Venice Haggadah
Moses ben Gershon Parenzo
1629

Creator Bio
Moses ben Gershon Parenzo
Moses ben Gershon Parenzo was the last of a family of Hebrew printers active in Venice in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The patriarch of the family, Jacob (d. 1546), came to Venice from Parenzo, on the Dalmatian coast of Italy. In 1629, Moses worked for the Venetian printer Giovanni di Gara.
Related Guide
Jewish Printing and Book Culture
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.
Related Guide
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.
Related Guide
Early Modern Jewish Languages
As Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews migrated eastward, Yiddish and Ladino emerged as distinct languages. Both languages developed literary traditions, as print became more widespread.