Obj. ID: 54550
  Ephemera  Wedding Poem, Trieste, circa 1747

The following description was prepared by William Gross:

The Hebrew wedding poem, composed by friends and family of the bridal couple, was an integral part of this popular genre among both Christians and Jews in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries. The form usually began with an honorific statement praising the bridal couple and their families and expressing good wishes. The central section was the poem itself, specially composed for the occasion. The form was often either sonnets or poems of multiple stanzas with regular allusions to and printing emphasis for the names of the couple. The last section was the salutation from and the signature of the author. While mostly found as printed documents, there are manuscript versions known as well. Both sorts exist in the Gross Family Collection.

This wedding poem is shorter than most of the genre. The letters of the first word of each stanza comprise the names of the wedding couple.  The trumpeting angel depicted above was often used on wedding poem printed sheets as if the angel were announcing the coming betrothal. In the Valmadona Collection there are four broadsides for the same wedding, three handwritten and one printed.

Groom:                             Avraham Yisrael Chai ben Shmuel Hacohen

Bride:                                Esther bat Yechiel Moshe Triesti