In 1540, a group of silk weavers from the city of Bologna, who called themselves “the partners” (ha-shutafim), printed a two-volume compendium of the Jewish liturgy for the yearly worship cycle. This maḥzor (prayer book) included both a commentary on the liturgy by R. Yohanan b. Joseph Treves, entitled Kimha d’avishuna (Flour Milled from Roasted Grain), and a commentary on Tractate Avot of the Mishnah (an oft-quoted anthology of rabbinic wisdom) by R. Obadiah b. Jacob Sforno. This volume subsequently became the standard prayer book used by those Jews who traced their ancestry to Italy, and Rome in particular (in contrast to those in Italy, for example, who traced their lineage to Spain or Germany). The maḥzor was the last of nine titles produced by the painters and it differs from their earlier works in both the monumentality of its aspiration—to establish, once and for all, the proper text of the Italian-Jewish synagogue service—and its physical size. It is also the only title of the nine to list the partners by name. This paper uses the partners’ maḥzor as a basis for considering the way the printed liturgy was a locus of self-fashioning for Italian Jews in the early modern period.

A light catered Kosher lunch will be provided.