Cultural Change Among the Jews of Early Modern Italy

Robert Bonfil, Emeritus Professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

'This volume provides a look at a lifetime of scholarship and thought on the Jews of early modern Italy...essays do much to dispel the golden-age depiction of Jewish life in Renaissance Italy.' Sixteenth Century Journal

• Contents: Preface; The historian's perception of the Jews in the Italian Renaissance: towards a reappraisal; Some reflections on the place of Azariah de Rossi's Meor Enayim in the cultural milieu of Italian Renaissance Jewry; Halakhah, Kabbalah and society: some insights into Rabbi Menahem Azariah da Fano's inner world; Cultura e mistica a Venezia nel cinquecento; How golden was the age of the Renaissance in Jewish historiography?; Change in the cultural patterns of a Jewish society in crisis: Italian Jewry at the close of the 16th century; Preaching as mediation between elite and popular cultures: the case of Judah del Bene; Changing mentalities of Italian Jews between the periods of the Renaissance and the Baroque; Italy - the sad epilogue to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain; Gli ebrei d'Italia e la riforma: una questione da riconsiderare; Jewish attitudes toward history and historical writing in pre-modern times; A cultural profile (of the Jews in early modern Venice); Il problema dei conversos nel XV secolo e le sue ripercussioni per la ristrutturazione dell'atteggiamento ebraico nei confronti del cristianesimo all'alba dell'epoca moderna; Index.