The Bragadin-Giustiniani dispute was a conflict between two competing printing houses in Venice over the printing of Jewish books that resulted in the burning of the Talmud in 1553 in Italy.
Originally an issue over the copyright of the Mishneh Torah, the conflicting parties involved Jewish authorities and the papal courts, including the Roman Inquisition, in this matter in order to ban the other's books. The renewed attention on Hebrew literature and the Talmud in particular in the times of heightened tension in Christianity due to the Reformation and Counter-Reformation led to the condemnation of the Talmud and its subsequent burning in 1553, first in Rome and then in most other Italian cities. In the decades afterwards the Talmud remained mostly forbidden, though papal policy varied depending on the pope, and Hebrew printing became subject to censorship.
The dispute has also some significance for Jewish copyright law and the feud is in general one of the earliest instances of a copyright suit for books.
Background: Hebrew printing in Venice
In the sixteenth century, Venice was the dominant city in printing, also including Hebrew printing. As Jews were prohibited from owning printing presses, Hebrew books were printed by non-Jews who had entered into various mutually beneficial arrangements with Jews to print such works, or by Jews or converts at Christian presses. These non-Jewish printers were mostly motivated by the profitability of the market as it was more limited and not as competitive as the wider Italian book sector. Nevertheless, printed Hebrew books were still fairly expensive and would have amounted to a considerable part of the annual salary of even well-paid Jews.
Aldus Manutius was the first to use Hebrew letters in small works, but it was only with the press of Daniel Bomberg, a non-Jew, that Hebrew printing really begun in Venice. In December 1515 Bomberg requested and received the right and the monopoly for two decades to print Hebrew books. Pope Leo X granted Bomberg an imprimatur in 1520 to print the Talmud, reversing previous practice since the thirteenth century to suppress or censor the Talmud, though he required Bomberg to include comments of the Jewish convert and Augustinian Felice da Prato which pointed out fatal flaws and contradictions in the passages that attacked Christian faith. Until the closure of Bomberg's press in 1548/49, he had published between two hundred and two hundred-fifty titles. Though the books were initially printed in small editions and marketed in Italy, the fame of the Bomberg press was such that the books were imported by Jews in Egypt, Syria and India and Karaite Jews in Constantinople and Crimea.
Between 1544 and 1546, the monopoly ended and several other rival print shops opened. Among them was the print shop of Marco Antonio Giustiniani, son of the wealthy Niccolo Giustiniani and member of the important Giustiniani family, who operated a printing press close to the Rialto from 1545 onwards. His printing press never surpassed that of Bomberg in either quality or quantity, but it was still good enough to secure himself a reputation as printer of high quality. Bomberg closed his print shop in 1548/49, with some scholars such as Marvin Heller believing that he had been forced out of business by Giustiniani's low-price, often plagiarised prints. Thereafter, Hebrew printing was almost exclusively the domain of Giustiniani.
The Dispute The Katzenellenbogen-Bragadin and Giustiniani Misneh Torah prints The feud begun in 1549-50 when Rabbi Meir ben Isaac Katzenellenbogen, chief rabbi of Padua and spiritual leader of the Jews of Venice, requested Giustiniani to print the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides. The Mishneh Torah included the seminal code of Jewish law that Spanish, Eastern and Italian Jews followed and had been published several times with numerous commentaries, the latest version by Daniel Bomberg in 1524. Katzenellenbogen had worked from these editions, but added commentaries of Maimonides, other medieval authors as well as of himself that had not been printed yet. For unknown reasons Giustiniani and Katzenellenbogen did not come to terms, so the rabbi looked for another printer to commission. He found that person in Alvise Bragadin, another Venetian noble who was in the process of establishing his own Hebrew publishing house and who agreed to take the commission. The result was essentially a new edition of the Mishneh Torah of Daniel Bomberg of 1524 with the additions of Katzenellenbogen's introduction to Maimonides' Sefer Hamitzvot, Nachmanides' Hasagot on Maimonides' Misneh Torah, a defense of Maimonides against his opponents and several notes by Katzenellenbogen himself. Thus, in 1550, Bragadin produced the first copies of the new Mishneh Torah and financed by the rabbi with his own savings.
