Mediterranean Enlightenment: Livornese Jews, Tuscan Culture, and Eighteenth-Century Reform by Bregoli Francesca

Author:Bregoli, Francesca [Bregoli, Francesca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2014-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Seven

Commerce and Jewish Culture

The Business of Hebrew Publishing

By turning to the history of Hebrew printing in Livorno, we continue investigating the changes in the relationship between the Livornese Jewish community and authorities as enlightened reformist politics took hold in Tuscany. The Tuscan government’s belief in the nazione ebrea’s usefulness did not diminish after the house of Lorraine replaced the Medici dynasty in 1737. Nonetheless, the special status of the port city was critically reconsidered.1 At this delicate dynastic passage, the new administration came to associate the alterity of Livorno and its special privileges with negative connotations, such as the decline of the Medici house in its final years, its administrative shortcomings, and the alleged failure of its mercantilist aspirations.2 Although the freedoms and privileges granted to the nazione ebrea were routinely reaffirmed, some of the commercial reforms pursued by the new rulers in Livorno had a significant impact, not only on the life of the Livornese community, but on Jewish culture more generally. One of the areas in which this is most visible is the Hebrew book business.3

Tuscan economic policies, which had promoted Jewish resettlement under the Medici house, also affected the production and distribution of Jewish knowledge. Both the Medici and the Lorraine authorities were directly involved in fostering Hebrew printing shops. The establishment and growth of Hebrew printing in Livorno depended on the relationships, both real and imagined, between state, municipal, and ecclesiastical authorities, printers, and Jewish leaders, which were articulated in a system of exclusive licenses (privative), informal appeals, and legal strategies. The authorities’ willingness to support these efforts stemmed from the utilitarian wish to further the productivity of the Tuscan Jewish settlement. They hoped for the development of a niche market, which, despite its small size in relation to the scope of Livornese trade, would benefit the local Jewish community and in turn the economy of the entire state. Indeed, although the beginnings of Livornese printing are far more complex than previously believed, this center of publishing and distribution became well known among Sephardi Jews living in the entire Mediterranean, and as far away as Cochin in India. Remarkably, unlike most other early modern Italian states, where Jews were not allowed to own and manage Hebrew printing businesses but only to serve as editors or compositors, in Livorno it was primarily Jewish printers who ran this business.

During the Medici years, Livornese Hebrew printing (which only flourished between 1650 and 1657) was subject to the kind of protectionism that the central Tuscan authorities enforced in other areas of commerce. The same approach informed the policies relative to Hebrew publishing promoted by Francis Stephen. But when Peter Leopold began promoting the breakdown of corporatist and protectionist interests in the late 1760s, including the abolition of industrial monopolies, and pushed more aggressively for a free-market economy, the field of Hebrew printing came under scrutiny and its licensing system was overhauled.

Until 1767, Hebrew publishing in Tuscany was regulated by a strict policy that allowed only one Hebrew publisher at a time to be active for a period of ten years.

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