Img. ID: 506952
The following description was prepared by William Gross:
The Shiviti plaque takes its name from a phrase in the Psalms, "Shivit Adonai Lenegdi Tamid". "I will always hold the Lord before me." During morning prayers the 67th psalm is read as a part of the liturgy. The making of such visual pages to augment the reading started almost 500 years ago. It began because of a particular story or legend. The custom relates that if one gazes on the form of the Menorah while reciting the Psalm, or reads the psalm written in the form of a Menorah, the person is carried back to the Temple, standing before the golden Temple Menorah itself. To complete the illusion, some of the Temple implements were often illustrated. The mysticism of the idea is clear, and the Shiviti page is often filled with Kabbalistic abbreviations as well as the Menorah form. Sometimes, depending on the size and complexity of the image, other texts read during the time of prayer are also presented on the sheet.
Such pages appear as small sheets to be inserted into a prayer book and taken out when the psalm is recited or as large pages to be hung on the wall of the synagogue for the viewing by the whole congregation. The sheet was also used on the wall of a home or Sukkah. Later still, the Shiviti could be printed in the prayer book or painted on the wall of the synagogue. There are numerous examples of both the prayer book tradition and the wall plaque tradition in the Gross Family Collection.
This Shiviti page is made in the size to fit into a Siddur for daily prayer for the recitation of the 67th Psalm. The form of the letters used for the Tetragrammaton are of a Gothic sort that was often used in Europe. The origin of this page is Italy, as it is pasted in an Italian siddur and is fashioned in Italian style. The decoration is much more ornate than normal and adds credence to the Italian origin. In the text there is also a reference to the value of something in gematria, but the meaning is not clear.
The book in which the Shiviti is glued is a Siddur printed in Venice in the year 1780, Winograd 2030. It is not clear whether the Shiviti dates from the same period or was added later.