2018 Domestic, Religious and Public: The Use of Space by Jewish Women in Early Modern Italy
Mirian (daughter of the late Abram Israel Mora) and Rachel (daughter of the late Raffael De Silva and widow of Isach Oliver), the authors of the two testaments published here for the first time, lived in the Venetian ghetto since about the 1630s-1640s. While the former was a Levantine Jew, the latter was a Ponentine.1 In a sense, both belonged to the same family and household, the De Silvas, who lived in the ghetto vecchio: Mirian was a servant while Rachel a matron. When Mirian and Rachel each became aware of their extreme illnesses—we do not know their respective ages—they decided to dictate their wills in 1666 and 1679, respectively, and to bequeath their patrimonies (modest and rich) mainly to the members of the De Silva family. Both testaments introduce us into different and yet, at the same time, complementary ways Jewish women interacted with spatial contexts within the domestic, religious, and public spheres in early modern Venice.