The Man Riding a Lion

The study of Sabbatianism—the earth-shattering messianic movement that revolved around Sabbatai Zevi (1626-76) and persisted in various guises well into the 19th century—has been a driving force in Jewish studies over the last century. It is endlessly fascinating, with mysticism, prophecy, duplicitousness, heresy, and sexual promiscuity integral to its character. The stories include: a manic-depressive hero who dressed a fish as a baby and married a Torah scroll; controversies over heavenly voices and amulets that sparked accusations and distrust within rabbinates; and conversions to Islam and Catholicism as means to uproot holy sparks.

The scholar Gershom Scholem utilized this surprising world of Sabbatianism to uncover fascinating components of the Jewish past in a bid to make sense of the apparent rift between modernity and tradition. He developed influential theories about the movement, particularly its origins and principal players, that continue to serve as models for subsequent scholarship. Yet, as with all work, scholars have shown ever more complicated and nuanced pieces making up the Sabbatian whole. Scholars like Joseph Dan, Yehuda Liebes, Moshe Idel, Elliot Wolfson, Ada Rapoport-Albert, Paweł Maciejko, and so many others have offered correctives to Scholem’s ideas and opened up completely new avenues. However, there is at least one significant theory from Scholem that has remained untouched—his narrative regarding the opening months of the movement, what he termed the “coronation” of Sabbatai Zevi.

This essay offers a new perspective on Sabbatai Zevi’s messianic and meteoric rise, based on sources long hiding in plain sight. Tying together Kabbalah, printing, bibliography, art history, and reception history, it presents a meandering story that begins with a fascinating image, winds through the nature of engraving and the meaning of printed dating mechanisms, and ends with an exploration of Italian kabbalists and their activities. At the core of it all we find one man, Venturin ben David, a printer and member of Jewish secondary elites responsible for promulgating the vision of influential thinkers to a broad Jewish public. It is to Venturin that we will turn to understand how to rethink and reimagine the early moments of the messianic Sabbatian movement, as well as messianism in general and the potential power of an individual printer.

In the summer of 1665, the press of Domenego Vedelago, a Christian printer of Hebrew texts in Venice, issued three books in rapid succession. The chosen titles were not unusual, nor did they reflect a particular printing program. Hebrew printing in La Serenissima at that time appeared in a truncated form of its former glory. It had been over a century since the bustling and innovative years of presses belonging to Bomberg, Giustiniani, and Bragadini, none of them Jewish but all supporting large, frequent, and thorough publishing ventures. Still, Vedelago’s 1665 imprints symbolized the continued importance that Venetian Jewry retained in linking Jews across the Mediterranean. Printed material in northern Italy continued to make its way to Jewish communities north of the Alps, east to the Ottoman Empire, and south to North Africa. More importantly, these books reflected long-standing messianic hopes, the spread of kabbalistic spirit to masses of Jews otherwise incapable of studying esoteric texts, and the socioreligious ties between some Venetian and Ottoman Jews.

As I will show, the three books issued by Vedelago contain transitory elements easily dismissible as inconsequential, which serve as the first printed references and the earliest public allusions to Sabbatai Zevi. Most of the references are textual, but the first of the three publications has a unique and fantastical engraving added to the top of the title page. It does not relate to the book at hand and was not part of the original production plan. Instead, it is clear that it was added at the last moment of printing. Considering the image in its specific context, and using it as a window into the largest Jewish messianic movement since antiquity, reveals additional textual sources across many more books produced in Venice before and after Sabbatai Zevi’s messiahship swept the Jewish world. Together, these otherwise nondescript books demand a reassessment of the early stages of the movement.

Although Scholem knew of some of these rare books issued by Vedelago, his sole reference to the books suggests he did not view them himself. Rather, he rejected their significance because they undermined the very narrative he so carefully crafted in his magisterial biography of Sabbatai Zevi and the early years of his messianic movement.

Of course, the ephemeral and paratextual nature of the sources do not fit within the standard source genres associated with Sabbatianism. They do not stem from the pen of one of the Sabbatian prophets or the movement’s detractors, nor are they reminiscent of journalistic sources or even other printed books celebrating Sabbatai as the messiah or castigating him as an impostor. However, the idiosyncratic nature of these particular sources is precisely wherein their value lies. They reflect an expression of enthusiasm and hope and provide a much needed way to consider how the movement spread among the general population from the bottom up. Moreover, they testify to the intensity of belief in Sabbatai Zevi, and the maintenance of that belief after his conversion to Islam.

