Hebrew Fragments at the University of Bari, Department of Law

The Edict of Expulsion in 1541 marked an epochal turning point in the history of Judaism in Southern Italy. It was the start of the sudden mobility of the local communities towards the northern and central areas of the Italian peninsula, but also the cause of the ultimate change in the centers of production and preservation of Hebrew books, that followed the flows of the new diaspora.

As an effect, very few Jewish librarian artifacts were preserved in this part of the country, particularly in Apulia where the lack affected both local and foreign items, the latter produced in other parts of Europe and later carried to the region.

Such a scenario changed in 2017 after the discovery of two Hebrew fragments at the Department of Law of University of Bari during a cataloguing campaign of printed volumes from 16th century. The bad state of preservation of most of the volumes revealed a huge number of re-used Latin manuscripts as well. That was the basis of a wider cataloguing campaign meant to collect all the fragments recovered from book bindings for further analysis.

In the frame of this new study, the Italian research team in charge of the project agreed to contribute to the research of other Hebrew evidences from the same library. In November 2021 a total amount of 3 volumes from 16th and early 17th century with 2 Hebrew fragments each were found in different fonds by two members of the University of Bari and EPHE research teams. At present, these are the only materials from Apulia that are included in the “Books within Books” database.

The fragments will be described according to their palaeographic and textual features, detecting their date and geographical provenance, as well as the historical and cultural context of their production and preservation.