Beschreibung:

HEBREW MANUSCRIPT. Esther Scroll. Engraved Megillat Esther by Salom Italia. Amsterdam, ca. 1647. Printed in black ink on vellum, 9 membranes, 298 mm. high, 6535 mm. long. 33 columns, (103 x 87 mm.) of 14 lines. Later ivory cylindrical case, topped by small finial, with removable ends. Opening section of the scroll darkened and torn. Originally backed with silk. DECORATION Salom Italia, the artist who designed this magnificent border, played a highly important role in the history of Esther scroll decoration. Born in Lisbon, Portugal, he received his artistic training in Italy (Mantua, and perhaps the Venetian States). After settling in Amsterdam in 1641, he designed a number of closely-related engraved Esther scroll borders that attained great popularity -- a popularity well-attested by the influence they exerted over European Esther scroll design, both in Italia's own time and in the centuries that followed. This extremely rare scroll is adorned with Salom Italia's largest known engraved megillah border. Although it shares many elements of its design with the border shown in the following lot, it is more than twice that scroll's height, and contains several distinct iconographic features. The border commences with a monumental double cartouche topped by a lavishly-plumed knight's helmet, supported by two standing, nude putti bearing trumpets. While the upper cartouche remains empty, the lower frames the benedictions recited before the scroll's reading. Italia frames his text panels with a series of 33 ornate portals, surmounted by broken pediments with masks and central floral vases. Female figures carrying palm branches recline atop the arches. A cast of 14 full-length figures -- characters from the Purim narrative -- stand in niches between the portals. Beneath the pedestals on which they stand are framed landscape scenes. Another series of land- and townscapes, which include such characteristically Dutch elements as windmills and seaports, appear within ornate cartouches set in the portals, above each text column. Directly beneath each text column is a series of 15 narrative vignettes, visually recording the events of the Purim story. Italia's use of these decorative and narrative elements was both innovative and influential: the framing of text panels by monumental archways designed, perhaps, to allude to triumphal archays (thus suggesting the triumph of the Persian Jews over their enemies or the triumphal procession of Mordecai through the streets of Shushan), the positioning of full-length figures between the text columns, and the placement of land- and townscape scenes, as well as narrative vignettes, along the upper and/or lower borders of the scroll, all became important features of decorated European Esther scrolls. Because the entire border was printed from four distinct engraved plates (one per membrane) several were repeated to form the lengthy scroll. According to M. Narkiss, the artist's signature never appears on this border type. VERY RARE. Not in the extensive Esther scroll collections of JTS or the Jewish Museum, NY. Literature M. Narkiss. "The Oeuvre of the Jewish Engraver Salom Italia (1619-1655?)," Tarbiz 24, 5, 1957, cf. fig. 11.