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Bidding Information
Lot #    13785
Auction End Date    3/7/2006 12:56:00 PM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Letter by R. Joseph Raphael Massarani
Title (Hebrew)    כתב מה'ר יוסף רפאל מסראני
Author    [Ms.]
City    Italy
Publication Date    1750
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    [1] p., 194:138 mm., light age staining, creased on folds, ink on paper, neat Italian script, signed and dated, addressed on verso.
          
Detailed
Description		    Addressed to his father R. Eliyakim Massarani, a family letter. Massarani is an Italian family which has been known since the latter part of the fifteenth century. Originally the name of the family was , from Massarano, a small town near Novara in Piedmont. Subsequently various members lived at Mantua, and still later at Milan. The earliest known bearer of the name was Isaac Massaran, who copied, in 1255, No. 23 of the Codex De Rossi; it is not certain, however, whether he belonged to this family or whether he was a native of Mazarron, in Spain. Two centuries later the copyist Isaiah b. Jacob b. Isaiah Massaran lived at Mantua and wrote Nos. 6 and 620 of the Codex De Rossi, No. 127 of the Codex Turin, and No. 45 of the Codex Montefiore. Azariah dei Rossi's scholarly brother-in-law, Hayyim Massaran, who owned a number of rare Talmudical works, lived at Mantua about 1560. At the same time Bezalel b. Samson, Levi b. Jacob, Samson b. Jehiel, and Samson b. Isaiah, all belonging to the Massarani family, were living in this community. Among these Bezaleel b. Samson Massarani is especially noteworthy for his energetic efforts to save Hebrew books from the destruction with which the Inquisition threatened them. He was the chairman of the deputation of communal directors and rabbis that decided at Padua upon an anticipatory censorship in order to secure permission to reprint the Talmud. As the leader of this deputation Bezalel went to Rome, to Pope Sixtus V., and obtained permission to print and own the Talmud after it had been censored and expurgated and the title changed. Samson Massarani was one of the deputies cited by the cardinals in 1590 before the Congregation of the Index Expurgatorius. Another Samson, a son of Bezalel, was a pupil of R. Moses Provençal, with whom he corresponded on Talmudic subjects. In 1592 Simon Massarani published at Mantua Al-Harizi's "Mishle Hakamim," with a rimed Italian translation, under the title "Motti di Diversi Saggi Tradotti di Lingua Hebræa in Volgare." Abraham b. Isaac Alluf described, in 1630, the expulsion of the Jews from Mantua. Ephraim Massarani was rabbi at Cento in 1676, and in correspondence with Isaac Lampronti. About the same time Isaac Massarani was rabbi at Salonica.
          
Reference
Description		    JE
        
Associated Images
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Listing Classification
Period
  
18th Century:    Checked
  
Location
Italy:    Checked
  
Subject
History:    Checked
  
Characteristic
Language:    Hebrew
  
Manuscript Type
Letters:    Checked
  
Kind of Judaica