An Important Decorated Ketubbah, Florence: 1699

Ink on parchment 

(24 3/4 x 18 3/4 in.; 629 x 476 mm). Overall ground of shell gold, upper margin scalloped with ribbon text border colored with pale green wash, concentric circles of text alternating in green and gold grounds, framing uncolored center text panel, the whole surrounded by a rectangular text border with green ground; some cockling, ink flaked and faded in places, gold rubbed, green grounds a bit faded. Mounted, glazed, and framed; not examined out of frame.



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THE EARLIEST DECORATED KETUBBAH FROM FLORENCE

Celebrating the wedding of Joshua, son of Moses Prato to Seda, daughter of Joshua Balanes on Wednesday 3, Adar Bet , 5459 (= March  4, 1699)

The seventeenth century witnessed the rise of ketubbah decoration in cities throughout Italy, and the present document is the earliest known example of a decorated marriage contract from the city of Florence. Nearly the entire surface of the parchment is embellished with shell gold and a pale green wash; concentric circles inscribed with biblical verses enframe the text.

It was customary in ketubbahs from other Italian cities such as Venice and Padua, to present an image of Jerusalem above the text. This is a direct allusion to the biblical verse which mandates that one should "set Jerusalem above my chiefest joy" (Psalms 137:6). In this ketubbah, the same result is achieved by the insertion of the word "Jerusalem," boldly written in monumental Ashkenazic calligraphy, under the elegantly scalloped upper border.