DREAMING IN THE BIBLE: A TEXTUAL AND VISUAL ITINERARY
Curator: Fabrizio Lelli
Date: September 22, 2019 - October 31, 2019
Place: Jewish Museum Lecce
On the Day of Jewish Culture and in conjunction with the exhibition of Emanuele Luzzati’s graphic works Life is a fairy tale, inaugurated last June, the Jewish Museum Lecce organizes an exhibition of texts and paintings dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries. This initiative, which emphasizes the role of the Bible and its versions for the cultural evolution of modern Italy, was originated from the theme chosen this year for the European Day of Jewish Culture: the dream.
The works on display are the result of a widespread study through public and private collections of Salento. The museum itinerary highlights the fact that the direct traces of Jewish culture, which played an extremely significant role in the area until the beginning of the 16th century, had totally disappeared. The removal of this essential part of the local society at the end of the Middle Ages, after the expulsion of Jewish communities from Southern Italy in the mid-sixteenth century, almost ironically coincided with the Renaissance and the strong interest of Christianity in the Jewish culture.
The Catholic Church welcomed the study of the languages of the Scripture within colleges and seminaries also to counter the spirit of the Reformation, which founded many of its ideas on a philological reading of the Bible. Religious congregations and scholars added to their collections printed copies of biblical texts published in various languages.
On display, there are printed works and a small but suggestive selection of biblical paintings, kindly granted by the collector Luciano Treggiari from Lecce.
