Quotations from Traditional Jewish Texts in the Mid-16th Century Judeo-Italian Divination Book

Abstract

The paper deals with the patterns of quotations in a Jewish-Italian Divination Book. The manuscript of the book belongs to the Russian State Library and derives from the Italian town of Ancona. In the 16th century, Ancona flourished as an important Mediterranean port bringing together merchants from the Ottoman Empire, Italian cities, etc. The Jewish community played a crucial role in Ancona’s commercial success due to its connections with the Jewish Sephardic communities of the Eastern Mediterranean. No wonder, the Divination book mostly bothers about commerce and money matters. However, it also expresses religious and cultural affiliation of the community. The author of the Divination Book needed Biblical and Talmudic quotations to support his forecasts by the authority of the classical texts. At the same time, these same texts put the life of Jewish merchants into the context of sacred history of Israel making the daily existence of the Ancona merchants sacred and meaningful.