Manuscript codex.

The decorative plan was realized variously throughout, having been completed only in ff. 1r-16v, 33r and 40v. (The evidence of folios in various stages of completion depicts the progression of steps involved in the production of medieval manuscript illumination.)

On the Italian provenance of the text, see Glatzer, M., "The Ashkenazic and Italian Haggadah and the Haggadot of Joel ben Simon" (The Washington Haggadah, Washington [D.C.], 1991, pp. 147 ff.)

Censor's signature: Giovanni Dominico Carretto, 1617 (fol. 68r)

Byname: Prato Haggadah.

Former shelfmark: MS 8185.

The Sephardic section (f. 1-20) was microfilmed under the number: 8185.

The library also has a microfilm of the manuscript, JTS Reel 207 and JTS Reel 415 and JTS Reel 669.

Hebrew

Nothing is known of the Haggadah's history after 1617 (date of censor's approbation) until 1928, when it was in the possession of a distinguished humanist and collector, a native of Prague living in Rome, Dr. Ludwig Pollak. Pollak promised the Haggadah to his friend Rabbi David Prato, Chief Rabbi of Rome. However, after disagreements with the Fascist authorities in the late 1930s, Rabbi Prato moved to Palestine. During the Holocaust, Dr. Pollak was deported to Auschwitz. After the war, Rabbi Prato was recalled to his previous position in Rome where he died in 1951. Several months later, his son Jeonathan, an Israeli diplomat en route to his post in Buenos Aires, visited Rome and met with the sister-in-law of Dr. Pollak. Aware that it had been Pollak's intention to donate the manuscript to Rabbi Prato, she gave the Haggadah to the Prato family, from whom it was purchased by friends of the JTS Library in 1964 (after N. Stavisky, Interview with J. Prato, Jerusalem)

Narkiss, M., "Haggadat-Pesaḥ sefaradit mi-saviv li-shenat 1300, bi-reshut peraṭit bi-Yerushalayim" (Jerusalem, 1956 ["Hadpasah meyuḥedet mi-tokh ha-ʻiton ha-yomi ha-Arets, 26.3.1956"])

נרקיס, מ', הגדת-פסח ספרדית מסביב לשנת 0031, ברשות פרטית בירושלים )ירושלים, תשט"ז ]"הדפסה מיוחדת מתוך העתון היומי הארץ, יום ב' י"ד ניסן, תשט"ז"[(

Shelfmark: New York, The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, MS 9478.