As we will see, these imprints issued in the summer of 1665—as well as several others produced by the same printer and his associates—offer a fresh perspective on what it meant to some Jews that the long-awaited messiah had arrived. Scholars have shown how the movement inspired mass involvement, but we do not have immediate firsthand accounts of those early days. Yet these books serve as examples of spontaneous enthusiasm, demonstrating reaction in real time, offering insight into the messianism that eventually erupted, and demanding a reconsideration of the early moments of Jewish messianic activity that exploded in 1665. 

The established narrative for the start of the Sabbatian movement, advanced by Gershom Scholem and continuously upheld since, is as follows. Sabbatai Zevi first proclaimed himself messiah in 1648, a year that many had predicted would herald redemption. He was met with varying degrees of acceptance and condemnation as he wandered for years through the Ottoman Empire. A meeting with Nathan Ashkenazi of Gaza in early 1665 then changed the course of his messianic calling.

Nathan was a kabbalist and son of the rabbi and emissary Elisha Ashkenazi, and his assessment of and claims about Sabbatai shaped much of the movement’s intellectual course. Sources indicate that in February or March of 1665, Nathan had a “great vision” that anticipated the expected redemption in which Sabbatai Zevi played the central, regal role. Raphael Joseph Chelebi, communal leader in Fustat (now part of Cairo), who was then in contact with Sabbatai, sent representatives to Nathan to inquire.

Within weeks, Sabbatai himself traveled to Gaza to meet with Nathan, and the young visionary confirmed the messianic mission of the elder figure. In May of that year, Nathan publicized his supposed discovery in a cave of a “Vision of Rabbi Abraham,” a short apocalyptic work reputedly authored by an Ashkenazic pietist foretelling the birth and ascendency of Sabbatai Zevi. On the night of Shavuot (May 19-20), this narrative continues, Nathan had yet another prophetic vision—this time in a more public setting—indicating that Sabbatai Zevi was the long-awaited messiah. Several months later, in late September or early October, Nathan sent a letter to Chelebi imparting his vision of the imminent redemption with Sabbatai Zevi at the helm. Convinced, Chelebi produced copies of the missive and sent them to Jewish communities abroad.

Over the next few weeks and months, news made its way to Poland, Germany, Holland, and Yemen and active messianism swept much of the Jewish world. Religious sentiment increased, laypeople—including women and children—prophesied in the streets, and people sold their property in anticipation of a call from and to Jerusalem. Existing social and ethnic divisions also dissolved to some degree in the excitement. Glikl of Hameln described in her diary how the disparate Jewish communities of Hamburg, one Ashkenazic and one Sephardic, joined in a single synagogue, dressed in Sabbath finery, whenever reports of the events in the Ottoman Empire arrived by letter. The movement intensified enough that announcements proliferated outside Jewish circles in the Dutch Republic and in England, where the official newspaper of the Crown, the London Gazette, ran more than a dozen reports about Jews and messianism between November 1665 and October 1666. As a whole, this narrative suggests that Sabbatai’s messianic “coronation” occurred only with or after Nathan’s letter to Raphael Joseph Chelebi in the autumn of 1665. The assumption is that such direct communication between a visionary and a communal leader led to a sudden explosion of messianic activity.

Scholem’s explanation for mass acceptance of Sabbatai lay in his theory that the spread of Kabbalah prepared the groundwork for such a messianic movement. But subsequent scholarship has shown that kabbalistic thought had not permeated mainstream Jewish thought by then, leaving cracks in the links between Nathan’s visions, his letter to Chelebi and its broad dissemination, and the manner if not the reason the movement took off.

Scholem’s narrative has been maintained by scholars of Kabbalah and Sabbatianism for at least three reasons. One, we are short on contemporary sources of those early months of the movement, namely the period between Nathan’s “coronation” of Sabbatai, as Scholem called it, and the supposed beginning of celebrating that coronation in the autumn of 1665. Two, the dates of the Nathan-Sabbatai meeting, Nathan’s discovery of the “Vision of Rabbi Abraham,” and Nathan’s semipublic vision on the night of Shavuot stem from reputable sources and do not in themselves pose a particular problem. Three, and all importantly until now, scholars have not discovered or engaged with sources that undermine the narrative. And yet it is not an insignificant detail that the basis for this precise account derives from a description Nathan provided only after the fact, in the years following the movement’s height. Yet the evidence presented herein shows that news of Nathan’s confirmation of Sabbatai Zevi’s messianic destiny spread almost concurrently with the revelations in the spring.

