Marriage Contract

The custom of decorating the marriage contract, or ketubbah, was first practiced in the Middle East, most likely as a result of the public nature of the wedding ceremony, which included the reading aloud of the contract and the display of the dowry. These customs were also followed in pre-Expulsion Spain and were later observed in Italy by Sephardic exiles, The practice of commissioning decorated ketubbot flourished in Italy, probably because the public reading of the contract during the marriage ceremony became popular in the sixteenth century and because Italians had a tradition of decorated documents. Since Jews had been banned from the south of Italy by 1541-a law that remained in force for over three centuries-Italian contracts stem predominantly from the northern regions, with a few examples from central Italy.

In Italy, ketubbot were commissioned by all Jews, including Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Levantine (from the eastern Mediterranean), and Italian- descendants of the old Roman community. Written on parchment, they usually featured lavish decoration, inspired by both Jewish and Christian art. For instance, the use of an archway to frame the text, as seen in this fine example from Vercelli, can be traced to the title pages of Hebrew printed books- northern Italy was a main center of Hebrew printing-but may also be linked to local architecture or sculpture. Figurative representation was also common in Italian ketubbot, although for centuries, most Jews had shied away from it because of their stern interpretation of the biblical prohibition against graven images. The inclusion of human figures, some allegorical and others portraying biblical or genre scenes, reflects a high degree of acculturation.

Other popular motifs in decorated Italian ketubbot include the signs of the zodiac and, as seen here, the emblems of the two families. The adoption of unofficial coats of arms was widespread among wealthy Italian Jews, in imitation of the practices of the local nobility Most ketubbot include a single shield, containing the insignia for both families, or just that of the groom, whose family usually commissioned the contract because he was obligated to furnish the bride-Eleonora- with a ketubboh. This example, however, features two separate emblems, possibly because the bride belonged to a family of prominent scholars, including Benjamin Segrè of Vercelli, who might have been her father. The coat of arms for the Segre family-a rampant lion facing right with a Star of David-is featured at the center of the lower border. No less distinguished was the Treves family, to which the groom-Mordecai, son of Azriel Treves- belonged. Their emblem-a rampant lion to the right of an apple tree-appears above the text at center, a prominent location, for the groom's family likely commissioned the document.

Issued in Vercelli, this ketubbah differs from other extant examples from the same Piedmontese city, characterized by an arcuated shape at bottom and a floral border. Although some Italian contracts depict the bride and groom, very few represent the wedding party-shown here in lavish costumes and hairdos-or the attendant musicians. Flirtatious interactions between various couples add a picaresque note, including a distinguished man with a cane peering through his spyglass at a lady at a window, at the upper right. A later example from Pesaro, dated 1853, at the Israel Museum ('79/339), also features a gathering of musicians and elegantly dressed couples, but the figures there were cut out from printed sources, painted, and pasted onto the parchment, instead of finely rendered, as seen here. The extravagance of examples such as this one might have prompted Italian rabbis to repeatedly enact laws limiting the amount of money that could be spent on the decoration of a marriage contract.

The secular nature of this ketubboh's decorative program, with figures of a musician and a young man elegantly dressed (perhaps a rendering of the groom?) in the niches often reserved for depictions of Moses and Aaron, indicates that it might have been the work of a Christian artist. Many other Italian examples, however, display a close relationship between text and image, with depictions of biblical scenes featuring heroes whose names were borne by the groom, the bride, or their fathers, with extensive use of Hebrew texts, attesting that they were decorated either by Jewish artists or by Christian makers under the strong guidance of their Jewish patrons.