Introduction
In the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European scholars established complex networks of correspondence for the circulation of information and ideas. Usually, this “literary commerce” concerned the acquisition and distribution of books and specimens, thereby ensuring the progress of research. This sort of epistolary social sphere also profoundly transformed eighteenth-century culture, ultimately leading to the legitimization of new models of scholarship rooted in cooperation, autonomous from older structures of patronage, and engaged with society and politics. It was one of the characteristic and lasting products of the early modern Republic of Letters.
An example of such literary commerce is the correspondence between Livornese Sephardi savant, Joseph Attias (1672-1739) and Modenese historian Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1672-1750), one of the most respected protagonists of the early Italian Enlightenment. The extant twenty-four letters that Attias sent to Muratori between 1724 and 1734 are today held in the Archivio Muratoriano/52.3, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena. Most of Attias’ letters contain information about his scholarly interests, requests or offers for books and scientific specimens, personal and literary news about common acquaintances, along with some details about current events in his life. Thus, the exchange differs greatly from earlier examples of correspondence between Jewish and Christian scholars, such as that between Solomon Azubi and Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, or between Isaac Orobio de Castro and Philip van Limborch. Attias’ letters were not a vehicle for polemic or apologetic discussion, and in fact never referred to theological questions.
Two of Attias’ letters, written almost nine years apart, at the very beginning and end of his known correspondence with Muratori, also provide autobiographical narratives that offer an early example of “life writing,” or ego-document, composed by a Jewish author for a non-Jewish friend. The first, shorter text, written on December 22, 1724, presents a succinct summary of Attias’ background, education, and aspirations. The second text, dated November 20, 1733, spans over six tightly handwritten pages that elaborate on his upbringing, intellectual inclinations, and accomplishments.
“Life writing” was an accepted scholarly custom by the early eighteenth century. Unlike previous Jewish authors, such as Leone Modena, Attias did not have to elaborately justify his engagement with it. The very fact that Muratori had expressed an interest in his background was sufficient for this Jewish savant to present him with details about his early years, youth, endeavors, and intellectual proclivities. In this sense, Attias’ letters mirror the growing interest in autobiography and the increasingly widespread notion among eighteenth-century individuals that one’s personal experiences are inherently interesting. Additionally, these documents reflect many of the conventions of self-representation in the Republic of Letters, although their author’s Jewish identity renders them quite unusual.
The autobiographical letter was a sub-genre within the literary correspondence of the Republic of Letters. As a strategy of self-representation, this practice was frequent among seventeenth- and eighteenth-century scholars who used it to control and protect their cultural legacies and reputations and to shape intellectual genealogies, both individual and collective. It was also a common method by which scholars advanced their fame and forged new networks of friendship and patronage.
While Attias’ letters are representative of certain prevalent norms in the broader community of contemporaneous scholars, as a Sephardi Jew he was nonetheless a highly atypical member of the Republic of Letters, a literary space that incorporated Protestant and Catholic authors, but included only a handful of Jews (and mostly, later in the century). If any autobiographical letter entails strategies of self-representation, then, Attias’ life narratives should be subjected to especially careful scrutiny. What kinds of balancing acts were required of an early eighteenth-century Jewish intellectual who aspired to participate as a peer in an eminently non-Jewish social and cultural sphere? By studying Attias’ autobiographical letters as consciously crafted narratives of the self – exploring how Attias chose to depict himself, what credentials he emphasized and what elements he glossed over – it will be possible to identify the ways in which a Jewish scholar justified and demonstrated his merit and worth as an exponent of the Republic of Letters.
