This is an intellectual biography of the Italian Jewish writer and politician David Levi (1816-1898). Freemasonry, Saint-Simonianism, and the Enlightenment are his vessels for a new, secular, interpretation of Jewish identity and for innovative views on Judaism’s relation with modernity.

In recent years there has been a lively debate about the early Enoch literature and its place in Judaism. This volume is intended to represent that debate, by juxtaposing pairs of articles on several key issues: the textual evidence, the relationship to the Torah, the calendar, the relation to wisdom, the relation to the temple, the sociological setting and the relation to the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is not the intention of the editors to impose a consensus, but rather to stimulate discussion by bringing together divergent viewpoints. The book should be a useful textbook not only on the Enoch literature and apocalypticism, but more generally on Second Temple Judaism.

The book represents the largest treasure trove of fragments of medieval Hebrew manuscripts found in book-bindings in Italian libraries and archives. It presents a complete bibliography and several articles by the leading scholars in the field bringing to light a large number of new discoveries.

Maimonideanism, the intellectual culture inspired by Maimonides’ writings, has received much recent attention. Yet a central aspect of Maimonideanism has been overlooked: the formal reception of the Guide of the Perplexed through commentary. In Rewriting Maimonides, Igor H. De Souza offers a comprehensive analysis of six early philosophical commentaries, written in Italy, Spain, and France, by some of Maimonides’ most loyal followers. The early commentaries represent the most creative period of exegesis of the Guide. De Souza’s analysis dispels the notion that the tradition of commentary on the Guide is monolithic. Rather, De Souza’s study illuminates how each commentator offers distinctive readings. Challenging the hierarchy of text and commentary, Rewriting Maimonides studies commentaries on the Guide as texts in their own right. De Souza approaches the form of commentary as a multifaceted cultural practice. Employing historical, philosophical, and literary methods, this publication fills a lacuna in the history of the Guide through a global perspective on commentary.

The Jewish population of early modern Italy was characterised by its inner diversity, which found its expression in the coexistence of various linguistic, cultural and liturgical traditions, as well as social and economic patterns. The contributions in this volume aim to explore crucial questions concerning the self-perception and identity of early modern Italian Jews from new perspectives and angles.