Introduction
The Sefer Mizvot from Casale Monferrato (late 16th century)
The manuscript L. 17 of the Biblioteca Civica in Casale Monferrato, part of the De Conti collection, consists of 91 leaves (lacking the last two). It was transcribed and annotated by Maria Modena Mayer in 1985. Three hands can be identified: (1) ff. 1–38v, likely that of Israel Luria of Padua, whose name appears on the title page; (2) ff. 38v–44v, resembling the Hebrew script of Parma I and linked to a common earlier source; (3) ff. 44v–end, in a later script, copied with the others to form a compendium of women’s three ritual precepts.
Its third section, from which the following excerpt is drawn, compiles ritual rules for the three precepts prescribed to women, similar to previous codices. It belongs to a production of Judeo-Italian and Italian manuscripts, derived from the Seder Mitzvot Nashim tradition, and features unique hallah and bread recipes absent from other versions. This genre began with a Yiddish work, probably composed in Germany or by German Jews in Italy, that was later adapted in Italy, expanded and published in Poland, and eventually retranslated into Italian. Edward Fram’s My Dear Daughter (2007) includes the annotated translation of Benjamin Slonik’s Seder mizvot ha-nashim (The Order of Women’s Commandments), first published in Cracow in 1577 and later Cracow again (1585, 1595), Basel (1602), and Hanau (1627).
The manuscript was owned by Ricca (Riccha) Ottolenghi of Villafranca di Verona, who married David Sacerdoti of Pavia in 1586 and later moved with him to Casale Monferrato where they had two children. Ricca was widowed and later remarried in 1603. Her name appears with that of the author/copyist Israel Luria of Padua on the cover page, and she also signed the manuscript with her first husband’s name, suggesting she acquired it between 1586 and her remarriage in 1603. Her possession situates the text within the domestic and devotional life of Jewish women in northern Italy, linking Padua, Verona, Pavia, and Casale. One witness to her wedding, Yaakov Heilprun—rabbi and educator of women—later translated and adapted Slonik’s work into Italian (Mitzvot Nashim melammedah, Venice 1616; Padua 1625; Venice 1652, 1711), adding reflections on women’s reading, foods, and household practices, and perhaps even drawing on Ricca’s manuscript.
The text circulated both within women’s households and across rabbinic networks, revealing a northern Italian nexus where women’s devotional literature and rabbinic learning intersected. Food and cooking practices moved along these same routes, especially those rooted in Venice and northern Italy. It shows a fusion of Italian, Jewish-Italian, and Ashkenazi baking traditions.
Sumptuary Laws (Venice 1607)
This source contains excerpts on food and banquets from the sumptuary laws issued by the Jewish community of Venice on June 10, 1607, nearly a century after their admission as a body to the city and their confinement to the Ghetto in 1516. At that time, the community found itself caught in a jurisdictional dispute between the Ufficiali al Cattaver and the Cinque Savii alla Mercanzia, both seeking authority over them and attempting to impose new restrictions, including changes to the hours of opening the gates of the Ghetto Vecchio and Nuovo, as well as the closing of the gate on the quays. In the same year, on October 3, the Ashkenazi Jews of Venice secured the renewal of their charter—after the previous one had expired on February 28—which permitted their continued residence in the city. Meanwhile, the Levantine and Ponentine Jews were also engaged in diplomatic negotiations with the Venetian government, since their charter was set to expire in August 1608. These developments took place against the broader backdrop of Venice’s struggle with the repercussions of the papal interdict of 1606–1607.
Following a series of regulations enacted by the Provveditori alle Pompe—the Venetian officials responsible for monitoring private behavior and consumption—the Jewish community felt compelled to introduce its own rules, urging members to curb expenses and avoid ostentatious displays of wealth. The Small Assembly—the Ghetto’s main governing and legislative body—passed sumptuary provisions recorded in the Libro Grande. These measures addressed weddings and private receptions, limiting the number of hot dishes (vivande) that could be served to four, likely due to their higher cost and sophistication. These four dishes could be accompanied by customary cold foods, such as “dry meat, tongue, sausages, and other preparations with herbs, along with salads, soups, and dishes made with giblets usually served at such meals.”
The analysis and the contextualization of this text offer us, on the one hand, a glimpse into the culinary habits of Jews during their most festive celebrations, and on the other, an entry point into the more ordinary foods and everyday kitchens of the segregated Ghetto apartments in Venice.