Bibliography
Hans Bots and Françoise Waquet_, La République des Lettres_ (Belin-De Boeck, 1997)
Francesca Bregoli, “Jewish Scholarship, Science, and the Republic of Letters: Joseph Attias in Eighteenth-Century Livorno”, in ALEPH. Historical Studies in Science & Judaism VII (2007), pp. 97-181
Patrick Coleman and Jayne Elizabeth Lewis, eds., Representations of the Self from the Renaissance to Romanticism (Cambridge, 2000)
Mary Fulbrook and Ulinka Rublack, “In Relation: The ‘Social Self’ and Ego-Documents,” in German History (2010) 28, pp. 263-272
Anne Goldgar, Impolite Learning. Conduct and Community in the republic of Letters, 1680-1750 (New Haven, 1995)
Warren Boutcher, “Literature, Thought or Fact? Past and Present Directions in the Study of the Early Modern Letter,” in Toon van Houdt, Jan Papy, Gilbert Tournoy, Constant Matheeussen, eds. Self-Presentation and Social Identification. The Rhetorics and Pragmatics of Letter Writing in Early Modern Times (Leuven, 2002), pp. 137-163
Source 1 Translation
Letter to L.A. Muratori
December 22, 1724
A slightly different version of these translations appeared in my “Jewish Scholarship, Science, and the Republic of Letters: Joseph Attias in Eighteenth-Century Livorno”, in ALEPH. Historical Studies in Science & Judaism VII (2007), pp. 97-181: 175-179. Indiana University Press granted permission to post these translations on the website of the EMW.
December 22, 1724
“[…] My ancestors took refuge in this land from Spain, therefore the language I drank with my mother’s milk is Spanish. In my Nation’s schools, by way of practicing, I learned a bit of Hebrew, which I subsequently cultivated together with the other Oriental languages by means of the grammatical methods of those very Jews who lived in the 12th and 13th century, and of the Christian Hebraists. Afterwards, in Florence, I studied Aristotelian philosophy according to the school of sig. Dr. Giannetti and the principles of mathematics through a disciple of sig. Viviani. Since in this country everyone is busy and immersed in their own businesses, there are no conversations or literary gatherings. I must pass my time as best as I can, enticing some foreigners encountered by chance in the local shops or the store [bookstore] of sig. Donato Donati, and attracting them to my place with the excuse of seeing a few books I have been putting together. […] I resolved to abandon commerce and live isolated on my modest revenues. To this end I renovated and enlarged the house where I live, and here it will be my greatest pleasure to serve You…”
Source 2 Translation
Letter to L.A. Muratori
November 20, 1733
A slightly different version of these translations appeared in my “Jewish Scholarship, Science, and the Republic of Letters: Joseph Attias in Eighteenth-Century Livorno”, in ALEPH. Historical Studies in Science & Judaism VII (2007), pp. 97-181: 175-179. Indiana University Press granted permission to post these translations on the website of the EMW.
November 20, 1733
“To satisfy Your inquiry about my signature, I have to tell You, in all philosophical frankness, that I was born with a burning desire and the greatest curiosity to know, more as a way to get to comprehend the extent and limits of human knowledge than to practice any profitable profession, or [obtain] some honorary office, by these means. When I opened my eyes I realized that it would not be possible to proceed without the help of languages, both living and dead. Although my father had been a lawyer and a student in Salamanca (and then became a merchant), I could find at home only eight volumes of Spanish comedies by Lope de Vega, Calderon, Montalbàn, Solìs, Salazar and other playwrights of extremely dissolute poetry, which mixed tragedy and comedy and, moreover, were authored by people unfamiliar with Greek literature; beside these volumes of comedies, there was a lonely Latin Bible printed in Paris and a small treatise on some astronomical quadrants by Gemafrisius.
Until I was 15 I had a teacher of Spanish with whom I studied reading and writing, and a tutor for Hebrew, whom we paid a little more than two paoli per month. But the poor fellow was not able to teach it to me, since he did not know it himself to begin with. At the same time, through my mother’s influence, they started making me velvet clothes with ribbon trims and golden tassels, etc.
When I turned 16, I was betrothed to a little niece of mine, a daughter of an older brother of mine, because my old father, who had me with his second wife, hoped with this to leave us [i.e., the two parts of the family] as allies and in peace (what followed is too long to discuss by letter).
So behold me 18, with a wife by my side; we spent the first little monies earned from investing the dowry on a diligent Latin teacher as well as a rabbi, who had perfect mastery of the Hebrew Bible and Hebrew grammar. I stocked up daily on authors writing in good Latin, though very poorly printed, because the country was much more backward (lit. barbaric) then; and thus I also began acquiring some books of Hebrew literature, which I hid away in an airy room outside my house and away from my father’s gaze, who used to reproach me, since those few books that I would let him see seemed to him already unnecessary and superfluous.
