Mediterranean Enlightenment: Livornese Jews, Tuscan Culture, and Eighteenth-Century Reform
Mediterranean Enlightenment: Livornese Jews, Tuscan Culture, and Eighteenth-Century Reform
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Abstract
This book offers a new take on the engagement of Jews with outside culture and the interplay of the Jewish community with the reforming state through a study of the Jews (nazione ebrea) of eighteenth-century Livorno, a bustling free port in Tuscany, an Italian state known for its far-reaching reforms inspired by Enlightenment principles. Based on sources both internal and external to the community, it combines cultural analysis with a study of economic policies and political developments, and integrates lines of inquiry informed by Italian and Jewish historiography. The first few chapters trace the participation in Tuscan culture, awareness of Enlightenment thought, and scientific reformist aspirations of a number of Livornese Jewish scholars, and it argues that the study of the natural sciences, university study, and medical research enabled educated Livornese Jews to engage with Enlightenment values and ideals. The book then concentrates on Jewish reactions to Tuscan reforms that affected the community's economic and political life. On the one hand, the Jewish leadership responded actively and selectively to these reforming efforts; on the other hand, ambivalent individual responses to the state's endeavors were informed by the pursuit of utilitarian interests that bypassed the Jewish authorities. Finally, by showing that the generous privileges enjoyed by the nazione ebrea had conservative rather than liberalizing effects in the long run, the book offers a critique of the oft-repeated claim that Jewish economic utility fostered smooth processes of integration.
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Front Matter
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Introduction
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One The Nazione Ebrea and the Tuscan State A Fruitful Symbiosis
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Two Balancing Acts The Unlikely Cultural Mediations of Joseph Attias
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Three
In Praise of Good Taste Galilean Science, Critical Spirit, and Hebraic Studies
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Four Entering the Medical Republic Jewish Physicians and the Pursuit of the Public Good
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Five Pious Care and Devotional Literature at the Time of Enlightenment Reform
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Six Coffee and Gambling Jewish Recreation and “National” Separation
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Seven Commerce and Jewish Culture The Business of Hebrew Publishing
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Eight Economic Utility and Political Reforms The “Jewish Question” in Livorno
- Conclusion Enlightenment and Emancipation:Privilege and Its Discontents
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End Matter
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