Feliciana Diaz’s Testimonies (April 1635)
In 1635, the New Christian Feliciana Diaz—daughter of the Portuguese converts Odoardo Dias and Clara Teixeira—appeared before the Holy Office in Venice. Her testimony offers a window into the life of an affluent crypto-Jewish family navigating ghettos, churches, taverns, domestic spaces where religious boundaries blurred, and the inquisitorial tribunals themselves. She had faced similar proceedings earlier, in Pisa (1618 and 1626) and Milan (1625). Recently widowed in Florence, she told the Venetian Inquisitors that she had joined her openly Jewish uncle, Josef Senhor, in Venice, insisting that she had always considered herself Catholic while adopting Jewish customs out of necessity and respect. She recounted, too, that she had refused a marriage proposal from her uncle’s brother-in-law, Abram Aboaf, and instead deliberately sought the notice of a window repairman working in her uncle’s home, so that he might bring her case before the tribunal.
Even through her carefully crafted rhetoric, her testimony reveals practices—such as eating meat on Fridays or during both Jewish and Christian festivals—that could at once affirm New Christian identity and expose practitioners to charges of Judaizing, paralleling, among others, the scrutiny directed at Morisco fasting during Ramadan in sixteenth-century Valencia. Taken together with scattered evidence from other sources, including translations in this collection, her account highlights the blending of Jewish and Mediterranean culinary traditions with Italian styles, linking the kitchens of Jewish families in the Venetian Ghetto to the households of New Christians both within the Ghetto and throughout the city.
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Source 1 Translation
The Sefer Mitzvot from Casale Monferrato (late 16th century)
Biblioteca di Casale Monferrato, Manuscript L 17, 71r – 78v*
Advising women that they are not obligated to separate challah (חלה) when making bread unless it is made from one of these five types of flour: for all other kinds of flour, it would be a sin (avon עוון) to separate challah (חלה), and likewise one must not recite the blessing ha-motzi lechem min ha-aretz (ברכת המוציא לחם מן הארץ) [“Who brings forth bread from the earth”]. These are the five types of flour for which one is obligated to separate challah (חלה), and for no others: wheat, barley, rye, spelt, and oats. But when any of these five are mixed with other flours, then one is obligated to separate challah (חלה) — and not otherwise. Also, matzot (מצות) for Passover (פסח) may only be made from these five types. For all other flours, there is no obligation to recite the Grace after Meals (birkat ha-mazon ברכת המזון).
You are also advised not to take challah if the dough is small and does not reach the required measure (shiur שעור), because that would be a sin (avon עוון), not a commandment (mitzvah מצוה), and it would result in a blessing in vain (berakhah le-vatalah ברכת לבטלה). For this reason, many women, when kneading dough to make small loaves or pastries (brazoloni ovvero fugace), take challah from a small amount of dough, thinking they are performing a mitzvah, but in fact they are committing a sin and reciting a blessing in vain (berakhah le-vatalah). This is why it is written in our Torah (תורה) what is meant by the shiur challah — the minimum quantity of dough required. Here is how to calculate it: Whoever wants to know precisely what the shiur challah is should take 43 eggs and a fifth, place them into a container (keli כלי) filled level to the top with water, adding the eggs one at a time. Then carefully collect all the water that spills over when these 43 (מ״ג), eggs are inside. Any quantity of flour that, when mixed with the amount of water displaced by these 43 eggs (mem-gimel beitzim מ״ג בצים), creates dough — that is the shiur challah, and not otherwise. The word challah also equals forty-three, reinforcing this measure.
If a woman has a batch of dough or leavened starter that was the amount established (ש׳׳ח) and forgot to have challah taken from it, and it was later mixed with another dough from which challah was taken — neither the first nor the second batch may be eaten, since they were mixed together, and it is now necessary to separate challah again from the entire combined dough. Likewise, if a woman took challah from a batch that met the minimum amount (shiur challah), and later made another batch that did not meet the shiur and took challah from it anyway, and then combined the two, nothing may be eaten from the whole, because both blessings were in vain (berakhot le-vatalah), and one must now separate challah from the entire dough together, and only then can it be eaten.
