Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft

Abstract:

The article discusses an unpublished early modern Hebrew manuscript penned by the Italian Jewish physician Avraham Joel Conegliano (1665-1745) and today preserved at the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana in Amsterdam. Among its pages, the book conceals several floral remains and even a desiccated frog, an unprecedented finding in the research fields of both Jewish magic and Hebrew manuscripts. This article offers an overview of the manuscript and its contents and presents relevant biographical information on the author, highlighting the cultural and intellectual milieu in which Jewish physicians were trained, operated and transmitted their knowledge in Northern Italy at the end of the seventeenth-century.