A civic-run Jewish museum has opened in Fondi, a town in Italy’s Lazio region, near the coast halfway between Rome and Naples, where Jews lived from ancient Roman times until their expulsion half a millennium ago. It was the second Jewish museum to open in southern Italy recently — a Jewish museum opened in Lecce in May.
The Jewish Medieval Museum of Fondi formally opened July 17 in a building (known as the “Haunted House”) that is believed to have been the site of the synagogue in the medieval Jewish quarter, or Giudea.
The museum is administered by the Monti Ausoni Regional Nature Park and Lake Fondi, and it was financed by EU, state, regional, and other public funding through a project called the Completion of the Medieval Jewish Museum.
The aim of the museum, the catalogue states, “isn’t just to recover and promote an important chapter in the history of Fondi, but also to shed some light on a community that made an important contribution to the city’s economic and cultural growth.” Jews in Fondi were (among other things) involved in the textile trade, as merchants as well as weavers and dyers.
Here is the catalogue’s description of the general plan of the museum, whose exhibits were curated by Roberto Lucifero, director of an arts center in Rome called the Capella Orsini Study Center.
The Museum was devised as a cohesive space, even though the rooms in the original synagogue were most likely unconnected. Five rooms have been set up, spanning two floors, adorned with precious fabrics and fine wood furniture, some of which have been inlaid by hand, drawing inspiration from ancient Assyro-Babylonian stylistic features and from local architecture. This custom of lining walls with carved wood was used in many countries, and not only those with cold climates. Given the lack of genuine artefacts dating back to the Late Middle Ages, the Museum has used and partly adapted objects that have preserved their traditional functions over time. These objects come from Morocco, India, Syria, Uzbekistan and Spain, as well as others recovered from small rural areas in Italy. Dr. Roberto Lucifero found it possible to accurately restore these rooms with the help of Medieval manuscripts and illustrated Jewish codices. He followed these documents in a symbolic way, not interested in making an exact replica of the pre-existing building but rather in adhering to an evocative anthropological vision of anastylosis.
Among other things the exhibits include a reconstruction of the interior of a 15th century synagogue.
Download the Museum Catalogue (in English and Italian)
Listen to an audio guide to the museum (in Italian, but other languages may come)
2 comments on “Italy: another new Jewish museum opens (in Fondi)”
Just the opposite in Italy.
A fine water color drawing!
That makes the beginning of Sjabath a happy one.
gut sjabbes!
What great information!