The Discovery of a Hidden Treasure in the Vatican and the Correction of a Centuries-Old Error

Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD

In 2018, I was invited to speak at a conference co-sponsored by the Vatican and the CURA Foundation entitled, Unite to Cure: A Global Health Care Initiative. The mission of the conference was to “convene leading decision makers in medicine, business, media, advocacy and faith to encourage multidisciplinary collaboration, increase investment in research and innovation… education and better access to health care.”[1] My role, as a physician and rabbi, was to represent the Jewish faith in this dialogue and initiative. While “better access to health care” remains a desideratum, access to information in our age is historically unprecedented. The explosion of technology, communication, and social media have put the world’s vast knowledge, both present and past, within finger’s reach. The present contribution, detailing a fortuitous discovery at the Vatican, recalls an earlier period in Jewish history when access to sacred texts was generally limited. The advent of printing would portend an exponential increase in availability of Jewish books, but a controversy arose in its wake which ironically led to even greater inaccessibility of one of Judaism’s most fundamental texts.

No visit to the Vatican would be complete without a visit to its storied library. In anticipation of my trip, I contacted the Vatican Library to secure a reader’s pass.[2] I then scoured the catalogue and consulted colleagues for items of Jewish medical and general Jewish interest.

While I would only have a brief time to spend in the library I focused my list mostly on medically related works, both in manuscript and printed form. One of the works I included is not typically thought of as such. It is an incunable which was the answer to one of Professor Marc Shapiro’s Seforim Blog quiz questions- what was the first Hebrew book published in the lifetime of its author? The answer is Nofet Tzufim (Abraham Conat: Mantua, 1475) by Judah Messer Leon.[3]

Judah Messer Leon was an extraordinary physician, professor, and Torah scholar. He was granted the title of Count Palatine by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III[4] which allowed him to confer doctorates upon other Jews of proven worthiness. Nofet Tzufim is a treatise on rhetoric, utilizing the classical literary devices of the ancient discipline of rhetoric applied to the Torah. One of the uses for this work was to prepare the Jewish students who matriculated from foreign countries to the medical schools in Italy. Indeed, he organized a yeshiva where students could receive a comprehensive Jewish education while training in the secular disciplines necessary for higher studies in the humanities, philosophy, and medicine.[5]

In my pre-visit research of the library catalogue, I noticed the record of a two-volume Mishneh Torah (Giustiniani: Venice, 1550-1551).[6] Being familiar with the controversy surrounding this work, I put it on my list despite its non-medical nature. I took a snapshot of the entry and placed it in my files.

Upon my arrival at the library, I was introduced to the protocols. I found it somewhat ironic that while the manuscripts were requested through a modern digital system, the printed works, housed in a different section, were requested by hand-written paper slip. When I submitted my requests to the librarian, I half expected her to respond, “and by the way, no, we do not have the Menorah.”[7]

The final item I requested was the Giustiniani Rambam. A short while after I submitted my slip, I noticed two massive unidentifiable tomes resting one atop the other on the front desk. It did not initially occur to me that these would be my requested items. I ultimately approached the desk and inquired if my items had arrived, only to be directed to these two plain, unadorned (with neither print nor illustration), nondescript, off white, cloth-covered folios. The covers are shown below:

The two volumes were virtually indistinguishable. As I opened the top volume, I observed the following printer’s mark on the title page.

This is the characteristic printer’s mark of Giustiniani, as expected, consisting of a picture of the Temple in Jerusalem (though more reminiscent of the Dome of the Rock). This was volume two of the Mishneh Torah.[8]

However, when I carefully cracked (almost literally) open the binding of the bottom volume, I noticed something unexpected:

The printer’s mark did not reveal a depiction of the Temple, rather it was comprised of three crowns, the distinct mark of another printing house. At this point, a brief review of the controversy surrounding the Giustiniani Rambam is in order.

Rabbi Meir ben Isaac Katzenellenbogen (1482-1565), known as Maharam Padua, produced a new edition of Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, including his own notes, and providing some of Rambam’s Talmudic references. As Jews were generally prohibited from publishing books at this time, he initially approached a veteran non-Jewish printer of Hebrew books, Marco Antonio Giustiniani. For unknown reasons, this arrangement did not work, and R. Katzenellenbogen instead published his work with Alfonse Bragadini, a novice printer for whom this would be his first publication. Very shortly thereafter, within the year, Giustiniani published a similar edition of the Mishneh Torah, including the notes of R. Katzenellenbogen, though with some alterations and with accompanying criticism, without the latter’s consent. He proposed to charge one gold coin less for purchase, clearly intending to sabotage Bragadini’s newly minted press. Fearing the loss of his significant financial investment, R. Katzenellenbogen approached the then-young R. Moshe Isserles (Rama) to adjudicate what would be one of the first cases in rabbinic literature of copyright infringement.[9]

Rama ruled in favor of R. Katzenellenbogen / Bragadini, but having no recourse in the secular courts, placed a cherem (excommunication) on any Jew who purchased books from Giustiniani until the print run of R. Katzenellenbogen had been sold. Giustiniani reacted fiercely, appealing to the Catholic Church and casting aspersions of blasphemy on the work. The Vatican expanded its inquiry launching a frontal attack on the work of R. Katzenellenbogen and other rabbinic texts as containing objectionable/heretical material. The attack soon included the Talmud and ultimately culminated in the decree to burn all extant copies of the Talmud and related works in 1553 in Campo di Fiori Square, just a few blocks from the Vatican.[10] Other cities in Italy soon followed suit and virtually all the copies the Talmud in Italy in both manuscript and print, as well as related works, including some editions of Rambam,[11] went up in flames.