Thus I went on for a while, gathering all the foreigners who went through [the port]. I learned arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy from somebody called Piselli, a good engineer who died in the siege of Gaeta; and I would sometimes travel to Florence, where I learned Aristotelian philosophy with some new modifications from sig. Giannetti, whose brother is currently a lecturer in Pisa. I forgot to say that before getting married I had learned [to read] music perfectly, and how to play the harpsichord and the double harp, so that I can improvise an accompaniment on these two instruments while singing. Since they are very similar to each other, it is worth noticing, the practical study of one made the other easier to play, and that helped me when composing music. Back to my frequent trips to Florence, I had conversations with men of letters and academics on their summer vacations from the University of Pisa; out of necessity, because of some disputes which arose between members of my family, I had to apply myself to civil and canon law. I served as my own counsel, acquainting the judges of the situation on my own behalf; therefore I had to get some books on Roman law. In addition, there was the torture of having to study statutory law, found in the handwritten, unpublished statutes attributed to Paolo di Castro, alongside a long series of laws and edicts published in the “city of laws,” as Florence is called, and finally the legal statute of Livorno, commercial laws, maritime laws, and Jewish rites [i.e., laws]. Eventually I managed to acquire some peace thanks to my money, and by knowing how to write up a deed or legal instrument with a more specific know-how than our inexperienced notaries. In Florence, then, I visited the academies and became close friends with men of the best taste, enjoying their intimacy and confidence, which I maintained until their death. Lately, I recruited a brood of young and highly talented men as a way to make up for their loss, such as sig. Dr. Cocchi, abbé Perelli, cavalier Venuti, etc.
After I learned French, I acquired most of the literary journals, histories, and memoirs of the Académie Royale, together with the methods of the various sciences as composed by the French. I am a bit more uncertain in English, and I own some books only to consult them as originals, because I do not trust their translations. In Arabic, Syriac and Samaritan I can understand those passages that help me with Hebrew literature and to penetrate the sentiments of Bochart and other eminent non-Jewish men of letters, who are Hebraists. Although I have always disliked meddling with theological matters, and especially with polemics, I have been very upset by the impertinence of some people who immediately want to talk about religion: if you answer courteously, avoiding conflict, they call you apathetic (and on such an important matter!), if you joke, unbeliever, if you object, stubborn and obstinate. So, I try to abstain from it whenever I can. Finally, just as the most serene Duke of Modena was so kind as to summon me and listen to me for a whole night, on my way to France, my royal lord amused himself several times in my company, quizzing me on languages and sciences, and he honored me with the title of “doctor.” Sig. Marchese Rinuccini, secretary of state and war, imitates him when he writes to me [i.e., using the title “doctor”], and so do sig. Senator President Ricci, moderator of the University of Pisa, and all the doctors of the said University, hence I could no longer refuse [the title], as I had done until that moment with the crowd of knights, gentlemen, and men of letters that vied with each other to make me a doctor. Here I am, a doctor just like Dr. Ricciardi, the Tuscan poet who, having been sent to teach moral philosophy at the said University, replied to Grand Duke Cosimo: “I am no doctor,” to which he retorted, “I am making you one.” And just last week my Nation bestowed on me the title of rabbi. As for the name Filalete, there are already two Joseph Attiases in Livorno and one in Amsterdam, so letters addressed to me used to go astray because of the ambiguity of the name. That is why I took the nickname “Filalete,” which scholars gave the historian Josephus, because my friends teased me about my particularly strong love for truth. I was forgetting to say that the blessed memory of the illustrious sig. Dr. Redi, during the visits that he made to Livorno with the most serene Cosimo, used to call on the botanist Cestoni, where they conducted experiments and held conversations of the most refined taste over natural history. I was born in 1672 and traveled around Italy, where I dwelled in the principal cities for many months, and in France, particularly in Paris, where I met the great men of our time. I do not want to bore you any longer; if I will have better health, I will tell you further details of my life in other letters […].”