Judaism, in Color, in Italy

THE JERUSALEM POST
By Rossella Tercatin

THE COLORS of Judaism in Italy’ – in its splendor in Florence, in the Galleria degli Uffizi’s Aula Magliabechiana wing – is due to run until October 27.

During the spring of 1749 in Rome, a young Roman Jew, Anna Del Monte, was kidnapped by papal soldiers and locked up in the House of Catechumens, a Catholic institution aimed at converting Jews to Christianity. Anna, however, resisted the attempts to persuade her and after 13 days she was allowed to return to her family in the ghetto. A few years later, in celebration of Anna’s miraculous return, her father, Baruch Del Monte, donated to their synagogue a finely embroidered mappa, a rectangular piece of fabric designed to protect a Torah scroll. The showcase marks the first time in the four centuries of history of the iconic Uffizi that an exhibition is devoted to a Jewish topic, as Eike Schmidt, the director of the Uffizi, explained in a phone conversation with the Magazine. [More]