The printer’s mark bearing the three crowns I observed on the title page of this work is none other than that of the Bragadini Publishing House. Upon further inspection, it became clear that I was looking at the original Bragadini edition of the Rambam Mishneh Torah, volume one, with the notes of the Maharam of Padua, from which the Giustiniani edition was copied. The Vatican library did not list a Bragadini edition of Rambam in its catalogue and was unaware of its existence. The Bragadini is volume one of the Mishneh Torah, and the Giustiniani edition is volume two. By external visual inspection the volumes look virtually identical in size and appearance with similar bland covers, worn and worm-eaten to the same degree. It is quite possible that the librarian who received these volumes some centuries ago opened only the second of two volumes, entering the information accordingly for the two-volume work, and simply never bothered to open the other volume. This theory is possibly corroborated by the fact that pencil markings with the catalogue number of the Vatican Library appear only in the second (Giustiniani) volume (in the upper left hand corner) and not in the first (Bragadini).

Once I realized the cataloguing error, I immediately notified the librarian of this oversight, though she was of course unfamiliar with the historical significance of these volumes, and I was assured that the catalog would be corrected accordingly.

Upon my return home, in April 2018, I followed with an e-mail to the Vatican Library including additional references and a fuller discussion of the historical significance of the different editions. Shortly thereafter, I had the opportunity to visit the private medical historical library and collection of the late, world-renowned neurosurgeon, Dr. James Goodrich, known for his expertise in separating craniopagus conjoined twins (sharing or connected by the brain). I shared the details of my recent Vatican Library visit, to which he responded with his own slightly more dramatic experience at the same library. While inspecting a Medieval anatomy text, he noticed one of the famous illustrations was missing from the volume. He immediately notified the librarian. Within a few moments, he was surrounded by police, hands in the air, being threatened with arrest, himself accused of the theft.

Every few months I would check to see if the catalogue entry had been corrected. Sometime in late 2019 or early 2020, I gave up hope of any correction and did not check further. In November 2021, in preparing topics for an upcoming cruise to Northern Italy on Italian Jewish medical history, I was reminded of the Vatican Library visit and searched the catalogue for the Bragadini Rambam. To my pleasant surprise, the catalogue had been corrected to reflect the two editions, and the entries for both volumes of Rambam had been updated and expanded.

New Entry for the Bragadini Rambam

New Entry for the Giustiniani Rambam

How these two volumes of one set from different printers originally came together remains a mystery, but this “mixed” set of Rambam appears to have been owned by both Jews and non-Jews from at least the 17^th century and possibly earlier. Previous ownership of the set by both institutions and individuals, Jews and non-Jews, is reflected by a number of similar inscriptions in the respective volumes.

Both volumes contain the imprint of the library of the Church Santa Pudenziana in Rome:

Volume 1

Volume 2

Both bear the inscription of D. Julius a S. Anast[asi]a with the added information that he purchased (emit) them in 1652.

Volume 1

Volume 2

That a set of Rambam would be owned by non-Jews, be it private or institutional, is not remarkable given the history of Christian Hebraism.[12] Julius de St. Anastasia was a pseudonym for Giulio Bartolocci (1613-1687),[13] an Italian Cistercian Monk and Hebrew scholar who authored a four-volume work on rabbinic literature, Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica.[14] It was just a year before this purchase date, 1651, that he was appointed professor of Hebrew and Rabbinics at the Collegium Neophytorum in Rome and “Scriptor Hebraicus” at the Vatican Library. He may have purchased the volumes in 1652 either for his private collection or for the Vatican Library. In either case, it is likely that these volumes have been either in his possession or the Vatican Library’s since 1652. The residence of the Rambam volumes in the Biblioteca Santa Pudenziana thus likely precedes this period. Perhaps Bartolocci acquired the works from this library. This helps date another signature that appears on both title pages, one that escapes mention in the Vatican catalogue entry.

Volume 1

Volume 2

In the first I can clearly see the words שלי יצחק, which follow a decorative flourish, though cannot decipher the last name. In the second, I can see remnants of the words שלי יצחק, and the second name is missing entirely. At minimum, this establishes ownership by a man whose first name is Yitzhak sometime before the early to mid-seventeenth century. Who Yitzchak was, and when in the period between the publication of the volumes (1550) and their acquisition by the Biblioteca Santa Pudenziana he took possession, is unknown, though it is intriguing to contemplate. It is almost certain that he was the earliest of the known owners. It is unlikely that Yitzhak would have acquired a set of Rambam from representatives of the Catholic Church, though one can imagine how the Church acquired the works, be it directly or not, sometime after the events of 1553.

