Interstizi: Culture ebraico-cristiane a Venezia e nei suoi domini dal medioevo all'età moderna ed. by Uwe Israel et al. (review)

This book has great import for many aspects of the history of the Jews in the Venetian state, especially, but not exclusively, in the social, economic, and legal spheres. As its subtitle promises, it sheds much light on the evolution of Jewish-Christian interactions. Those interested in that general subject, as well as in the particular topics that the volume covers, would do very well to consult it. Those, however, who would like more information about Homi K. Bhabha's theory of Interstizi, from which the volume's title derives, would do better to look elsewhere—for example, in the opening pages of Bhabha's The Location of Culture (New York, 1994), which offer an examination of the overlapping and displacement of domains of difference.

After a brief editorial foreword, in Italian and German versions, the book begins with a reproduction of a letter written in Latin by Cardinal Basilios Bessarion, then papal legate in Venice, in 1463. It reassures the Doge of Venice that all agreements made with Jews were to be observed and that they could live in peace and tranquility and do business freely. The transcription of this material—also translated into Italian and German, with notes and two related documents—merits special attention because it constitutes the first critical edition of an important medieval text about the interaction of Jews and Christians.

The rest of the collection contains eighteen chapters—eleven in Italian, five in English, and two in German—divided into four thematic sections: Introduzione, Economia e Società Nello Stato di Terrafirma, Economia e Società Nello Stato da Mar, and Cultura e Scienza. The volume concludes with English abstracts of the articles and a useful index of names and places. Many of the chapters contain new information derived from the archives that should enter the mainstream of historical research; others present new perspectives through a detailed discussion of a single issue or theme.

Despite the significance of the individual components of the book, however, a detailed opening essay (rather than merely two general paragraphs in the forewords) specifically devoted to Bhabha's theory, with special emphasis on its application to the complex question of Jewish- Christian relations and the insights that it can yield, would have been helpful. Only five of the eighteen chapters mention Bhabha at all, and only three of them in any detail.¹ Additionally, the extent to which Bhabha's ideas informed the methodologies of the scholars who cite him—rather than merely confirming the results of historical research undertaken in more traditional ways—remains unclear.