Me‘on ha-sho’alim (Abode of the Supplicants)
Devorà Ascarelli
1601

Creator Bio
Devorà Ascarelli
Devorà Ascarelli was a sixteenth-century Italian Jewish poet in Rome, Italy, who was the first Jewish woman to have a book of her own work published. Little is known about her life except that she was well educated and married to Joseph Ascarelli.
Related Guide
Jewish Printing and Book Culture, 1500–1750
Jewish printing unified far-flung communities by standardizing religious texts, created textual uniformity, and enabled vernacular translations, and facilitated the spread of Jewish texts and knowledge.
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Early Modern Italy: Where East and West Meet
Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Marranos encountered each other in Italian cities, developing community structures that later influenced Jewish communal organization throughout the western world.
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Early Modern Jewish Languages (1500–1750)
As Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews migrated eastward, Yiddish and Ladino emerged as distinct languages. Both languages developed literary traditions, as print became more widespread.
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