Festival Prayer Book from Corfu
This liturgical manuscript demonstrates the cultural diversity of the Jewish population in 17th-century Corfu. Apart from the Romaniote community, whose members mainly spoke Greek, the island also had an Italian Jewish community and Ladino-speaking Sephardim. This prayer book follows the Corfu rite, a variant of the Romaniote rite (Minhag Romania), and contains extensive instructions in Hebrew. Apart from Hebrew, it also has liturgical texts in Judeo-Greek, and Judeo-Italian. The ownership notes reflect the same cultural diversity, written by members of the Osmo and Gesua families in Hebrew, Italian and Greek.
Festival Prayer Book
Folio 77a
Death record of Camila Osmo Gesua in Italian inscribed by her son:
“Two days before the day of the Saint (possibly the saint of the city), my mother Camila Osmo Gesua ceased to live. God rest her and made her pass to other sublime and eternal rests. The sorrowful children suffer.”
Due giorni prima della festa del santo cessi di vivere mia madre Camila Osmo Gesua Dio la riposò a la fece passare al altri sublimi ed eterni riposi. Li dolente figliuoli [s]ofrono
כאמלה אוזמו יהושע
