Sarra Copia Sulam
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226779881
- eISBN:
- 9780226779874
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226779874.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
The first Jewish woman to leave her mark as a writer and intellectual, Sarra Copia Sulam (1600?–41) was doubly tainted in the eyes of early modern society by her religion and her gender. This ...
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The first Jewish woman to leave her mark as a writer and intellectual, Sarra Copia Sulam (1600?–41) was doubly tainted in the eyes of early modern society by her religion and her gender. This remarkable woman, who until now has been relatively neglected by modern scholarship, was a unique figure in Italian cultural life, opening her home, in the Venetian ghetto, to Jews and Christians alike as a literary salon. For this bilingual edition, the author has collected all of Sulam's previously scattered writings—letters, sonnets, a Manifesto—into a single volume. He has also assembled all extant correspondence and poetry that was addressed to Sulam, as well as all known contemporary references to her, making them available to Anglophone readers for the first time. Featuring rich biographical and historical notes that place Sulam in her cultural context, this book offers insights into the thought and creativity of a woman who dared to express herself in the male-dominated, overwhelmingly Catholic Venice of her time.Less
The first Jewish woman to leave her mark as a writer and intellectual, Sarra Copia Sulam (1600?–41) was doubly tainted in the eyes of early modern society by her religion and her gender. This remarkable woman, who until now has been relatively neglected by modern scholarship, was a unique figure in Italian cultural life, opening her home, in the Venetian ghetto, to Jews and Christians alike as a literary salon. For this bilingual edition, the author has collected all of Sulam's previously scattered writings—letters, sonnets, a Manifesto—into a single volume. He has also assembled all extant correspondence and poetry that was addressed to Sulam, as well as all known contemporary references to her, making them available to Anglophone readers for the first time. Featuring rich biographical and historical notes that place Sulam in her cultural context, this book offers insights into the thought and creativity of a woman who dared to express herself in the male-dominated, overwhelmingly Catholic Venice of her time.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226779881
- eISBN:
- 9780226779874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226779874.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This part includes Ansaldo Cebà's correspondence, a series of letters in response largely to Sarra Copia Sulam's that are no longer extant. What Cebà says in his correspondence inevitably throws ...
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This part includes Ansaldo Cebà's correspondence, a series of letters in response largely to Sarra Copia Sulam's that are no longer extant. What Cebà says in his correspondence inevitably throws light on (much of) what Copia must have said in hers. Cebà dedicated his letters, in their printed copy, to a dear friend, the philanthropist, avid republican politician, and literary enthusiast Marc'Antonio Doria. His Lettere . . . scritte a Sarra Copia e dedicate a Marc'Antonio Doria was published in Genoa by Giuseppe Pavoni in 1623. Its fifty-three letters, which include two to Giacomo Rosa, who visited Copia, and one to her husband, Jacob Sulam, cover the period 1618–1622. Of the poems they contain, Cebà reproduced four sonnets out of what must have been a considerably larger number by Copia, one sonnet by an unnamed person from her circle of friends, and, of his own authorship, thirteen sonnets, six madrigals, and two multistrophic canzoni (one in twenty stanzas, the other in fifty). Though no longer extant, the original letters by Copia and Rosa have been partially reconstructed from Cebà's responses.Less
This part includes Ansaldo Cebà's correspondence, a series of letters in response largely to Sarra Copia Sulam's that are no longer extant. What Cebà says in his correspondence inevitably throws light on (much of) what Copia must have said in hers. Cebà dedicated his letters, in their printed copy, to a dear friend, the philanthropist, avid republican politician, and literary enthusiast Marc'Antonio Doria. His Lettere . . . scritte a Sarra Copia e dedicate a Marc'Antonio Doria was published in Genoa by Giuseppe Pavoni in 1623. Its fifty-three letters, which include two to Giacomo Rosa, who visited Copia, and one to her husband, Jacob Sulam, cover the period 1618–1622. Of the poems they contain, Cebà reproduced four sonnets out of what must have been a considerably larger number by Copia, one sonnet by an unnamed person from her circle of friends, and, of his own authorship, thirteen sonnets, six madrigals, and two multistrophic canzoni (one in twenty stanzas, the other in fifty). Though no longer extant, the original letters by Copia and Rosa have been partially reconstructed from Cebà's responses.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226779881
- eISBN:
- 9780226779874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226779874.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This part deals with “Notices from Parnassus,” a mixed biographical and fictitious account in which Sarra Copia Sulam is defended against the false accusations of two persons who enjoyed her ...
