I patti prematrimoniali di Simeri, Calabria (1439)

Abstract

A Jewish Prenuptial Agreement in Simeri, Calabria (1439)

In 1907, the archivist and historian Nicola Ferorelli announced the discovery of a document reciting the conditions (tena’îm) of a Jewish prenuptial agreement written in Simeri, Calabria, in the first half of 15^th century. This unique deed, entirely in Hebrew, remained unpublished – with the exception of a late Latin translation – and was subsequently lost. According to Ferorelli, it was donated to the Società Napoletana di Storia Patria of Naples, but it was never recovered. This paper presents the original Hebrew text, which was indeed published in a rare edition by a Christian Hebraist and archivist, Giuseppe Canonico. Canonico published the document in 1854 with its litographic reproduction, but his work has been overlooked since. Besides its historical value, the text also deserves some importance for the vernacular words scattered in the Hebrew text, among the oldest remains of the Calabrian vernacular language.