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This article presents the results of a preliminary inquiry into the theatrical activity of Sephardic Jews in Italy from 1492 to the 18th century. Through archival investigation conducted on catalogues of manuscripts and published books from Italian libraries, as well as on documents produced by Sephardic communities, the study focuses on three case studies: the communities in Venice, Naples, and Tuscany. Concerning the Venetian community, literary witnesses to the dramatic activity in the Ghetto are collected and analyzed, including Ester by Salomon Usque and Leon Modena. Concerning the Neapolitan community, the reasons for the absence of Sephardic cultural traces are clarified. The only extant Judeo-Spanish plays produced in Italy come from Pisa and Livorno, testifying to the prolific activity of Iberian Jews in Tuscany. Finally, a list of Hebrew dramatic works written by Italian authors of Sephardic origin is provided in order to reflect on the very categories of 'Sephardic' and 'Italian.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By analyzing the history of a photograph taken in a Bombay photo studio in 1885, this article explores notions of the production of knowledge on India and cultural dialogues, encounters, appropriations, and conflicts in colonial British India in the late nineteenth century. The photograph was taken after a Hindu religious ceremony in honour of the Italian Sanskritist Angelo de Gubernatis. Dressed as a Hindu Brahman, he is the only European photographed next to three Indian scholars, but what the image suggests of encounter and hybridity was challenged by the many written texts that reveal the conflicting dialogues that took place before and after the portrait was taken. Several factors were examined in order to decide who should and who should not be in the photograph: religion, cast, and even gender were successively discussed, before the category of 'knowledge' became the bond that unified the four men who studied, taught, and wrote on India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]