UC Irvine

The introductory poem that the sixteenth-century Italian Jew, Samuel Sarfati, included with his now lost Hebrew translation of Fernando de Rojas' Spanish masterpiece, "La Celestina", mentions several elements foreign to Rojas' work as we know it today. These include the image of the war of lovers, the description of women as the Angels of Death and as the Devil (Azazel), and the identification of sexual desire and religious assimilation. In my opinion these elements show that Sarfati had in mind two earlier works from the Judeo-Spanish go-between tradition. "Minhat Yehuda" by Judah ibn Sabbatay and the "Maqama of Marriage" by Judah al-Harizi. In both of these Hebrew works we find images similar to those used by Sarfati, as well as some strikingly similar formal and linguistic characteristics, all of which suggests that these two works were part of the historical-literary background of Sarfati (and, perhaps, Rojas himself).