Aron (Aaron) Fernandez (or Fernandes according to some sources, or Fernando, as he authored) (Livorno, 1761–1828) was a Jewish-Italian teacher of ancient and new languages, and a translator.[1][2] Considered an extremist by the civil and religious (Jewish and Christian) authorities of Leghorn because of his Jacobin sympathies. Known through the official reprimands to his writings, some of which he managed to publish. Among them:

  • an annotated Italian translation of Les Nuits Champêtres by Jean-Charles Thibault de Laveaux, written in 1792[3] and eventually published only in 1803.[4]
  • Lo spettatore libero ovvero speculazioni filosofiche sulla rigenerazione politica, e morale dello spirito umano, published in Milan, anno II della Libertà (1793).[5]
  • an Italian translation of Tom Paine's pamphlet Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance. On 29 June 1796, Fernando even managed to meet Napoleon passing through Livorno, to plead his support for the work. The translation was ultimately not published, but Fernando was expelled from Livorno because of it.[6][7]
  • The Progetto filosofico di una completa riforma del culto e dell'educazione politico-morale del popolo ebreo, a radical proposal for the reform of Judaism, announced to appear in two tomes by 1810. The first volume[8] was indeed surreptitiously printed in 1813 by Marenigh in Livorno; after a long series of remands to the censor, which lasted till 1818,[9][10] and with the changing political climate of the Restoration, almost all printed copies were confiscated and destroyed. The manuscript of the second tome, submitted to the French censor, is conserved at the French National Archives in Paris.[11]

References edit

  1. ^ "FERNANDO, AARON". JewishEncyclopedia.com. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  2. ^ Asher Salah (2007). שבט סופרים: תולדות חכמי איטליה (תס – תקס) [La République des Lettres, Rabbins, écrivains et médecins juifs en Italie au XVIII siécle]. Leiden: Brill. p. 237. ISBN 978-9004156425.
  3. ^ Ulrich Wyrwa (2003). Juden in der Toskana und in Preussen im Vergleich: Aufklärung und Emanzipation in Florenz, Livorno, Berlin und Königsberg i. Pr. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. pp. 152–153. ISBN 3-16-148077-5.
  4. ^ ICCU. "Scheda OPAC Le notti campestri di De Laveaux". opac.sbn.it (in Italian). Retrieved 18 December 2016.
  5. ^ Donata Giglio (2000). "Tra rivoluzione ed emarginazione: il caso di Aron Fernandez". Per Marino Berengo: studi degli allievi (in Italian). Milano: Franco Angeli. pp. 705–715.
  6. ^ Mangio, Carlo (1974). Politica toscana e rivoluzione: momenti di storia livornese, 1790–1801 (in Italian). Pisa: Pacini. pp. 89, 137–138.
  7. ^ Funaro, Liana Elda (1990). "Un governo avaro e mercantile. Tre edizioni italiane di un'opera di Tom Paine". Studi Storici (in Italian). anno 31 (2): 481–510. JSTOR 20565396.
  8. ^ Progetto filosofico di una completa riforma del culto e dell'educazione politico-morale del popolo ebreo. Retrieved 21 December 2016 – via Project Gutenberg.
  9. ^ Berliner, Abraham (1898). Aus meiner Bibliotek, Beiträge zur hebräischen Bibliographie und Typographie (in German). Frankfurt a. M. pp. 16–18.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. ^ de Rubertis, Achille (1952). "Gl'Israeliti e la Censura della stampa in Toscana". La Rassegna Mensile di Israel (in Italian). 18 (1): 10–20. JSTOR 41276382.
  11. ^ "cote F/18/579". Archives nationales. Site de Paris.