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This illustration of an armillary sphere is from a treatise on astronomy, Sefer mareh ha-ofanim (The Appearance of the Heavenly Beings), by Solomon ben Abraham Avigdor. The treatise was mostly a…
Jews first settled in Kaifeng, the capital of Henan province in central China, before 1127. According to scholars, they had come from India or Persia, spoke Persian, and worked as cotton dyers and…
This map showing the Naḥmanides Synagogue in Jerusalem, named after the medieval rabbi, was made in Italy by a Jewish scribe and is an example of a “pilgrimage scroll.” Pilgrimage scrolls were known…
This elaborately decorated title page is from a book of Psalms created by the scribe Nathan ben Samson in Gross Meseritsch, Moravia (today Velké Meziříčí, Czech Republic). On the left is Aaron in his…
This illustration of the (Aristotelian) cosmos appears in an eighteenth-century manuscript of Neḥmad ve-na‘im (Nice and Pleasant), David Ganz’s posthumously published book on astronomy.
Sifre ‘evronot—manuals for calculating the Jewish calendar, including leap years and holidays—were a popular genre of Ashkenazic illustrated manuscripts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries…
This map showing tombs in the land of Israel was drawn in Italy by a Jewish scribe and is an example of a “pilgrimage scroll.” Pilgrimage scrolls, also known as itineraries, included visual and…
This hand-drawn map of Hebron, Israel, is from an autograph manuscript of Melekhet Shelomoh (The Work of Solomon), Solomon Adeni’s commentary on the Mishnah.
These are marginal illustrations found in a manuscript siddur from Italy according to the Romaniote rite, with prayers focused on marriage and birth rituals and customs, as well as the pidyon ha-ben…
This decorated psalter was made for Aaron de Joseph de Pinto, a member of the prominent Portuguese Jewish family in Amsterdam. It is a manuscript, copied from a print edition done by David de Castro…
