Samuel Romanelli (born at
Mantua
Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard language, Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, province of the same name.
In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture ...
Sept. 19, 1757; died at
Casale Monferrato
Casale Monferrato () is a town in the Piedmont region of Italy, in the province of Alessandria. It is situated about east of Turin on the right bank of the Po, where the river runs at the foot of the Montferrat hills. Beyond the river lies the ...
Oct. 17, 1814) was an Italian-born Jewish ''
maskil
The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western E ...
'' and Hebrew poet.
A man of great gifts but unsteady in his habits, Romanelli began to travel early in life. He went first to Morocco, where he spent four years. He has described his experiences there in a work which has become very popular (see below). Returning to Europe, he lived successively in
Berlin
Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...
(1791),
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
(1793),
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
(1799), and
Lille
Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the Nord ...
(France), going back to his native country about 1800. The last years of his life were spent in Casale, where he died suddenly of apoplexy.
Romanelli supported himself by teaching and by writing Hebrew and Italian poems for weddings, patriotic feasts, and similar occasions; but, being erratic and a scoffer of religion, he made very many enemies, and always lived in great poverty. Besides his Hebrew poems, he wrote translations, especially of the prayer-book, from Hebrew into Italian and from Italian into Hebrew. Notable among his translations from Italian are those of
Metastasio's melodrama "Themistocles" and
Maffei's tragedy "Merope"; the latter has been edited by Weikert, a Benedictine monk (Rome, 1903, 2d ed. 1904), while the former is still in manuscript. For the names in the original Romanelli gives Hebrew substitutes, as Merab for Merope, Palti for Polifonte, etc. The Hebrew version, while not literally following the original, is not only poetical, but also a faithful rendering.
Literary work
*''"Ha-Ḳolot Yeḥdalun"'' or ''"Mishpaṭ Shalom"'' (Berlin, 1791), a Hebrew melodrama in honor of a wedding
*''"Massa' ba-'Arab"'' or ''"Travail in an Arab Land"'' (ib. 1792), a description of his travels in the Barbary States, several times reprinted, and translated into English by
Schiller-Szinessy (Cambridge, 1887)
*''"Ruaḥ Nakon"'' (Berlin, 1792), a philosophic poem
*''"'Alot ha-Minḥah"'' or ''"Ḥeber ha-Me'ushshar"'' (Vienna, 1793), a poem in honor of the wedding of L. Hertz and Charlotte Arnstein, in Italian and Hebrew
*''"Grammatica Ragionata Italiana ed Ebraica,"'' Triest, 1799
*An Italian translation of parts of the Sephardic ritual (n.p., 1802)
*''"Zimrat 'Ariẓim"'' (Mantua, 1807), hymns in honor of
Napoleon
*''"Maḥazeh Shaddai"'' (ib. 1808), Hebrew and Italian poems
*A poetical translation of that part of the Yom Kippur service which describes the office of the high priest on the Day of Atonement (Alessandria, 1808)
*''"Tappuaḥ Zahab"'' (Vienna, c. 1810), an epos from Greek mythology
*A Hebrew hymn on Emperor
Francis of Austria and his brother Archduke Carl (n.d., n.p.)
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Romanelli, Samuel
1757 births
1814 deaths
18th-century Italian Jews
Italian poets
Hebrew-language poets
Writers from Mantua
Jewish poets
Translators from Hebrew
Translators to Hebrew
Translators from Italian
Translators to Italian
Jewish translators
Jewish Italian writers
18th-century Italian translators
19th-century Italian Jews
People of the Haskalah