On Sunday, Rosh Hodesh Tamuz, 5425 (June 14, 1665), typesetters completed work on a small-format printing of Maimonides’ opening books of the Mishneh Torah, namely Mada-Ahavah-Zemanim (Knowledge, Love, Times). The imprint was unusual for Maimonides’ revolutionary legal code, because it appeared without commentary and was far smaller than most Jewish law books. It echoed common practice in the mid-17th century, in which printers sought to reach a growing readership of rabbinic texts through more accessible and less daunting volumes. Editions of the Mishneh Torah, like the Talmud, had been large and comprehensive since the early 16th century. An introduction to this edition points to its importance for teachers (חשוב למלמדים), to be utilized with students, while Maimonides’ complicated discussion of the Laws of the New Moon—incomprehensible and thereby irrelevant to young learners—were dropped and an appendix of laws relating to kosher food was added.

The production of Mada-Ahavah-Zemanim exemplified the complex nature of Hebrew printing in the early modern period. According to the title page, it was printed under the authority (במצות השר הגדול) of Andrea Morosini, a Venetian noble. The expression may indicate that Morosini oversaw the publication process on behalf of the state; he certainly was not a printer like Venetian nobles Marco Antonio Giustiniani or Alvise Bragadini a century earlier. Domenego Vedelago appears to have been the “publisher,” but his role does not seem to have extended to managing the actual printing. That role fell to Venturin ben David, referred to unusually as the “one who stood over the press” (הנצב על הדפוס) and the person to whom we will return as a mover in the Sabbatian story.

The volume was funded by Joseph ben Asher Zemel Cividale (ציווידאל), about whom little is known other than he stemmed from one of Venice’s wealthier Ashkenazic families. His name appears in an inscription on the Torah ark of Venice’s Scuola Grande Tedesca, and a decorated printed broadside contains a poem written in honor of the wedding of two Cividales, including possibly Joseph’s great-granddaughter.

This publication scenario was not in itself unusual in early modern Italy, and the confusion over responsibilities may have been deliberate. Jews could not own presses in Venice, and printers were required to obtain approval from the state to issue particular titles. Vedelago’s role in these and other books may have been largely ceremonial, as fronts for the work of Jewish printers like Venturin ben David. Title pages show Vedelago as publisher of small- and medium-format books at the Venetian printing houses of Vendramin and Bragadini under the authority of Morosini. Meanwhile, Venturin overlapped with Vedelago on several projects, including the responsa of the 16th-century rabbi Jacob Berab (Venice, 1663) and the Talmudic concordance Sefer Asaf ha-Mazkir (Venice, 1675), the former of which was published under the authority of Morosini and the latter of which the Cividale family also funded.

A glance at the title page of Mada-Ahavah-Zemanim points to a much more significant complication (fig. 1). The text of the title page—providing the title, author, printer, and publishing house, as well as a description of the book—is surrounded by a double-line frame and oddly situated lower on the page than was and still is standard. Perched awkwardly atop the frame is a distinctive engraving measuring about 6.6 x 5 cm (2.62 x 2 in). The engraving depicts a bearded man in simple European garb riding a lion. It appears within an escutcheon, decoratively but not elaborately designed.

As a whole, the engraving is executed in a relatively clear manner, though it is by no means an intricate or delicate representation of the art form, at least compared to the most ornate examples produced during the Baroque period. More significantly, its placement and appearance here is unusual and even superfluous; it appears as an afterthought and in no way relates to either the rest of the title page or to Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah.

The depiction and the various impressions of it suggest quite a lot about the scenario in which it was made, though. Intaglio, whereby an image is incised into copper plates through etching or engraving, dominated artistic printmaking from the mid-16th century to the 19th century. The engraving process is technical and requires skill. Curves are executed through turning the copper plate—rather than “drawing” on the plate—and sharp lines come to a point. The engraved or etched lines are carved into the plate, so that the ink applied to the plate sits inside the lines and the paper has to be pressed down to print the image. For this image to have been included on the title page, printers would have run the paper through the press to produce the text, and then done so again after the paper had dried to place the engraving at the top of the page. It is a manual and more time-consuming process than standard title pages, though marking off where the engraved image would appear would have helped expedite the process.

