Mauro Perani, professor of Jewish history at the University of Bologna, will visit Ithaca College on Wednesday, April 5, to discuss the lost Hebrew documents of the Italian Geniza. Free and open to the public, the event will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the Demotte Room, Egbert Hall.
In 16th- and 17th-century Europe, thousands of parchment folios, some dating back to the 1100s, were cut from Hebrew manuscripts and reused as book bindings. For the last 20 years, researchers have been discovering these recycled folio pages--now called the Italian Geniza documents--in archives and libraries throughout central and northern Italy. Perani, one of the key figures in this rediscovery effort, will discuss why the manuscripts were confiscated and re-employed, and why so many were found in Italy. His findings shed new light on the development of the printing industry, Jewish migrations, and the cultural and religious life of Jewish communities in post-Reformation Europe.
Perani's talk is sponsored by the Jewish studies program at Ithaca College and the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. For more information, contact Rebecca Lesses, assistant professor and interim coordinator of Jewish studies at Ithaca College, at (607) 274-3556 or rlesses@ithaca.edu, or Kirsten Fudeman, kfudeman@ithaca.edu.
