Sara Copio Sullam: (1592-1641) A poet and a scholar. Born in Venice, she was the eldest of the three daughters born to Simon and Rebecca Copia, a prominent Italian Jewish family. Her sisters were Rachel and Esther. At her father’s death, when Sara was not quite fifteen years old, she could read Latin, Greek, Spanish and Hebrew, and she had already local fame for her poems in Italian. She married Jacob Sullam, a Jewish communal leader and businessman. The couple did not have any child, but shared the love for art and poetry. Sara gathered around her a popular salon with close ties to the Accademia degli Incogniti and was surrounded by men of letters devoted to her. Among the others, Leone da Modena, who wrote a play on the theme of Esther dedicated to her. An epic poem on the same subject, “La Reina Ester” by the Genoese monk Ansaldo Cebà, sparked an intense and ambiguous epistolary correspondence that lasted for many years, in which Arnaldo Cebà constantly urged her to convert to Christianity, although she kept refusing. In 1621, Sara was accused of a serious crime of belief by Baldassare Bonifacio, a prominent Christian cleric who had been a guest at Sara's receptions. According to Bonifacio's account, Sara did not believe in the immortality of the soul, a very serious accusation that could have resulted in a trial by inquisition. In response, Sara wrote a work entitled the “Manifesto”, dedicated to her father, defending her points of view. In this situation, she did not receive any support from most of her friends, including Cebà. In fact, Sara sent a copy of the “Manifesto” to Cebà, but he did not respond for several months, and then without sympathy for her, only regretting that she had not converted yet. She died of natural causes, and the epitaph upon her tomb was written by Leone of Modena.
Copyright © Alastair Fontana 2013
