Bücher von Curt Leviant

While in the archives room of the Siena Municipal Public Library, I noticed a cardboard box labeled "Lorenzini?" Since Lorenzini wrote Pinocchio under the pen-name Collodi, I opened the box and was astounded to see a handwritten manuscript titled: Tinocchia, the Adventures of a Jewish Puppetta. I photographed the pages, and soon enough translated the story into English. Tinocchia, the story's narrator, is created by her carpenter father, Yossi, who named her after the Hebrew word for "baby," tinok, and as a nod to his fellow woodworker, Gepetto, the creator of Pinocchio. While riding on her magic cart, Tinocchia bumps into a puppetto who introduces himself as Nipocchio. Naturally, the puppetto's nose grows . . . Pinocchio and Tinocchia share adventures: Tinocchia becomes involved with Samael, the Dark Angel; Pinocchio and Tinocchia encounter pirates on a sailboat which gets overturned in a storm. One day Pinocchio visits asa real boy and offers Tinocchia a magic salve. She scolds him that he has no right to take the salve. In any case, she does not want mortality; she wants to live. Pinocchio turns back into a puppetto to be with her. And, like in a true fairy tale, they live happily ever . . . after . . . presumably.

A rarity of enormous interest, this refurbished Hebrew translation of an Arthurian romance is the only known text of its kind in existence. Based on the writings of an anonymous Italian Jew in 1279, the author presents two stories. The first relates Merlin's role in the seductions of Igerna by Pendragon and the consequent birth of Arthur. The second tells of Arthur's rise to royal glory, of Lancelot's affair with Guinevere, his meeting with the Maid of Askalot, and his skill at a jousting tournament. This romance exists in a unique copy at the Vatican Library, which Curt Leviant personally examined. He offers a highly readable version of that text in corrected Hebrew with graceful English transliteration on facing pages, and an analysis of Jewish aspects of the piece. He also traces its origins to an Old French tale. Not just a literary curiosity, this is at once fine scholarship and compelling proof of the vibrant interaction between Judaism and other cultures of medieval Europe.