If someone forgot to take challah from the dough, they are obligated to do so after small loaves or focaccias (brazolani or fugatie) have been baked. In this case, all the bread must be spread out on a table and covered with a cloth, and then challah must be taken from one loaf, saying the blessing “le-hafrish challah” (להפריש חלה) [“to separate challah”], as if it were still dough. If a person receives dough from a relative or a Jewish neighbor (yehudi shachen יהודי שכן), one must not take challah from that dough without their permission, even if you are certain they themselves did not take challah, because the obligation is theirs, not yours — and your blessing would be in vain, making it a sin (avon), not a mitzvah. A Jewish maid (yehudit יהודית) may take challah when she bakes bread, even without the permission of her masters (gvarim גברים). All the doughs purchased from Gentiles (goyim גויים) for making small loaves or focaccias or breads of other foods (ma’akhalim מאכלים) are not subject to the obligation of taking challah.
When a good Jewish woman wants to bake bread at home, she must not use dough from Gentiles or Jews outside her home, because she cannot recite the blessing of challah on dough she did not prepare herself. The obligation applies only when she herself takes the flour and kneads it, not otherwise.
Also, note that when dough is made for fattening animals or birds (behemot ve’ofot בהמות ועופות), and people later eat from that dough, they are obligated to take challah, but only in that case, not otherwise. All doughs made into noodles (tagliatelle) or other foods (ma’akhalim) that are boiled in water, or fried in oil, fat (shuman), butter, or honey, even if the amount of dough exceeds the shiur challah, are not obligated in challah nor in the blessing. However, when one makes macarons and pâtés in a crust, or cakes with flour and almonds, or other foods baked in the oven or in a pan with oil or fat, then these are obligated to take the challah and the blessing must be made, if the dough meets the shiur challah— when baked in the oven, but not if boiled in water or cooked otherwise.
Flour mixed with honey, fat (shuman), oil, spices, or other mixtures and baked in the oven, not fried in a pan, does require challah to be taken if it is shiur challah, along with the blessing “le-hafrish challah”. Also, be aware that if dough is made for foods to be boiled in water or broth, and no oil is added, one is not obligated to take challah — unless some of that dough is used to make a small focaccia baked under ashes or in the oven. In that case, only that small focaccia requires challah to be taken, and not the rest.
Our Rabbi Hai (Rabbenu Hai זצ״ל) commanded that for all doughs made into cooked foods (ma’akhalim) for soups, one should always separate a small portion to fulfill the mitzvah of challah, as long as it is all one dough. Otherwise, it would be a blessing in vain (berakhah le-vatalah) and a sin (avon), not a mitzvah (mitzvah). On Yom Tov (יום טוב), flour must not be sifted for preparing food except by the hand of a Gentile woman (goyah גוייה), and the sifter must be turned upside down to differentiate the holiday from other days. Likewise, flour should not be measured on Yom Tov and Passover (Pesach פסח) in order to reach the shiur challah; instead, it should be taken approximately, estimating that it equals the required measure. When flour is measured on Chol ha-Mo’ed of Pesach (חול המועד דפסח) or Erev Pesach (ערב פסח) to meet the shiur challah, one must say aloud: “This flour I take and measure to make the matzot.” Dough kneaded on Yom Tov requires that challah be taken, but it must not be burned until Yom Tov is over — unless it is baked immediately so that it does not become leavened (chametz חמץ), and then fed to a young Kohen boy or girl (na’ar Kohen נער כהן or na’arah נערה). Otherwise, it must be placed in cold water and kept until after the holiday, and then burned. The challah taken from Passover dough must be immediately put in cold water or baked at once so it doesn’t become chametz, and the blessing should be made when it is baked. This is unlike other challot, for which the blessing is made immediately upon separating the dough. Otherwise, one must feed it to a young Kohen boy or girl, or place it in cold water until after the holiday, and then burn it.
* Maria Mayer Modena, “Il ‘Sefer miswòt’ della Biblioteca di Casale Monferrato,” Italia 4, no. 2 (1985), 91-97.
Source 2 Translation
Sumptuary Laws (Venice 1607)
Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Ufficiali al Cattaver, Folder 242, Libro Grande dell’Università degli Ebrei, 52v-57v.*
At wedding celebrations or marriage feasts, it shall not be permitted to invite or call any other people except those who are pesulim le’edut (a transliteration of פסולים לעדות), of the bride or groom, and their fathers and mothers. If the number of these pesulim does not reach 20 (men and women combined), then additional people may be invited up to that total number of 20 (men and women combined), but no more. This excludes the ḥazzan (cantor) and shamash (sexton) of the synagogue of that kahal (community) where the celebration is held, and the shamash of the kehillot (congregations). At berit milah (circumcision) feasts, no more than 15 men and women combined may be invited, whether they are pesulim or not, so long as the total does not exceed 15.
