The Italian Synagogue through the Ages

The Italian Synagogue through the Ages
by Noemi Cassuto

From: "Synagogue without Jews, and the Communities that used and built them", by Rivka and Ben Zion Dorfmann.

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Good taste, delicacy, and a sense of "nothing in excess" are intrinsic to the design and ornamentation that the Jews of Italy invested in their synagogues. The few synagogues that still feature their original decor show these qualities to an astonishing degree. The majesty of the Heikhal and the Tevah, the ornamented and painted ceilings and the sparkling chandeliers, the fine carpentry and carving of the cherry or walnut benches, and the play of the colors - all reflect the influence of the rich and artistic Italian surroundings and echo what is best from the church design traditions of their periods.

Italy merits attention as the one country in Europe that has had uninterrupted Jewish settlement from pre-exilic times. Few of the hundreds of synagogues built there have survived, however. As witnessed by documents and inscriptions from the earlier centuries of the Common Era, no fewer than 13 synagogues in Rome bore historical names: Augustus, Herod the Great, and King Agrippa I. Some had the names of the congregants’ country of origin, and it is likely that there were many others.

No information remains about the physical appearance of these synagogues, with the exception of the first-century synagogue in Ostia. Archeological findings on the site suggest that it was similar in form to the basilica-style synagogues found in contemporary Galilee, commonly with a nave and two aisles, divided by columns. The Ostia synagogue was remodeled in the fourth century. The northern stoa was closed on the west side to create an aedicula, or niche, for storing the Torah scrolls, previously carried to the synagogue whenever they had to be read. At the west end, there was a raised bimah with room for a table or lectern. The Heikhal was placed at the east end and thereby followed the bipolar layout as in Sardis, Asia Minor, and in Gush Halav of the Lower Galilee.
As depicted in the decorations on gilded chalice bases found in Roman catacombs, the Heikhal seems to have been an aedicula between two pillars with classical capitals supporting a triangular pediment. The Heikhal is shown open, the Parokhet pushed aside and the Toral scrolls lie on shelves, edges to the viewer. There is a Byzantine-era synagogue of the fourth to sixth century at the "way-station" in Bova Marina, near Reggio di Calabria. This is a basilica-style building with a mosaic floor that resembles the Byzantine synagogues of Galilee in every way. These two are the only ancient Italian synagogue that have survived.

There is no known structural or architectural evidence of synagogues from the end of the classical period through the thirteen century. Until the expulsion from Spain and southern Italy at the end of the fifteenth century, most Italian Jews lived in Rome and the south, including Sicily. Almost every small town of southern Italy and Sicily has a street named "della Sinagoga" or "della Scuola" or "Judecca", or something that otherwise refers to the existence of the Jews in, even though there have been no Jews present since the late fifteen or early sixteen century. In Trani, Apulia, two surviving synagogues were converted into churches. One of them, Santa Maria Scuola Nuova, is long and narrow, 49 by 21 feet, with a 36-foot-high barrel vault and what may have been a slightly raised women’s gallery at the western end. This was typical of Gothic synagogues throughout Europe, such as the Pinkas synagogue in Prague. The Scuola Nuova had a Gothic Heikhal area reached by seven steps at the eastern end. The Heikhal had a central column that formed two separate arched openings.

The other synagogue/church, Sant’Anna, evidently drew its architectural inspiration from the Mediterranean basin. The main hall-almost square, 38 by 40 feet, and Byzantine in style- was enclosed by four huge arches that supported a 26 foot-high dome. In the western church, there was a semicircular niche covered by a half-dome that may have held the Tevah and the reader’s desk.

The Heikhal may have stood at the east end under the round window. If this interpretation of the design of Sant’Anna is correct, it reveals an early bipolar synagogue-a harbinger of later developments.

At the end of the fifteenth and start of the sixteenth century, the Jews were expelled from Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples, then under Spanish control. Some of them migrated to North Africa or Ottoman Lands, and others to northern Italy. It was not long before the first ghettos in history appeared-in Venice in 1516 and in Rome in 1555. Later synagogues were accordingly inside the ghettos.

Ghetto synagogues were influenced by two opposing tendencies. The first was the artistic and architectural inspiration of the nearby churches, whose designers were also responsible for the plans and details of the synagogues. The second was the desire to restrain Christian influences and to create a unique synagogue architecture that would distinguish Jewish houses of prayer. In any event, the Jews of Italy seem to have been so thoroughly involved in the artistic milieu that surrounded them that the newly arrived Jews from the Iberian peninsula and Ashkenazic lands left only a feeble imprint on synagogue design in Italy.

On the inside, Italian synagogues of this period were elegant Renassaince and Baroque salons, resembling the reception rooms of the Palazzi of the nobility. Externally , however, the synagogues were simple severe structures because of the local restriction and the Jewish reluctance to attract attention in the alien surroundings. The layout of the interior, but not the ornamentation, may have been influenced by Jewish immigrants from other countries. In both Venice and Rome, Iberian Jews built bipolar synagogues, featuring an apse, or a separate elevated space in the rear, comparable to the stage of a theater, extending into the square main sanctuary. Nevertheless, it is hard to say whether this design-bimah at the western end, Heikhal on the eastern wall-resulted from Italian influence as seen in Ostia and Trani, or was brought by Jews from the Iberian peninsula. One such example is the small Isaac benEphraim Mehab synagogue in Cordoba dating from 1314. The bipolar layout could, perhaps, derive from an ancient origin in Eretz Israel.
A bimah at the rear of the synagogue is a feature of north African synagogues also, although without the special apse. Moreover, the apse in the Cordoba synagogue is tiny. It seeems plausible that had the bimah been located at the rear, it would not have been set into such a shallow niche. This suggest that a bimah recessed into its own apse could be a hallmark of Italian synagogue design. Four of the five synagogues in Venice have such a lay-out.

The Venice synagogue that did not have a bimah recessed into an apse was the sixteenth century Great Ashkenazic synagogue, Scuola Grande Tedesca, where the bimah was originally in the center and was moved to the rear in the eighteenth century.

The bipolar design dominated synagogue architecture in most parts of Italy, except for Piedmont. This arrangement can be seen across the northeastern and central portion of the peninsula, in Venice, Conegliano and Vittorio Veneto;

in Pesaro, Ancona, Senigallia and Rome. Here the Heikhal and bimah are located opposite each other on the short east and west walls. A variation of this design occurs in the Spanish and Italian synagogues

in Padua, in the Scuola Talmud Torah in Venice, in the Scuola Norzi in Mantua, and elsewhere. In these buildings, an elongated rectangular design has the Heikhal and bimah located opposite each other in the center of the two long walls, so they are relatively close together, creating a "magic" focus in the center.

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