Prato Haggadah

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he Haggadah commemorates the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and their divine mission. This book is used in the ceremony on the first evening of the Jewish feast of Passover, which coincides with Easter. Its text include stories from the Old Testament, legend, fables, aphorism, psalms, sermons and exegeses (interpretations), and derive essentially from oral traditions current at the time of the Second Temple, before 70 B. C. Only later were they expanded and recorded in writing. By the 14 th century they have become a canonical institution.

The written passages read out at the family meal that marks the beginning of Passover were collected in portable private devotional books. In the 13 th and 14 th centuries noble Jewish patrons at the European royal courts were keen to have the Haggadah illuminated in the book painting style of the time. In these circles the traditional, purely ornamental decoration was combined with fashionable figurative representations executed to the highest artistic standards.

The codex is especially fascinating because it demonstrates the making of a manuscript in the Middle Ages, enabling us to view its illumination after the text was written: the preparatory drawings, the laying down of gesso in order to cushion the gold leaf, the application of gold and silver leaf, and ultimately the application of pigments. The skill of the artist is of a very high order, both in the preparatory drawings and in the completed pages, whose brilliant colours look as fresh today as when they were applied.

Unique edition of 100 numbered examples with notarised certificate of authenticity.

• The Library of Jewish Theological Seminary. New York.
• Century XIV
• Dimensions: 21 x 14 cm
• 160 parchment pages
• 40 illuminated miniatures with gold and silver

History

Nothing at all is known of either the patron or scribe of the Prato Haggadah, and little is known of its whereabouts from the time it was produced in Spain, around 1300, until the time is was acquired by the JTS Library in 1964.

While the haggadah's text is written in accordance with the Spanish rite, at some point additional text, which included liturgical poems of the Ashkenazic rite, was added, most likely in Italy. A 1617 signature of an Italian church censor, Giovanni Domenico Carretto is proof that the manuscript actually was in Italy at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Nothing further is known of the haggadah's history until 1928, when it was in the possession of Dr. Ludwig Pollak, a native of Prague living in Rome. A distinguished humanist and collector of classical art, literary manuscripts, books and Judaica, Dr. Pollak promised the haggadah to his friend Rabbi David Prato, Chief Rabbi of Rome. After disagreements with the Fascist authorities in the late 1930s, Rabbi Prato moved to Palestine. Dr. Pollak, his wife and son, along with other members of the Jewish community of Rome, were deported to Auschwitz, where they perished.

After the war, Rabbi Prato was recalled to his previous position in Rome and served the community until his death in 1951. Shortly after the Rabbi's demise, his only son Jeonathan, an Israeli diplomat en route to his post in Buenos Aires, was visited by the sister-in-law of Dr. Pollak in Rome. Knowing of Dr. Pollak's intention to donate the manuscript to the rabbi, she fulfilled the promise and gave the haggadah to the rabbi's only surviving heir. The Prato Haggadah was purchased by the JTS Library in 1964.

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