Not long after the publishing of the Bragadin edition, Giustiniani released his own version of the Mishneh Torah with his renowned Temple pressmark. While some historians like Marvin Heller claim that Giustiniani plagiarised Bragadin, the question who copied from the other is not easy to answer. Though Giustiniani clearly copied the annotations of Katzenellenbogen and included them in his version, Yaakov Spiegel showed in his research that Bragadin and Katzenellenbogen most probably copied more from Giustiniani than the other way round. Giustiniani moved the plagiarised glosses of Katzenellenbogen to the end instead of having them accompany the text, which was likely due to the fact that Giustiniani wanted to keep the layout of the 1524 Bomberg edition and thus present himself as legitimate successor to Bomberg. In the introduction to Giustiniani's edition, which was possibly written by the former Jew and Bomberg's former master-printer Cornelius Adelkind, the annotations were criticised heavily and it was mentioned they were only included to give learned readers the opportunity to judge their worth independently. Additionally, in order to provide value-add to his readers, Giustiniani included material not found in Bragadin's version, such as page references to two leading commentaries of the Misneh Torah as well as precepts corresponding to Maimonides’s provisions from two seminal Ashkenazic codes, the Arba'ah Turim and the Sefer Mitzvot Gadol. Finally, Giustiniani stated that he would sell his version for one gold coin less than his competitor's, allegedly to make it more affordable for Jewish buyers.
The ruling of Moses Isserles
The plagiarism of both printers was neither unique nor unusual in Western Europe at the time and these matters were often settled in out-of-court settlements. As both parties had likely committed plagiarism and also as likely neither of the two books contained enough original material to qualify for a Venetian book privilege (active since 1517), no party would have had recourse under Venetian law. It is possible that Bragadin and Giustiniani could have also resolved their dispute outside of court, but this did not occur, maybe due to their general competition and Katzenellenbogen's concern about the loss of his investment in the Bragadin edition.
As he did not receive support from other Italian rabbis, Katzenellenbogen petitioned Rabbi Moses Isserles from Kraków, who was the preeminent Ashkenazic halakhic authority in Poland, to forbid Jews from buying the Giustiniani edition. Isserles was more junior to Katzenellenbogen in both chronological (at the time between 20 and 30 years old) as well rabbinic authority sense, and it would have been more likely that Isserles would have sought the guidance of Katzenellenbogen than the other way round. Neil Netanel suggests that the reasons why Katzenellenbogen wrote to Isserles are that Poland constituted the largest market for Hebrew books due to its sizeable Jewish population, the close ties between the Italian and Polish Jewish communities as well as the close intellectual kinship between Katzenellenbogen and Isserles. The ruling on this matter was in fact the first responsum of Isserles and he would later say that he felt unprepared to serve as rabbinic judge at such a young age. Further, this feud is one of the earliest instances of a copyright suit over any book.
On 16 August 1550, rabbi Isserles issued his ruling. Based on the information Katzenellenbogen had given him, he decided in favour of Katzenellenbogen and Bragadin, predominantly also due to the fact that they had published their version first. Isserles judged Giustiniani purely from a Jewish perspective and accused him of unlawful competition rather than theft (gezel). Based on his halakhic reasoning, he then forbade Jews from buying the Giustiniani or any other competing edition of the Mishneh Torah until Katzenellenbogen had sold his prints. Jews who neglected this ruling were to be excommunicated (herem), except if they did so under duress. While this ruling applied formally only to Poland, Isserles had the ambition to convince other Jewish rabbis to publish a similar response in other countries.
Appeal before the Pope
Isserles and Katzenellenbogen had, however, underestimated Giustiniani who feared a loss on his investment upon hearing of Isserles' ruling. Giustiniani hired three Jewish converts, including former rabbi Andrea De Monte, to scrutinise Katzenellenbogen’s commentary on the Mishneh Torah for parts that could be interpreted as being objectionable to the Church and then appealed before papal authorities against Isserles' response while suggesting them to investigate Katzenellenbogen’s commentary for blasphemy and impropriety. Shortly afterwards, Bragadin sent representatives to the papal courts, also consisting of own employees and former Jews.
Pope Julius III referred the dispute to the Sacred Roman Ecclesiastical Commission and the Congregation of the Inquisition, a relatively new tribunal which was only to be involved in cases of heresy and schism and had been only instituted by the papal bull Licet ab initio in 1542. The Congregation consisted of six members, headed by cardinal Giovanni Pietro Carafa. Carafa was one of the major voices in the Church to intensify the struggle against heresy and Protestantism and develop measures, that would safeguard the purity of Christian society from heretic positions. Carafa therefore demanded the safeguarding of education, ordered the confiscation of works of many authors that he considered threatening to the authority of the Church and was convinced that the End of Days was close and with it, the conversion of the Jews. As the case involved two Venetian printers, the Roman Committee deemed it appropriate to get the assistance of the Council of Ten, one of the most important governing bodies of Venice. This Council advised the Commission against Blasphemy to find someone who could examine the Hebrew books present in the case and those that had been printed in the years prior.