This book studies how the Jewish community of Mantua established, normalized, and maintained interrelations with the Christian community for over 130 years, from 1520 to 1650, by means of theatre performance for the Gonzaga Dukes. Performance is shown to have been a mutually beneficial "currency" that both the Dukes and Jews could use to calibrate their relations with one another. Seen in this light, the author demonstrates that performance was not the consequence of cultural exchange between Jews and Christians, but was one of the means by which the complicated nature of cultural communication and exchange took place.
Jewish Theatre Making in Mantua details the performances created by the Jewish community of Mantua and argues that these theatrical events were a crucial component in the ability of Jews to live peacefully within Mantua, which became one of the few refuges left to Jews in the Italian peninsula and Catholic Europe.
- Front Cover
- Half-title
- Title page
- Copyright information
- Table of contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter 1. Introduction: “Under the Happy Shadow and Secure Protection”
- Chapter Organization of the Book
- The History of Jews in Mantua
- Marks, Surveillance, and Ghettoization of Jews in Early Modern Italy
- Derisive Representation of Jews in Carnival Performance
- Literary and Textual Presentations of and by the Jews
- Jewish Cultural Institutions
- Communal Celebrations and Space
- The Role of Women
- Social Structures and Dynamics within the Jewish Community
- Institutions for Regulating the Jewish Community
- The Idea of Exchange
- Chapter 2. Beginnings: Jews and the Early Modern Italian Stage 1475–1540
- The Backdrop: Theatre Experiments in Northern Italy
- The First Theatrical Performances by the Jews of Pesaro
- Theatre-Making in Ferrara
- Isabella D’Este As a Conduit for Theatre-making Influences Between Ferrara and Mantua
- Early Theatre-Making by the Jews of Mantua
- Mantuan Performances by the Jews and Scenic Innovations
- Chapter 3. A Canny Theatrical Intermediary
- Early Years
- Other Cities of Temptation and Learning
- Interculturalism and Bilingual Art
- A Comedy of Betrothal (Ṣaḥuth Bediḥuta Deqiddushin): the First Hebrew Play
- Mapping the Levant Through Performance
- De’ Sommi, 1560s Mantua, and the Birth of an Intercultural Theatre-Maker
- De’ Sommi and the Dialoghi: Strengthening Jewish Theatre-making in Mantua
- Maturation and Sedimentation of De’ Sommi’s work in the 1570s and 1580s
- De’ Sommi’s Dexterity in Cultivating Patrons
- De’ Sommi as Advocate for the Jewish Community
- Exit With Fireworks
- Chapter 4. A Virtuoso of Jewish Mantua
- Basilea: A Closer Look at the Man
- Chapter 5. Jewish Theatrical Production in the Shadow of the Counter-Reformation
- The Counter-Reformation and its Effect on the Everyday Lives of the Jews of Mantua
- Paradigmatic Shift of Performance
- Jews as Contractors in Vincenzo’s Extravagant Age
- Legal and Economic Dealings Between Jews and Actors
- Desirability and Surveillance of Jewish Performers in the Counter-Reformation
- The Intimacy of Exchange
- Chapter 6. The End of Jewish Performance in Mantua
- The End of Committed Gonzaga Patronage
- The War of Mantuan Succession and its Devastating Effects
- Internal Tensions Within the Jewish Community
- Mantuan Theatre as a Forum for Debate and Exchange
- A Coda: Theatre and Conversion
- Chapter 7. Conclusion
- Appendix 1. Translation of Description of Jewish Performance in Pesaro in 1475
- Appendix 2. Jewish Performances in Mantua
- Bibliography
- Primary Sources and Archives Consulted
- Archival and Primary Sources
- Primary Sources in Translation
- Reference Sources
- Secondary Sources
- Index
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