Engraver, etcher, and draftsman Shalom Italia was, as his name indicates, from Italy, where his family worked in the Mantua printing industry. However, probably attracted by the opportunities in the growing metropolis, he made his way to Amsterdam by 1641. Among Shalom Italia’s works are illustrated ketubot (marriage contracts), book illustrations, and portraits of the community’s leading figures, such as Menasseh Ben Israel, who was the founder of Amsterdam’s first Hebrew printing press and an advocate for the readmission of Jews to England.
In 1654, Rahel bat Hannah Rovigo married Isaac ben Abraham de Pinto, a member of a prosperous Jewish family of merchant bankers in Amsterdam. The ketubah (marriage contract), which outlines the…
A poem that I, Sa‘adia Longo, wrote to an important and wealthy man from Nicopolis, who came here to Salonika to marry a woman. I was not able to participate in his celebration because I was…
In late 1897, Camille Pissarro, the noted impressionist artist, known for his many landscapes and cityscapes, came to Paris and rented a room in the Hôtel du Louvre, which gave him a good view of the…