Looking at Language in a Multilingual Environment: Sephardic Art between the Domestic and the Communal

Authors

Sarit Shalev-Eyni, Hebrew University of JerusalemFollow

Abstract

In the multilingual environment of the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle and Late Middle Ages, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and various Romance dialects coexisted. This article aims to uncover the meanings of this linguistic diversity in Sephardic works of art for artists, viewers, and readers of different faiths and genders. Special attention is given to women, both as subjects of illustration and as companions in the process of reception. Two fourteenth-century works, one manuscript and the other monumental, are at the center of our discussion: the Kaufmann Haggadah, probably of Catalan origin, and the synagogue of Samuel ha-Levi Abulafia in Toledo. Through these two examples, produced around the same time for elite patrons, our discourse encompasses both the intimate scale of the illuminated manuscript and the broader scale of monumental art, as well as two different settings of reception—the mixed-gender domestic family sphere and the communal liturgical space—where women were confined to a gallery above the main hall where the service was conducted by men. Despite the inferior status of women, they, like their male counterparts, experienced the ritual visual realm through the lens of the multilingual Iberian context in their own distinctive ways.

Recommended Citation

Shalev-Eyni, Sarit (2025) "Looking at Language in a Multilingual Environment: Sephardic Art between the Domestic and the Communal," Studies in Iconography: Vol. 46, Article 4.
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/studies_in_iconography/vol46/iss1/4