I-TAL-YA Books

Revealing the rich legacy of Hebrew books in Italy

The Project

I∙TAL∙YA Books aims to create one centralised catalogue of printed Hebrew book holdings from across Italy, to be used by scholars and researchers around the world.

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Our Goal

35,000

The entire catalogue will ultimately include an estimated 35,000 volumes from 14 Jewish communities and 25 state institutions across Italy

About us

This project is a unique collaboration between The Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), the National Central Library in Rome (BNCR) and the National Library of Israel, working together to create the unified catalogue of Hebrew printed books in Italy.

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Participant Collection

The ITALYA Books project is a collaboration of many institutions and communities, who together have enabled us to accomplish this ambitious undertaking.

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Catalogue

The core of the I-TAL-YA Books project is the searchable catalogue of printed books in Italy dating from the sixteenth century until approximately 1960, which is hosted by the National Central Library of Rome on their Biblioteca Digitale platform.

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Stories

15 Jan, 2017
How a 16th Century Business Dispute Triggered a Religious War

Printing of a Jewish book in 1551 caused religious strife and turmoil all over Italy

11 Apr, 2019
Meet the Oldest Printed Book in the National Library!

Printed in Rome, this book was once part of an Italian prince's library. Years later it made its…

24 Apr, 2018
The Christian Who Set the Talmud’s Layout

Whether it is in school, yeshiva or university, the Gemara (Talmud) page looks exactly the same: Gemara text…

12 Nov, 2018
The First Jewish Translation of the Book of Books into Spanish

As many conversos began to return to their heritage after the Inquisition, several Jewish cultural books were translated…