This beautiful siddur (prayer book), following the Roman rite, was written by the great Italian scribe, Abraham Farissol (ca. 1451- ca. 1525). Farissol performed many responsibilities in the Jewish communities of northern Italy, but he was particularly sought after as a scribe. This siddur is distinguished by Farissol’s magnificent writing, on fine parchment.  

Farissol’s style is clear and elegant, following forms that are easier to read and write than older scribal writing. This style is clearly influenced by the new “humanistic script,” invented in the early 15th century and used by Christian scribes for the writing of Latin. 

On this still beautiful page, we witness the ravages of time as well as intentional destruction. While the Jewish book owners living in Italy did not seem to have concerns about the images in their manuscripts, one of the subsequent owners saw fit to scrape off the paint in three of the roundels on this folio effacing the images almost completely.  In Christian manuscript of this period - these roundels would normally have been decorated with images of animals or birds set against a blue and green background evoking the sky and the earth. On this folio, in the roundel in the right margin, the remaining blue and green pigments are still evident. It is tantalizing to speculate about what images these roundels might have featured that caused a later owner to remove them from the page.