A close look at extant copies reveals that the process was done hastily. The edges of the engraving are beveled so the plates would not cut through the paper. In standard production, the plate workers would have cleaned the edges after each impression, however the visible lines on the edges indicate that ink was left on the edges of the plate. In addition, at least one of the few extant copies contains extraneous ink on the back of the title page, likely bled from another copy just printed. Even before printing, the engraving seems to have been produced in haste. The man, lion, and escutcheon are well enough conceived, but the engraving was not expertly done. The lion’s hind legs and the man’s hands are just two examples that lack definition. The engraving is unique—it did not accompany any other printed rabbinic texts and is not akin to scenes found in emblematic works of the early modern period. Though we do not know the artist, or even the precise circumstance of the engraving’s production, it is clear that the artist was either an amateur with casual experience or else an engraver who produced the work rapidly and carelessly upon receiving the commission.

Still, the artist managed to convey what mattered most, namely the special and miraculous relationship between the two subjects represented. The man calmly and confidently rides a lion, who looks back in total submission. The lion’s mouth is agape, sharp teeth bared, but its eyes and wagging tail reflect obedience and even docility (fig. 2). The man appears content, showing his commanding position by fearlessly placing his bare hand in the lion’s mouth.

Nothing about this scene is noticeably Jewish or even Ottoman—the man is bearded as was then in fashion but appears without a head covering. But the scene does faithfully reflect the reputed vision of Nathan of Gaza as divulged in a letter to Raphael Joseph Chelebi of Fustat. As mentioned above, Scholem’s reconstruction of the early moments of the movement put the broadcasting of this revelation in the autumn of 1665 as part of a supposed prophesy detailing the messianic events that would unfold in the coming years. The original communication is no longer extant, but a later copy reads in part:

In the same year he will return from the river Sambatyon, mounted on a celestial lion; his bridle will be a seven-headed serpent and ‘fire out of his mouth devoured.’ At this sight all the nations and all the kings shall bow before him to the ground. On that day the ingathering of the dispersed shall take place, and he shall behold the sanctuary all ready built descending from above.

Crossing the mythical Sambatyon, leading the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel on their return to the Holy Land, according to Nathan, Sabbatai Zevi would ride astride a lion and warrant allegiance from all who saw him. Although the engraving appearing on the title page of Vedelago’s Mada-Ahavah-Zemanim does not contain fire nor a seven-headed snake, it plainly depicts a man in full command of a lion while traversing flowing water.

On its own, the depiction of an open-mouthed lion evokes a creative and triumphant reading of Psalms 22:14 (“They open wide their mouth against me, As a ravening and a roaring lion”). In Midrash and in New Testament passages, this psalm, with its expression of suffering, came to be associated with the messiah. More explicitly, from an art historical point of view, the image evokes a widespread practice in Christian art and occasional Hebrew manuscripts depicting the biblical Judge Samson astride a lion while manhandling its jaws. Such representations appeared in print as well, most famously by Albrecht Dürer, though our image does not approach the explicit struggle between Samson and the lion nor does the figure here sport long hair.

If the engraving printed by Vedelago faithfully replicated an earlier version of Nathan’s vision, it suggests a hyperintensive and possibly subversive reading of the traditional messiah, whereby Sabbatai the messiah did not just overcome the struggle but in fact conquered with ease, teasing the lion and even mocking the struggle itself. In other words, Sabbatai Zevi appears as a messiah who defies and possibly controls the natural world.

There is no way to determine the degree to which readers gathered the significance of the engraving, or even appreciated the visual accompanying the Maimonidean text. It surely depended on the reader and the extent of their rabbinic knowledge or exposure to Christian art and Hebrew manuscripts. What is clear is that historically and historiographically this imprint’s relationship to Sabbatianism was essentially lost until the mid-20th century. Noting the year of publication, Isaiah Sonne and Yehuda Avida each recognized the possibility that the unique engraving was meant to depict Sabbatai Zevi, but neither unequivocally drew the line to Nathan of Gaza. Sonne tempered his own excitement by suggesting in an unpublished note that it was a coat of arms, a not unreasonable assumption considering the depiction of man and lion appears within a shield. Perhaps he deemed it safer to rely on the general interest in lions in Jewish art and early modern Europe than to lend credence to an esoteric and enigmatic reference.