At such meals, no more than four types of dishes may be served, not counting preserved dried meats, tongues, sausages, other savory items, and salads, soups, and dishes made from offal that are customarily included in meals. Each type of food mentioned is to be counted as one dish: poultry, meat, fish, or cheese. If two types of poultry or meat are served (boiled or roasted), they will count as two dishes. The same applies to fish and cheese. If one type of meat, poultry, or fish is prepared in multiple ways, each preparation counts as a separate dish.
Fruit may be served in any quantity and kind, but confections may only include mandorle confetti (sugar-coated almonds), or pine nuts and coriander seeds mixed on a single plate. Alternatively, marzipan may be substituted. In addition to these, one plate of anise confetti may be served. At Spinolz (Shabbat or two before the wedding), vigilia (the evening before circumcision), visita di parto (a woman’s visit to the synagogue after childbirth for the birkat ha-gomel blessing), or other customary gatherings at the chevrot (confraternities), as well as during weddings, circumcisions, or similar occasions, only the following may be served: storti (wafer shells filled with whipped cream), bozzolai (sugared biscuits into a ring or a S shape), fargazzette (small focaccias), and common fruits or confections. No other type of preserved fruit or fancy confections of any kind may be served, with no exceptions.
Likewise, no gift of any preserved confection may be sent on any occasion, except that at weddings, sugared almonds (confetti) may be sent to the pesulim who are permitted to be invited, as explained above. On the third day after a berit milah, marzipan may be sent to those who attended the meal, and no one else. On the Shabbat when a mother (whether of a male or female child) returns to synagogue after childbirth, no gifts may be sent to anyone, except to pesulim as above. Foreigners who come to Venice for weddings, circumcision receptions, or other festive celebrations (allegrezze) may be invited, and they will not be counted among the limited numbers mentioned above. During the three days before Purim, on Purim itself (both days), and for three days after, no gifts may be sent to any person except to parents, children, brothers, sisters, and up to three friends—no more. As for wine, malvasia (a sweet wine), or similar, they may be sent in any quantity desired.
In the case of a death, no woman of any status or rank may go to the cemetery unless she is the deceased’s wife, mother, sister, daughter, or daughter-in-law. Alongside her, three other women may accompany her. If the deceased is a woman and has no close female relatives as described, then three women may go, regardless of their status, whether relatives or friends.
All those invited—whether to joyful or mournful occasions—must ensure that these orders are strictly observed. In particular, those invited to meals must be diligent in ensuring these rules are kept during the celebrations, in terms of the number of invitees and the foods served. Otherwise, they are obliged, under penalty of cherem (excommunication), to leave and not eat at the meal or gathering. Such disobedience would be considered as grave as eating forbidden meat (nevelah u’treifah, נתילה וטריפה).
* David Joshua Malkiel, A Separate Republic: The Mechanics and Dynamics of Venetian Jewish Self-Government, 1607–1624 (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1991), 336-344.
Source 3 Translation
Feliciana Diaz’s Testimonies
Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Inquisitori di Stato, Processi, Folder 92, cc. 16.* The Latin sentences are in Italics.
Testimony from April 12, 1635
And next appeared the woman who is said to have been taken from that house, who is a young woman of about 22 years of age, as could be seen, etc. Dressed in the Florentine style, with a fair and rosy round face, with black hair on her head, of medium height, and speaking Florentine, as could be heard, etc. She was immediately asked about her name, surname, birthplace, parents, age, and residence, and she replied: “My name is Feliciana Diaz, born in Pisa, daughter of the late Odoardo Diaz, a Spanish Christian, and the late Clara Tessera, a Portuguese crypto-Jew, married couple. I am 24 years old. I have been a widow for about a year, and I only had one husband who lived with me for just two years, and his name was Francesco de Biguria, a Spanish Christian merchant in Florence.”
Asked how long she had been in Venice, she replied: “Last night made one month.”
Asked how she came to be in Venice, she replied: “I was summoned by an uncle of mine, a Jew who lives in the ghetto, named Gioseffo Signori, a Portuguese, who lives in the Ghetto Nuovo. His house is located above a canal across from a Christian noblewoman, and this Gioseffo is my maternal uncle.” […]
Asked whether she had presented herself in any way as a Jew or as a Christian, she replied: “As a Jewess, in all the places where I have been.” […] “From the time I started taking the sacraments, I lived as a Christian because I said my Christian prayers and ate all kinds of food except for meat on Fridays and Saturdays.”
