The exhibition deals with a very particular period of the cultural history of the Peninsula, revealing a completely original aspect, such as the presence of the Jews and the fruitful cultural dialogue with the majority Christian culture.
Pictorial works such as the Holy Family and the family of the Baptist (1504-1506) by Andrea Mantegna, the Birth of the Virgin (1502-1507) by Vittore Carpaccio and the Dispute of Jesus with the Doctors of the Temple (1519-1525) by Ludovico Mazzolino, Elia e Eliseo del Sassetta, where surprisingly significant writings in Hebrew appear. Illuminated Hebrew manuscripts, of Renaissance style and richness, such as Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed (1349), purchased by the Italian State less than a year ago. Or the oldest wooden Holy Ark in Italy, which has never returned from Paris before, or the Torah Scroll from Biella, a very ancient parchment from the Hebrew Bible, still used today in the synagogue liturgy.
In the Renaissance the Jews were present, active and enterprising. In Florence, Ferrara, Mantua, Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Naples, Palermo and Rome. In alternating periods they were well received, with a non-secondary role of lenders, doctors, merchants, and in other periods, they were the object of prejudice.
MEIS recounts this comparison for the first time, thanks to the engaging scenography conceived by the designers of the GTRF studio in Brescia. Reconstructing this interweaving of reciprocal experiments means recognizing the debt of Italian culture to Judaism and exploring the Jewish presuppositions of Renaissance civilization. And it means admitting that this interpenetration has not always been synonymous with harmony, nor with trauma-free acceptance, but has led to intolerance, contradictions, social exclusion and violence against the Jewish group, engaged in the difficult defense of its own specificity.
And so that the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah in Ferrara mark an important moment in its offer to the general public. Both because the exhibition constitutes a further chapter of the tale of Italian Judaism (after the one on the first thousand years, now transformed into the first part of the permanent itinerary), and because this new section touches the heart of the MEIS mission: to bear witness to the complex but possible, sometimes fruitful, though not without shadows, dialogue between minority and majority. A valuable lesson that Italy collects from its history to offer it to the present, to an increasingly multicultural Europe called to question its roots.