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This part deals with “Notices from Parnassus,” a mixed biographical and fictitious account in which Sarra Copia Sulam is defended against the false accusations of two persons who enjoyed her benevolence but turned against her while in her service and spread false rumors about her when she denounced them to the authorities. The “Notices” are a mixture of prose and verse preserved in an extended manuscript of a hundred plus folios. They relate the events that transpired after Copia appointed Numidio Paluzzi as her teacher and advisor in matters of language and a seeming editor of her works. She rewarded him generously for his services, yet Paluzzi, together with his valet friend Alessandro Berardelli, the laundress Paola Furlana, her three sons, and a young black kitchen maid (Arnolfa by name), originally a Spanish Moor who under duress converted to Christianity, systematically robbed her of her possessions (money, jewelry, household objects). This part includes a dedicatory letter written by Giulia Solinga to Marco Trevisan, as well as sonnets presumably written by Solinga and others.Less
This part deals with “Notices from Parnassus,” a mixed biographical and fictitious account in which Sarra Copia Sulam is defended against the false accusations of two persons who enjoyed her benevolence but turned against her while in her service and spread false rumors about her when she denounced them to the authorities. The “Notices” are a mixture of prose and verse preserved in an extended manuscript of a hundred plus folios. They relate the events that transpired after Copia appointed Numidio Paluzzi as her teacher and advisor in matters of language and a seeming editor of her works. She rewarded him generously for his services, yet Paluzzi, together with his valet friend Alessandro Berardelli, the laundress Paola Furlana, her three sons, and a young black kitchen maid (Arnolfa by name), originally a Spanish Moor who under duress converted to Christianity, systematically robbed her of her possessions (money, jewelry, household objects). This part includes a dedicatory letter written by Giulia Solinga to Marco Trevisan, as well as sonnets presumably written by Solinga and others.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226779881
- eISBN:
- 9780226779874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226779874.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This part includes Sarra Copia Sulam's Manifesto on the “immortality of the soul,” which she was accused of denying. Her Manifesto forms part of a highly charged personal and philosophical exchange ...
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This part includes Sarra Copia Sulam's Manifesto on the “immortality of the soul,” which she was accused of denying. Her Manifesto forms part of a highly charged personal and philosophical exchange of documents, and reflects a drama whose “plot” can be traced from an early letter of Baldassare Bonifaccio, the accuser, to Copia's response in a letter of her own, and then on to Bonifaccio's stinging Discorso where he thought he would put an end to the altercation but did not and could not: Copia replied in her Manifesto, to which Bonifaccio provided a counter reply, following it, a few months later, with a malicious report (in a letter to an acquaintance), as yet unpublished, on the woman who dared to defy him. In his letters, Bonifaccio tackled issues such as the resurrection of the dead among the Jews, whether striving for a good name assures immortality, the power to foresee the future as a sign of immortality, and the extent to which corporal harmony assures the soul of immortality.Less
This part includes Sarra Copia Sulam's Manifesto on the “immortality of the soul,” which she was accused of denying. Her Manifesto forms part of a highly charged personal and philosophical exchange of documents, and reflects a drama whose “plot” can be traced from an early letter of Baldassare Bonifaccio, the accuser, to Copia's response in a letter of her own, and then on to Bonifaccio's stinging Discorso where he thought he would put an end to the altercation but did not and could not: Copia replied in her Manifesto, to which Bonifaccio provided a counter reply, following it, a few months later, with a malicious report (in a letter to an acquaintance), as yet unpublished, on the woman who dared to defy him. In his letters, Bonifaccio tackled issues such as the resurrection of the dead among the Jews, whether striving for a good name assures immortality, the power to foresee the future as a sign of immortality, and the extent to which corporal harmony assures the soul of immortality.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226779881
- eISBN:
- 9780226779874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226779874.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This part includes sonnets by Gabriele Zinano and Sarra Copia Sulam's response to one of them. Leon Modena, the rabbi closely involved in Sulam's biography, was privy to the content of the letters ...
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This part includes sonnets by Gabriele Zinano and Sarra Copia Sulam's response to one of them. Leon Modena, the rabbi closely involved in Sulam's biography, was privy to the content of the letters she wrote to Ansaldo Cebà and received from him, and to her problems with her adversaries. Also included in this part are a dedication to Copia from Modena's play Ester (1619) and Modena's epitaph for her tombstone (1641).Less
This part includes sonnets by Gabriele Zinano and Sarra Copia Sulam's response to one of them. Leon Modena, the rabbi closely involved in Sulam's biography, was privy to the content of the letters she wrote to Ansaldo Cebà and received from him, and to her problems with her adversaries. Also included in this part are a dedication to Copia from Modena's play Ester (1619) and Modena's epitaph for her tombstone (1641).