Asked whether she ate in the company of Jews or alone, she replied: “I had a room to myself in the house of Giacob Vicino in Ferrara, and I always ate alone there. His servant, Dolce, brought me the food.” Asked what kinds of food were brought to her on Fridays, Saturdays, vigils, and during Lent in Ferrara, she replied: “From Friday and Saturday onwards, I did not eat meat. On other days, I ate all sorts of food and did not observe Lent because among those Jews in Ferrara I did not declare myself to be a Christian.”
[…] Asked how her mother had lived, having earlier said she was a crypto-Jew, that is, whether she lived as a Jew or a Christian, she replied: “Publicly, that is outwardly, as a Christian, out of respect for her husband, my father, who was a Christian.” Asked whether during her time in Venice she had presented herself as a Christian or as a crypto-Jew, that is, whether she lived as a Jew or a Christian, she replied: “In the ghetto, I passed as a Jewess.” Asked whether she had ever said she was a Jew or a Christian, she replied: “I never said I was a Jewess, but since the Jews saw me entering the ghetto and staying with my uncle, they commonly considered me a Jewess.” Asked whether during her time in Venice she had lived as a Jew or a Christian, she replied: “I lived as I did in Ferrara—that is, I said Christian prayers and the prayers of the dead, and I ate meat except on Fridays and Saturdays.” Asked whether she ate during this Lent in Venice in the company of Jews, she replied: “I ate with my uncle’s wife because he was ill.” Asked whether her uncle or his wife knew that she was a Christian, she replied: “They knew I was a Christian, and they knew because he was my mother’s brother and letters frequently passed between Venice and Pisa. He wrote to me as a Christian.” […]
A man whose name she did not know, a glazier in Venice (that is, a window-fixer), had come into my uncle’s house to fix a window, sometime before the Passover and before Christian Easter Sunday. Asked what conversation took place between her and the glazier, she replied: “My uncle’s wife told me to stay in that room to watch over the silverware, which was out in the open. The glazier asked me whether I was married, seeing that my hair was uncut. I told him I had been married in Florence without saying anything else and that I was not a Jewess.”
Testimony from April 17, 1635
When asked whether, during the past Lent (Quadragesima) in Ferrara and also in Venice, she had eaten meat because she was unwell and had been advised by a doctor to do so, she replied: “I ate it because I was among Jews in those places and did not want to offend them, as I was passing myself off as a Jewess. I ate it even though I was healthy.”
When asked whether the Jews in whose house she had stayed had encouraged or forced her to eat meat during that Lent, she replied: “No, gentlemen.” And when told that it did not seem believable that the Jews had not at least encouraged or urged her to eat meat, given that she herself said she did it to avoid displeasing them, she replied: “They did not force or pressure me to eat meat. I did it because I thought it would displease them if they had to make special food just for me.”
When asked whether she believed it was permissible to enter the homes of Jews, particularly in the ghettos, and to live among them, and to in any way declare oneself a Jew, she replied: “I know it was wrong, and I entered [their homes] because at that time I had no sense. If I had, I would not have entered, nor would I have done what I did.” When asked whether she believed it was permissible to eat meat and other foods forbidden to Christians, without any medical necessity but only so as not to offend the Jews, she replied: “I believed it was not right to do so, but I ate it thinking that I would have to live and die with my uncle.”
And when told that this answer contradicted a previous statement in another examination, where she said she had always wished and tried, as much as she could, to escape from the hands of the Jews to live as a Christian, she replied: “My intention was always to leave the Jews and live as a Christian, as I said in the first examination. But if it had not turned out as I hoped— and I was also freed without expecting it——I would have stayed in my uncle’s house and, as a result, lived like the Jews.” When asked what she now intended to do, she replied: “To return to my home.”
When asked whether she had any belongings in Venice in the hands of the Jews, she replied: “My uncle has everything. That is, I have nothing in Venice, but in Florence I entrusted everything, by order of my uncle, to Emanuel Vagez, who is in Florence.”
*Pier Cesare Ioly Zorattini, ed., Processi del S. Uffizio di Venezia contro ebrei e giudaizzanti, Vol. 10 (1633–1637). Storia dell’Ebraismo in Italia. Studi e Testi, 14 (Florence: Olschki, 1992), 99-114.