A magnificient embroidered cover for a reader’s desk, Italy, 1865.

Red silk and satin embroidered with multicolored silk threads and bordered with an elaborately worked fringe of gold thread. Length: 178 cm. Width: 90 cm. Height: 87 cm.

This splendid textile was created to cover a bimah, a platform in the synagogue where the Torah is read and from which the prayers are recited. The centre of the front panel features a Hebrew inscription embroidered in gold thread comprising two verses from Psalms: “Trust in God and do good, abide in the land and remain loyal. Seek the favor of God, and He will grant you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:3-4). On the top panel, a second, even more prominently placed inscription informs us that this textile was “donated by Adele Sforni in the year 5625 [1865].” Adele Sforni was a member of a distinguished Jewish family from Mantua, and when she married Saul Da Zara in 1840, no fewer than three booklets of celebratory poems were published in honour of their wedding.

This magnificent textile was not only donated by Adele to the Scuola Grande (Great Synagogue) in Mantua in 1865 but was actually her own handiwork. In 1866, two pages were devoted to a description of this reader’s desk cover in the Italian periodical L’educatore israelita: giornale mensile per la storia e lo spirito del giudaismo (The Israelite Educator: Monthly Newspaper for the History and Spirit of Judaism). The author praises Adele for “her year of constant labour to create and execute the perfect embroidery of a lavish textile that covers the teivah where religious functions are celebrated, and in which richness, elegance, and good taste compete in a truly admirable way.”