The Popes and the Jews in Sixteenth-Century Italy through the Chronicle of Pope Paul IV

24 April, 2023

We are deeply honoured to welcome Dr Martina Mampieri, Martin Buber Fellow at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, to lead a session of the International Interfaith Reading Group on Manuscripts in Interfaith Contexts.

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Here are the details of this fascinating session.

Topic: The Popes and the Jews in Sixteenth-Century Italy through the Chronicle of Pope Paul IV

Abstract: Ms. Heb. 8°984 preserved at the National Library of Israel contains a remarkable Hebrew chronicle entitled Divre ha-yamim shel ha-apifior Paolo ha-revi‘i ha-niqra Teatino (The Chronicle of Pope Paul IV, known as the Teatino). The author is a Jewish-Italian moneylender named Benjamin Nehemiah ben Elnathan (in Italian, Guglielmo di Diodato), who lived in Civitanova Marche in the sixteenth century. This work – unknown to historians and bibliographers before the Jewish scholar Isaiah Sonne found it in 1930 – stands out for the extensiveness and accuracy of details about Paul IV (Gian Pietro Carafa) and his pontificate (1555-59) that dramatically impacted the coexistence of Christians and Jews in the State of the Church. The author, who was a prisoner of the Roman Inquisition between July and August 1559 and an eye-witness of the events following the pontiff’s death, provided some information also on other popes such as Julius II, Marcellus II, Pius IV, and Pius V. By presenting some of the highlights of this incredible source, the lecture will reflect on the way Jews portrayed the popes and the Church during one of the most challenging periods for Jewish-Christian relations in early modern Italy.

Speaker: Dr Martina Mampieri, Martin Buber Fellow at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Speaker’s biography: Martina Mampieri is a Martin Buber Fellow and Lecturer of Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She earned a double Ph.D. in History and Jewish Studies from the University of Roma Tre and the University of Hamburg in 2017. In 2018-20, she held postdoctoral positions at Harvard University, the University of Göttingen, and the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes in Paris. She is the author of Living under the Evil Pope: The Hebrew Chronicle of Pope Paul IV by Benjamin Neḥemiah ben Elnathan from Civitanova Marche, 16th cent. (Brill, 2020) and she has published on Jewish cultural and religious history in the early modern and modern periods. She is working on her second book project, a cultural biography of Isaiah Sonne and his passion for books.

Chair: Haim Gottschalk, Librarian for the Israel and Judaica Section of the Asian and Middle Eastern Division at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., USA.

Date: 24 April, 2023

Time: 18:00-19:00 BST | 20:00-21:00 Israel | 10:00-11:00 PDT | 13:00-14:00 EDT

Venue: Online

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MSS-APR-2023 Download