However, an additional component in the production of Mada-Ahavah-Zemanim, noted by both Sonne and Avida, indicates that the engraving was a direct response to emerging messianic news and was not merely decorative. On the book’s final page, the typesetter recorded the date of completion as Sunday, Rosh Hodesh Tamuz, 5425 (June 14, 1665), indicating the year of publication through the chronogram משיח נגיד—an anointed leader, i.e., the messiah (fig. 3). Chronograms are constructed as words or phrases, with each letter representing a numerical value, the sum total of which add up to a given year. Though often formulaic, they could reflect some spiritual or intellectual sentiment of the printer or publisher. Menasseh ben Israel, for instance, frequently utilized chronograms involving the concept of salvation, hoping to inspire Portuguese Jews who had the opportunity to live openly as Jews in the Dutch Republic after generations of secrecy in the Iberian Peninsula. Explicit messianic references in chronograms are very rare and the relationship between this particular chronogram (משיח נגיד) and an engraving corresponding to Nathan’s vision is unlikely to be coincidental.

Moreover, in the following months, the Vedelago press issued at least two other books using the same chronogram: Igerot le-ha-Ma’or ha-Gadol, a collection of letters of Maimonides, begun on 3 Tamuz (June 16) and completed on 17 Tamuz (June 30) (fig. 4); and Margaliyot Tovot, Jacob ben Isaac Zahalon’s abridgement and commentary of the medieval pietistic work Hovot ha-Levavot, completed on 21 Elul (Sept. 1) (fig. 5). Igerot le-ha-Ma’or ha-Gadol pushed the messianic hope further, with a title page bordered by three verses alluding to the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.

On the surface, neither of these later two imprints—one issued within weeks of Mada-Ahavah-Zemanim and the other just two months later—screams anything remarkable. They are books in small format without decoration, and although two of the three texts stemmed from Maimonides their subject matter was probably too esoteric to attract more than a niche audience. Nevertheless, the printer’s inclusion of messianic elements, including the same chronogram, link the three books and reflect a sustained enthusiastic and hopeful response throughout the summer of 1665 to news that the messiah had arrived. In fact, the placement of the chronograms suggests increasing confidence in that eventuality: In Mada-Ahavah-Zemanim, it appears on the final line of the final folio of the book; in Igerot le-ha-Ma’or ha-Gadol, it appears on the verso of the title page as part of the date of the start of publication; and with Margaliyot Tovot, the printer placed the chronogram on the title page.

Working backward from the printing of Mada-Ahavah-Zemanim, it seems likely that someone at the press got wind of a miracle-working messiah, quickly commissioned an engraving depicting this man’s stupendous and sui generis power, and incorporated it in a title page that otherwise had nothing to do with the events in question. The inclusion of the messianic chronogram on the final page had no effect on the typesetting, and although the engraving required rapid adjustments in printing of the first page, the text of Maimonides remained inviolable. The dating of the book’s completion suggests that news spread in the days immediately following Nathan’s semipublic vision the night of Shavuot, less than a month prior. Whether directly from Nathan or someone adjacent, perhaps even a witness to the young kabbalist’s public experience, a letter seems to have made its way from the Holy Land to Venice, landing in someone’s influential hand in the waning moments of the imprint’s assembly.

That a letter could have arrived in Venice from Palestine within a week or two is dependent on a variety of factors, discussed at length by Fernand Braudel. Activities of the Venetian state reached across the Mediterranean and scholars have shown economic and social ties between Italian, Ottoman, and North African Jewish communities. Under best case scenarios, the mail could cross parts of the Mediterranean rapidly enough that the printers could have had sufficient time to react to the news, commission a crudely executed engraving, and run the title page through the press twice to produce the printing.

