Updated 19/12/23 with additional footnote linking to Benjamin Ravid’s research
The Jewish festival of Hanukkah was marked by BBC Radio 3 a few days ago with a special programme featuring the Jewish-Italian composer Salomone Rossi’s works, and to mark 400 years since the publication of his ‘The Songs of Solomon’.
Rossi’s Baroque music is an example of the paradox whereby the enclosure of Jewish life within ghettos still made possible some integration with the majority culture, as well as a degree of protection from anti-Jewish attacks (the example of Venice, the original enclosure named as such features in several previous blog posts, see link below).
The Jewish community of Mantua (near Milan) dates back to the 12th century. While small in number, there are records to indicate that its members worked in many spheres of the local economy, as merchants, artisans, and even some doctors. Yet by the 17th century, following similar trends in other Italian cities, and due to pressure from Rome, the community was forced into a ghetto. While maintaining their location in the heart of the city, this meant that the city’s Jewish inhabitants were shut within a gated compound that was only open from dawn to dusk (see details at https://www.visitjewishitaly.it/en/listing/ghetto-of-mantova/). It was only with the Napoleonic invasions of the late 18th century that this and the many other Italian ghettos were abolished.
Hervé Roten has written about Rossi’s musical biography on the blog of the European Institute of Jewish Music. Working within the Court of Gonzaga from Mantua, Rossi (c. 1570-c. 1630) is recorded “first as a chorister, then as a viola player, and finally as composer.” While creating dozens of pieces – both vocal and instrumental – for the court, including a book of madrigals, he also created a magnificent set of Hebrew sacred songs which, as Roten explains, “constitute one of the first attempts at introducing polyphonic art music into synagogical worship.”
Whether Rossi’s important role within the Court is an example of ‘toleration’ (a word I find quite problematical in its suggesting that there is something to be tolerated about the presence of a minority in a city), or some form of acculturation, what is clear is that despite the significant barriers to integration, cultural exchange was an essential aspect of life in the city. This brings us back to my earlier piece about the Venice ghetto, where I cite Ravid’s claim that there was a “dynamic universe” of scholarship ranging from sacred music, architecture, printing technology, and biblical exegesis.[^]
[^] I am struck by a later piece by Professor Ravid, who writes in How ‘Other’ Really Was the Jewish Other? that “according to the mid-eighteenth century report issued by Cardinal Ganganelli investigating the charge of alleged ritual murder, when in 1705 a large painting depicting ‘Jews killing a child with other figures and inscriptions’ was displayed on the Rialto bridge, an ‘order was made for the said picture to be wholly and entirely effaced and deleted.’” If only such antisemitic graffiti would be as promptly dealt with today.
References
Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert: A Baroque Hanukkah
Agree, Candice. From Ghetto to Palazzo: How a Jewish Composer in Renaissance Italy Harmonized Two Worlds. WFMT (Chicago’s FM Radio station). https://www.wfmt.com/2017/09/19/salamone-rossi-harmonized-two-worlds/. Accessed 17/12/2023.
Roten, Hervé. ROSSI, SALOMONE (NEAR 1570-NEAR 1630). Institut Européen des Musiques Juives (European Institute of Jewish Music). https://www.iemj.org/en/rossi-salomone-vers-1570-vers-1630/. Accessed 18/12/2023.
Ravid, B. C. (1992). From Geographical Realia to Historiographical Symbol: the odyssey of the word ghetto. In Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. D. B. Ruderman. New York and London, New York University Press: 373-385.
Ravid, B. (2008). How ‘Other’ Really Was the Jewish Other? The Evidence from Venice. In: Myers, D. N., Ciavolella, M., Reill, P. H. & Symcox, G. (eds.) Acculturation and Its Discontents. University of Toronto Press, pp 19-55. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442687318.5
https://open.spotify.com/album/0yA4bb8oAZwN9tvTHNYRDX
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