by Margherita Palumbo
The Casanatense Library preserves a considerable Jewish collection, made up of 237 manuscripts, 15 incunabula, 280 sixteenth-century manuscripts and around 300 editions from the 17th and 18th centuries. The formation of the fund is inextricably intertwined with the history and very nature of this Roman library, founded in 1701 by will of Cardinal Girolamo Casanate (1620-1700), who in 1698 decided to allocate his book collection as well as considerable income to the most high officials of the Dominican order: the Master General, the Master of the Sacred Palace – the authority responsible for controlling the press and book trade in the city of Rome – the Commissioner of the Holy Office, the Secretary of the Congregation of the Index, the Attorney General of the Order and finally the Prior of the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The will – preserved in the General Archives of the Order of Preachers – also provides for the foundation, in the library itself, of a College of six Dominican theologians, whose task must be “to apply themselves solely to the service of God in the defense of sound doctrine” (AGOP, ms.XI.3070/1, p. 18), thus establishing a strong link between the Casanatense as a whole, the Holy Office – of which Casanate was a member from 1666 to his death – and the Congregation of the Index, and of which the cardinal was Prefect. Until 1870 many Casanatense librarians and theologians were active as censors, and their careers within the two congregations of the Roman Curia are also well documented.
This particular nature of the Library is at the origin of the rich Jewish collection that is preserved there. The increase in the collection dates, in fact, to the years from 1734 to 1780, the period which saw the issuing by popes such as Clement XII, Benedict XIV and Pius VI of measures of control, censorship and confiscation of the Books of Jews.
The exhibition itinerary aims to quickly outline the history of the Jewish fund of Casanatense through the precious information provided by the ancient registers of acquisitions, and which highlight the role that not only the inquisitors and censors of the Church of Rome, but also some converts, had in this history. first and foremost Giovanni Antonio Costanzi.
Giovanni Antonio Costanzi, “through whom there are more codes and books…”
Of Constantinopolitan origin, the real name of Giovanni Antonio Costanzi is unknown nor is the precise date of birth known, which probably occurred in the early eighteenth century. In the Preface added in 1749 to his treatise The truth of the Christian religion against the vain flattery of the modern Jews, Costanzi reports only the date of the baptism, which took place in the German city of Würzburg on 4 March 1731, «after having practiced for for almost eight years the position of Rabbi in Spalatro, and in various places in Dalmatia, where some Jewish families are dispersed” (ibid., p. xiv). Reviewer of Jewish books, in 1765 he was appointed Scriptor Hebraicus of the Vatican Library, a function he held until his death in 1786. Costanzi was responsible for a large part of the descriptions included in the first volume of the Bibliothecae Vaticanae codicum manuscriptorum catalogus, published by Giuseppe Simone Assemani in 1756. Recently identified documents attest to his activity as a consultant within the Congregation of the Holy Office. The examination of the documentation preserved in the Historical Archives of the Library has made it possible to identify Costanzi as the mediator who made the acquisition possible – in the period from 1738 to 1769 – of Jewish books en masse. Furthermore, the explanatory notes written to accompany the hundreds of manuscript and printed volumes arriving in Casanatense in those years must be attributed to Costanzi: a collaboration which in 1742 the prefect Giandomenico Agnani rewarded with a cash tip, given not only because thanks to Costanzi « there are [sic] more codes and books”, but also “for the many Jewish news that it provides to mark the Jewish Codes” (Registro de Libri, ms. Cas. 480, 116r). Many of the specimens acquired through Costanzi present the ownership note of the College of Neophytes, or signs of belonging to Roman families.
“In defense of sound doctrine…”. The specimens of the Congregation of the Holy Office
Many of the Jewish books, both manuscript and printed, were transmitted to the Casanatense by the Holy Office, the Roman congregation with which the Library had a privileged and direct relationship, as evident in the will of Cardinal Casanate himself.
The ancient Registro de Libri documents the gift in 1744 of thirty volumes at the disposal of the then Commissioner of the Holy Office and former inquisitor of Milan, the Dominican Alessandro Pio Sauli. Even more significant is the passage of books which dates back to March 1745, when the Congregation sent over fifty volumes to the Casanatense, including eighteen codices, a passage which can be reconstructed thanks to documents preserved both in our Library and in the ‘(Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In a memorial sent to Benedict 1743-1749, c. 178r). A quick note of these volumes had been written by the librarian Tommaso Schiara, on the occasion of the «Easter Feast of 1744 in which we were with the same [l’assessore del Sant’Uffizio Guglielmi] at lunch, left in the hands of the Prelate so that at an appropriate date he could speak about it to the Holiness of Our Lady. Benedict XIV” (Registro de Libri, ms. Cas. 480, all. 1, c. 2r).
Hebrew manuscripts and printed matter were finally sent in 1759 by the Dominican Tommaso Agostino Ricchini, former secretary of the Congregation of the Index and in that year appointed Master of the Sacred Palace, the authority responsible for the control of the press and book trade in the city of Rome . The identification of the volumes transmitted in 1759 is currently underway within our book collections.