Alternatively, if we consider the possibility that reports could not have arrived in Venice within weeks of Nathan’s ecstatic Shavuot experience, we are required to push back the point at which Nathan had such a vision of Sabbatai. The implications here may be that Nathan began crafting a messianic narrative from the early spring, and that reports of his pronouncement at the night of Shavuot was neither sudden nor unconscious. Considering that Nathan induced prophetic experience using ecstatic techniques developed by Abraham Abulafia, it seems possible that he formed a Shavuot experience in line with a particular plan. That is, if he were active in producing mystical experience, perhaps Nathan was equally active in shaping a narrative over time, such that Sabbatai riding a fire-breathing lion with reins of a seven-headed snake did not appear in whatever report made its way to Venice. Of course, it is also possible that the person commissioning the engraving did not insist on those details, or that the engraver was simply not sufficiently skilled to incorporate them.

Regardless, the repeated inclusion of messianic elements implies the continuous arrival of reports from the Ottoman Empire. After all, it is unlikely that just a single account of the messiah’s arrival inspired this Venetian printer to include enthusiastic references in at least three imprints over a three-month period.

Messianism was a constant in Jewish ritual and hope, but rabbinic elites feared unbridled enthusiasm. In fact, one of the profound and influential characteristics of Sabbatianism was the manner in which untethered hopes and inspiration moved to the forefront of Jewish communal life. Printers, as participants in and progenitors of Jewish intellectual life, generally followed suit, rarely including outright messianic reference, even amid the uproar over Sabbatai Zevi. The well-known penitential prayer books printed in Amsterdam in 1666, with detailed engravings of Sabbatai Zevi in full messianic splendor surrounded by disciples and masses of followers, were issued only after the movement was in full gear (fig. 6).

An additional component in Igerot le-ha-Ma’or ha-Gadol suggests that its printer had surprisingly specific knowledge of the situation. On the verso of the title page, following the explicit chronogram, the typesetter included text of Psalms 23:6 as a direct reference to Sabbatai Zevi. Ordinarily, the chronogram concludes the colophon in a printed book, without additional text following it. However, here, in mid-June 1665, just a few days after hastily adding a depiction of this messianic figure riding a lion, the printers stated: אך טוב וחסד ירדפוני כל ימי חיי ושבתי בבית ה׳ (“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever”). Although the biblical reading of the verse’s antepenultimate word is ve-shavti (“And I shall dwell”), clearly it was meant to be read in this context as ve-Shabetai, conforming as it does to the biblical spelling of the name Sabbatai (fig. 4). Rabbinic literature is replete with rereadings of particular words as a means to provide alternative meaning. In this instance, the verse resonated with emotional and imminent power: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; for Sabbatai is in the house of the Lord forever.”

It therefore seems clear that someone involved in the printing of these books obtained knowledge of messianic happenings in the Ottoman Empire and that knowledge included some specificity. The account involving a lion—fixed in an engraving on a title page—was followed by information naming the man. Putting a name to the mythic face led to the “discovery” of an allusion to that name in the Bible. To my knowledge, this is the only time that this or any other biblical verse was utilized in print as a direct reference to Sabbatai Zevi at the movement’s height. Although this reading of Psalms 23:6 could have served the various iterations of Sabbatianism even after Sabbatai’s conversion, I am again not aware of its continued use.

Who was responsible for the inclusion of this material? How did knowledge of Sabbatai and Nathan reach Venice months before the all-important missive received by Raphael Joseph Chelebi in Fustat? Why did the printer of these books accept such fantastic reports, promoting what could have been only fleeting sentiment? These questions are not quite the same as asking how the movement around Sabbatai Zevi began, grew, sustained itself, and evolved. In contrast to an expansive perspective, the exploration here is focused on something personal, of a kind that presumably fed the larger issues surrounding the movement.

The answers revolve around a mostly unknown itinerant printer named Venturin ben David, and the larger social network in which he operated. Although at present we lack archival documentation about and correspondence to or from Venturin, his work as a printer provides insight into his interests, intentions, and connections. In the 1650s, he produced at least seven books, all in Venice. His partners varied, though the printing houses issuing his books included Vendramin, Bragadin, and Vedelago. The positions and activities of these Christian “printers” is unclear, but as a whole they probably served as a mere front for Venturin.

Books with Venturin’s name describe him in various ways, sometimes, including in the Mada-Ahavah-Zemanim discussed above, with the unusual expression of “standing over the press” (נצב על דפוס). The word nitsav (נצב) can represent authority, suggesting Venturin’s role with these books was as much “printer” as any other. Considering he did not work as an employee of any of the above Christian printers, and he appears to have been the overall manager of several printings regardless of publisher, it is clear that Venturin ben David was an active and engaged printer. From a bibliographic point of view, Venturin ben David is significant for occasionally including the dates of both commencement and completion of a given imprint, a rarity in the history of Hebrew printing that provides a sense of time invested in the production of each book.

