A Decorated Ketubbah from Massa di Carrara, Italy: 1730

Estimate

15,000 - 20,000 USD

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Description

Parchment, Ink,

1 broadsheet (30 x 21 in.; 765 x 535 mm). Ink and gouache on parchment; scattered stains, two lines in left column abraided and contemporarily rewritten, minor defects to edges, small hole lower left of parchment.

Literature

See: Ircas Nicola Jacopetti, Ebrei a Massa e Carrara banche, commerci, industrie dal XVI al XIX secolo. Florence: 1996, pp. 260-261.

Catalogue Note

RECORDING THE MARRIAGE OF GABRIELE, SON OF DAVID VITALI AND GRAZIA, DAUGHTER OF ISAAC PISA, ON WEDNESDAY 12 MENACHEM AV, 5490 [= JULY 26, 1730]

This rare ketubbah is the earliest, and one of only two known, decorated marriage contracts from the Jewish community of Massa di Carrara. Jews were first invited to live in this small coastal principality in 1561 expressly to help establish the local banking system. They prospered as merchants and bankers and maintained close commercial ties with the Jewish community of Florence. This ketubbah documents the union of two prominent and wealthy Italian Jewish families – the Vitalis and the Pisas; an elaborate cartouche at the top of the document prominently features a bird perched atop three hillocks, the emblem of the Vitali family. A monumental double arch encloses the text of the ketubbah at right and that of the tenaim (engagement contract) at left. Both contracts are signed by the groom (in the vernacular) as well as by two witnesses, Aaron Hai Volterra and Hayyim Jacob Finzi (in Hebrew). Volterra was the Rabbi of Massa di Carrara and the author of a volume of liturgical poetry, Bakashah Hadashah (Livorno: 1740).