and its predecessor, the Prague 1526 haggadah of Gershom Kohen, and for good reason.  Typographically the two are, with very few exceptions, an exact match. In the absence of sufficiently large Hebrew type in Mantua, Isaaac Bassan traced the Germanic "black-letter" style Hebrew characters of the Prague edition and transferred each page to a block of wood which he then incised for printing, page by page. The resulting haggadah bears the distinction of being the only Hebrew book printed from woodblocks rather than movable type.

While it may be identical in terms of typography, in its ornamentation and decoration the Mantua haggadah breaks entirely new ground. Whereas the Prague had only a few pages with borders, every leaf in the Mantua is framed by borders, featuring putti cavorting in foliage and gaily playing musical instruments.  These were certainly originally designed for use in non-Jewish books and simply appropriated by the printer to be included here. Even the topical illustrations of the Passover story that reprised images found in the Prague Haggadah were redrawn in the Italian style. For example, the illustration of Abraham crossing the river Euphrates on his way to Canaan shows us the patriarch seated in a gondola.  The images of the Four Sons also betray the Italian influence. The Wise Son is a clear imitation of Michaelangelo's rendition of the prophet Jeremiah found in the Sistine Chapel while the Wicked Son is depicted as a condottiere and the Simple son is shown as an Italian buffoon.

By introducing new illustrations and marginal decorations, a clear shift was effected, from the heavier dark Teutonic feel of the Prague to a lighter and brighter work, now dominated by the influence of the Italian Renaissance.  The unique admixture of the severe Ashkenazic letters surrounded by the Italianate frames and illustrations marks an important defining moment in the ongoing evolution in Jewish book art.

Perhaps the most successful fusion of the Germanic and Italian styles present in this haggadah is to be found on the page that carries the plea, Shefokh Hamtkha, (Pour out Thy wrath) quoted from the Book of Psalms (79:6).  By far the most famous and widely recognized image in the Mantua haggadah, it features the stunning contrast of the great Gothic Hebrew letters overlaid on a floral lattice and dripping fruit clusters even as the small woodcut of the Messiah that seemed like an afterthought in the Prague Haggadah is enlarged to a fully realized scene of the Messiah approaching Jerusalem heralded by Elijah the Prophet.