As a whole, the printed work Venturin ben David produced was modest, but it served a growing community of religiously inclined Jewish readers. His name appeared in approximately a dozen imprints over a period of a quarter-century, with none of the volumes issued in large format or as especially elaborate enterprises. At least five of the dozen books bearing his name were liturgical in nature, with some degree of a kabbalistic or at least pietistic bent. In 1656, he published a prayer book for the entire year with kabbalistic intentions and explanations from the 16th-century kabbalist Isaac Luria. In 1659, he issued a volume for Tikun lel Shavuot, the kabbalistic practice to engage in ritualistic study throughout the night of Shavuot, an act that inspired Nathan of Gaza a few years later when he had a semipublic vision relaying the messiahship of Sabbatai Zevi. In 1660, he printed Matsat Shemurim, a simultaneously deep and broad exploration of the mitzvot of Mezuzah (placing a scroll on a doorpost), Tsitsit (wearing ritual fringes on a garment), and Tefilin (phylacteries) by the kabbalist Nathan Shapira (1607-66).

For several projects in the 1650s, Venturin ben David partnered with the kabbalist Moses Zacut (1625-97). Born to Portuguese Jewish parents in Amsterdam, Zacut removed himself from his cosmopolitan upbringing, delved into the study of Jewish mysticism, and made a name for himself in northern Italy in the second half of the 17th century. In both Venice and Mantua, the latter in which he served as chief rabbi from 1673 until his death in 1697, he built a following of like-minded mystics intent on cultivating pietism and spreading Kabbalah. Arguably, Zacut did more than anyone in the 17th century to spread kabbalistic and pietistic ideas, presaging more extensive popularization throughout Italy, Yemen, North Africa, and Eastern Europe in the 18th century. His students, including Abraham Rovigo (ca. 1650-1713) and Benjamin Kohen Vitale (1651-1730), built their own circles, disseminating a messianic-mystical-pietistic way of life that influenced the Italian rabbinate for several generations.

Zacut’s work with Venturin ben David helped disseminate kabbalistic ideas and pietistic ideals to a broad public, and the fact that the relationship sustained over several years indicates a relationship borne out of more than just commercial interests. Moreover, Venturin’s connection to both Zacut and Nathan Shapira, the latter of whom had arrived in Venice and later knew Nathan of Gaza directly, is the key to understanding the how and why of these sudden and passionate references to Sabbatai Zevi. Rather than appearing out of nowhere, they stemmed from a man in the thick of it, for redemption was in the air and Venturin operated among those most enthusiastic.

Both Jewish and Christian sources had predicted 1648 as the year of redemption, and messianic expectations persisted for decades. Believers circulated reports of the Ten Lost Tribes crossing the mythical Sambatyon river and defeating all enemies in their path. Phenomena like reincarnation, messianism, and prophecy permeated Jewish belief, palpable and ever present realities for some. For centuries, opaque notions of messianism had been a ritualized hope, verbalized in prayer and held in the hearts of Jews the world over. But the authority of a kabbalist like Nathan of Gaza carried weight for other kabbalists, like Zacut, Rovigo, and Vitale. While it is not clear that Venturin ben David was himself a kabbalist—the definition of which requires extensive discussion—but it seems likely that he got wind of Sabbatai Zevi through his circle of kabbalists, pietists, and messianists, and ran with it, seeing it as the answer to long-standing Jewish prayers.

None of this means that Venturin ben David was a major disseminator of Sabbatianism or even integral to the movement’s progress. His name does not appear elsewhere, so there is little reason to assume that this minor printer in Venice had some hitherto unknown influence. However, his role as a printer, links to kabbalists, and enthusiastic support of a rising messiah reflect a different sort of significance. Venturin reflected a segment of a Jewish world that responded to Sabbatai Zevi out of eagerness, preparedness, and a faith that ran deep. So deep that there was no room for contrary view, even after Sabbatai converted.

