Descrizione

L’autore, un impiegato livornese dell’Ottocento, scrisse questo poema in 4550 versi distribuiti in 21 canti nella seconda metà del XIX secolo, e se lo fece stampare dalla tipografia di Israel Costa in soli 20 esemplari nel gennaio del 1886.
La stampa ridottissima ne fece ben presto un opus deperditum nella cui ricerca si impegnarono in diversi livornesi, ebrei e non, finché un caso fortuito consentì a Pardo Fornaciari di entrar in possesso di una copia, forse l’ultima rimasta.L’opera è una miniera di fatti grandi e piccini, quella che altrove si sarebbe chiamata la memoria del ghetto: uno strumento di formidabile documentazione sulla vita quotidiana e, soprattutto, sulla mentalità degli Ebrei di Livorno, cioè di una comunità di recente formazione (Livorno è città dal 1606) ma ricca di riferimenti narrativi testimoni di grande vitalità.
Se la lingua base dell’opera è l’italiano letterario, frequenti sono le incursioni nell’ebraico, nel giudeospagnolo e nel bagitto. Se quest’ultimo, il vernacolo del popolino ebraico livornese, non è utilizzato, grazie alla costellazione delle forme mentali, al gioco delle preterizioni e delle antifrasi, appare chiaro che Ascoli non scrive, ma pensa in bagitto.

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L’auteur, un comptable juif livournais du XIXe siècle, a publié ce poème (4550 vers, répartis en 21 chants) chez la maison d’édition d’Israël Costa en seulement 20 exemplaires, au mois de Janvier 1886. À cause de ce faible tirage ce volume est vite devenu un ouvrage perdu qu’on a cherché longtemps, jusqu’à ce qu’un hasard heureux en a remis dans les mains de Pardo Fornaciari une copie, peut-être la dernière.

Cet œuvre est riche de faits divers, menus ou importants, qu’on pourrait vous appeler la mémoire du ghetto: un formidable instrument d’information sur la vie quotidienne et surtout sur l’esprit des Juifs de Livourne, une communauté récente (Livourne est une ville depuis 1606), mais riche en témoiganges d’une grande vitalité.
Si la langue de base est l’italien littéraire, les incursions sont fréquentes dans le hébreux, le djudezmo des sephardis, et finalment le bagitto (l’argot des juifs livournais): grâce au jeu des allusions, des
tournures de phrases et des antiphrases, il est clair que si l’auteur n’ecrit pas en bagitto pourtant il pense en bagitto, ce qui end ce texte un témoignage unique de l’histoire de tros siècles d’une vive et importante communeauté de la Diaspora.

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The author, a 1800’s office worker, wrote this poem in 4550 verses distributed in 21 cantos, in the second half the nineteenth century, and had it printed in only 20 copies in January 1886, by Israel Costa’s printing house. Such little printing made it an opus deperditum pretty soon; many people from Livorno, Jewish and not Jewish, got involved in the quest and, as luck would have it, Pardo Fornaciari took possession of one of the copies, maybe the last one. The work is a treasure house of history and stories, what might be called the memory of the ghetto: an incredible device to document everyday life and, most of all, the Jewish mentality in Livorno, the mentality of a community which is very recent (Livorno has been a city since 1606), but nonetheless very rich in facts and stories that show an incredible vitality.
The main language of this work is literary Italian, but Hebrew, Judezmo and Bagitto are often used as well. The latter, the vernacular spoken by the Jewish in Livorno, is not used here to write but, because of the scattering of mental forms and the game of preterition and antiphrasis, it is clear that Ascoli employs it to think.
The volume, composed of two separate parts (“The Spanish” and “The Others”), collects weird anecdotes and too-too characters, like Giocha, a proper Jewish Bertoldo who sells his whole house but keeps a nail, on which he hangs anything, or Diocciaglande, who gets married on August 15 wearing the only decent piece of clothing he is able to find, a coat, or rabbi Abraham Castello, who mocks a Spanish monk who thinks Jewish adore a donkey…
The text contains also a list of the Jewish in Livorno who took part in Risorgimento, it enumerates no fewer than 12 minor templets that were in Livorno, apart from the synagogue, and ends with a list of Jewish families surnames which, one way or another, were in the Tuscan city, many of them leaving an evidence of themselves only in Ascoli’s poem.
The volume makes use of notes which completely allow Italian readers to understand the narrative complexity on linguistic, historical and ideological levels. In addition, along with an introduction and some Appendix, as an apparatus for the text, Pardo Fornaciari, the editor, put some maps and illustrations that he gathered at the historical archive of Livorno, which help to identify the places, as they are met throughout the narration, in the city of today.
Therefore, the volume represents a tribute to memory and a constitutive tool to the identity of the city; at the same time, it is a witty literary witness of the cultural vitality in the Sephardic colony (namely Spanish-Judean origins) of Livorno, whose richness doesn’t lack anything in comparison with Ashkenazic communities (Yiddish speaking from Central Eastern Europe) as they are depicted by Buber and Singer.