Let us consider the possibility that it was Yitzhak who first acquired the mixed set of Rambam during their time of publication. How would this have come about? Why did he not simply purchase both volumes of the Bragadini Rambam? Were both volumes issued together, or was volume two released later? The publication of the two volumes of the Giustiniani Rambam was separated by at least a number of months, with volume one appearing in 1550 and volume two released January 25, 1551.[15] Furthermore, what of the ban implemented by Rama? Would this not have prevented him from buying the Giustiniani Rambam altogether? When was the ban issued and when would he have even heard of it? Lastly, and most importantly, were these volumes not included in the decree to burn Jewish literature. How could they have survived?

In answer to this final question, copies of Rambam’s Mishneh Torah were confiscated and burned, though not as systematically as was the Talmud.[16] Rama’s ban would have had no impact whatsoever on Yitzhak’s purchasing preferences, as Rama explicitly limited his decree to “our country” (i.e., Poland). It is not known whether Italian rabbis adopted a similar stance for their communities.

Furthermore, these very volumes reflect the impact of the feud of their publishers, and of the subsequent burning and imposed censorship. According to the Vatican Library catalogue, they were censored by Lorenzo Franguello in 1575 and again in 1599 by Luigi Da Bologna.[17] Whether it was Yitzchak who presented the work to the censors we may never know.

The impact of the burning of the Talmud on Jewish literature in general has been treated elsewhere, but as my interests lie in Jewish medical history, I conclude by sharing its effect on one of the more prominent figures in Jewish medical history, Abraham Portaleone (d. 1612).[18] Portaleone, descendant of a long line of prominent physicians, and himself physician to dukes and princes, developed a stroke in his sixties leaving him partially paralyzed on one side of his body. His illness sparked reflection that led him to the conclusion that he had not devoted enough of his life to Torah study. To rectify this deficiency, he set out to compose a comprehensive work on prayer and the Temple service, Shiltei haGibborim, which he dedicated to his children. It is an encyclopedia of Renaissance knowledge, including extensive discussions on the composition of the Temple incense, drawing on contemporary botanical studies, as well as unprecedented research into the instruments and music of the Levites accompanying the Temple service.[19]

In his introduction, Portaleone details the nature of his early education, and recalls how while a student studying Talmud with R. Yaakov MiPano, the infamous decree led to the Talmud “being consumed by fire before our eyes.”[20] After the initial burning of the Talmud in Rome, other Italian cities followed suit with their own citywide burnings of the Talmud. Portaleone was witness to one such event. Decades later, as he penned his classic work, Shiltei haGibborim, the Talmud still remained unavailable in Italy. Portaleone was forced to use substitute works that alluded to or quoted the Talmud, if available, but sometimes the information was simply not accessible. For example, in his discussion of the Lechem Hapanim (shewbread) of the Temple, he writes, “Perhaps some place in the Talmud Hazal spoke of this, and I am not aware. As a result of the known decree [preventing access to the Talmud] I have not been able to properly ascertain this.”[21]

In one remarkable instance Portaleone reveals his elation at being able to acquire a bona fide Talmudic reference. He writes that after he completed the chapter on the Lishkat haGazit (Chamber of Hewn Stone), God ordained (“hikra”) that he happen upon a wise man from the city of Tzfat (where the Talmud was available) who had come to Italy to seek financial support for his family. “From his mouth I heard the sugya in the second chapter of Yoma on the laws of the Lishkat haGazit, and I write them here for you (my children) from his mouth…”[22]

In yet another place he excitedly relates of his accessing a small passage from Tractate Chagigah from a tattered manuscript remnant in the library of a great Torah scholar (Gaon) of Verona.[23]

These few, yet remarkable, instances reveal how the absence of access to the Talmud in Italy impacted the life and work of one of Jewish medical history’s most famous personalities.

While our ancestors yearned for access to even one miniscule fragment of the Talmud, we have unfettered access to virtually the totality of rabbinic literature literally at our fingertips, from a device likely smaller in size than the one fragment of Talmud Abraham Portaleone was so overjoyed to discover.

Conclusion

It is incredible to think that for hundreds of years, unbeknownst to the Vatican library, Bragadini has been hiding in plain sight under the cover of his arch nemesis and fierce competitor Giustiniani. Their feud led to one of the greatest tragedies in Jewish history, instigated by the very institution wherein they now lie. Giustinani’s press ceased production in 1552, shortly after and possibly related to his attack on Bragadini, while the Bragadini press, and the three crowns, continued for generations.[24] At long last Giustiniani’s reach from the grave to still overshadow Bragadini has been foiled and a centuries-long error has been rectified.

It is perhaps noteworthy that this discovery occurred while I was a presenter at a Vatican conference. As for the conference itself, the medical issues addressed (including stem cell research, CRISPR gene editing and longevity research) and their halakhic ramifications merit discussion in a different blog. However, let us pause and appreciate how far we have come with respect to religious tolerance.[25] Suffice it to say, had I lived in the times of Bragadini and Giustiniani, I would likely not have been invited to a conference at the Vatican.