Magical and Kabbalistic Fragments in European Libraries and Archives

This paper is a first general overview of magical and kabalistic texts in medieval manuscripts fragments (12th-16th century) that were reused in bindings and covers of other books and archival registers since the Early Modern times.

At present, the majority of these specimens are scattered in European libraries and archives and were re-discovered in the past few years in the context of research missions for the projects entitled “Italian Genizah” and “Books within Books: Hebrew Fragments in European Libraries” (http://hebrewmanuscript.com/). The identification and online cataloguing of these fragments is a work in progress and only part of these materials is already available online.

After summarizing the percentage of these types of documents in the European collections of recycled manuscripts according to different cultural regions and Jewish communities, I will focus on the contents and scribal features of the mystical and magical fragments (amulets, recipes, dream requests etc.) of Italian and French origins.

My intention is to delve into the connections between such typologies of manuscripts and the ideological framework in which they were produced and transmitted. I will finally consider some specific events, which provoked their confiscation and destruction.