Four almost imperceptible drops of ink in a rabbinic volume published in 1675 speak loudly to Venturin’s unbending faith in Sabbatai. A decade after issuing the distinct Mada-Ahavah-Zemanim, Venturin teamed up again with Domenego Vedelago and Joseph Cividale to produce Sefer Asaf ha-Mazkir, a concordance of Talmudic stories by Zechariah ben Ephraim Porto. Like Venturin’s other projects, it was meant to reach a growing readership of rabbinic texts. Within that, however, Venturin continued to manifest his messianic belief. An introductory poem ostensibly celebrating the author includes an explicitly messianic reference, amplified by small dot atop the letters shin, bet, tav, and yod, the opening letters of consecutive stichs. Together, they mark the acrostic SHaBeTaI (שבתי), indicating Venturin’s continued dedication to his messiah almost a decade after the latter’s conversion to Islam in 1666 (fig. 7).

Like his 1665 books, Venturin ben David’s nondescript Sefer Asaf ha-Mazkir contains a world of significance. The three imprints from that summer are likely to have been the first printed references to Sabbatai Zevi, while this book is a rare if not unique example of veiled printed support for the divisive figure just a year before his death. The printer may have sought to offer hope and strength to other believers at a time when the future of the movement was in flux. Unlike most messianic movements, which ultimately collapsed after a catastrophic event, Sabbatianism took off in new directions following Sabbatai Zevi’s decision to assume a Muslim identity. Groups of intense believers, known as Ma’aminim (or by the derogatory term Dönmeh), followed his lead to an external Islamic life while retaining a form of Jewish identity and practice and persisting in the view that Sabbatai was indeed the long-awaited messiah. Nathan of Gaza and Abraham Cardozo had each defended Sabbatai’s self-preservation with fine-tuned kabbalistic readings, namely that Sabbatai was engaged in uplifting spiritual sparks of the Godhead through a descent into the world of Islam.

Although Zacut eventually renounced Sabbatai (and Nathan, amid the latter’s visit to Venice in 1668), his disciples Abraham Rovigo and Benjamin Kohen Vitale—and so too Venturin ben David—persisted in their Sabbatian conviction long after Sabbatai’s conversion and eventual death.

Ultimately, Venturin ben David’s response to the messianic news offers two important perspectives. One is the way in which he serves as an example of a believer, a person caught up and an active participant in messianic enthusiasm soon to sweep the Jewish world. His connections to Zacut, and thereby Rovigo and Vitale, reflect a man ready and able to respond—so intensely that he did not (or psychologically could not?) relent even after the first and most conventional phase of the movement. The second way in which Venturin sheds light on the moment concerns his position as a printer of Hebrew texts. Part of the so-called secondary elites, printers were crucial to the development and dissemination of ideas that otherwise would remain solely in the domain of the intellectual elite. He identified his work in producing Jewish texts as spiritually meaningful, not just to himself and his own self-worth but on a grander scale, as a link between kabbalists like Zacut and masses of Jews who could put kabbalistic ideas into action.

Scholem’s justification for the widespread acceptance of Sabbatianism was that an explosion of Kabbalah out of Safed in the 16th century had prepared the general Jewish population for imminent redemption. The theory has been roundly challenged by subsequent generations of scholars, who have shown that it took centuries for kabbalistic ideas and rituals to disseminate among nonscholars. Rather, it seems more likely that Sabbatianism propelled Kabbalah into a more common position.

Yet, Scholem’s hunch about the spirit of Kabbalah preparing groundwork for a messianic movement may not have been entirely off base. On an infinitesimally smaller scale, Venturin ben David, as either a kabbalist himself or a close associate with the kabbalists of northern Italy, accepted and promulgated messianic notions proposed by Nathan of Gaza.

In addition, the significance of these books and the contexts in which they were produced goes beyond notions of “Sabbatianism.” They represent the immediacy and agency of messianic belief. Venturin ben David—like Zacut, Rovigo, and Vitale, and perhaps others involved in the printing—reacted to literally the most fantastic and long-awaited news in Jewish religious life. Ironically, the survival of these books also reflects the fleeting nature of excitement and may suggest the relative irrelevance of Sabbatianism in the grand scheme of “traditional” Jewish living. These books survived the messianic failure, because fundamentally they were books—objects printed and purchased and retained for the main text they contained, not for their paratexts or unanticipated, unexplained, or enigmatic engravings.