An Early Modern Hebrew Book of Secrets from the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana

The article discusses an unpublished early modern Hebrew manuscript
of miscellaneous content written by the Italian Jewish physician Avraham Joel Conegliano
(1665-1745). After a brief introduction to the codex and its contents, the
article focuses on the collection of practical and medico-magical recipes contained
in the manuscript, which is considered an example of Hebrew books of secrets, a
literary genre that has been almost completely overlooked in the field of Jewish
studies. In the first part, the article presents an overview of the books of secrets that
flourished in Italy and Europe during the Renaissance, and proposes the hypothesis
that secreta literature in Hebrew developed, circulated and was actively used within
Jewish culture during the medieval and early modern periods, albeit with significant
differences. In the second part, the article offers a preliminary analysis of Conegliano's
anthology of secrets, as well as a commented edition and English translation of
selected textual excerpts from it.