Medical Diploma for Rabbi-Physician Leon Cantarini (Yehudah ha-Kohen Katz), Granted by the University of Padua, Padua, October 1623.

The earliest extant medical diploma granted to a Jewish student at the University of Padua.

The University of Padua was the first (and for a time the only) medical school to officially admit Jews, and roughly 400 Jewish students studied there between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. This document, dated 1623, is a Padua medical diploma awarded to the Jewish graduate Leon (Yehudah) Cantarini (c. 1594–1650). The recipient is referred to as “Rabbi Leon Cantarini” throughout the text, a formulation unknown on any other surviving diploma. This document is thus of exceptional historical importance: it is both the earliest extant diploma of a Jewish medical graduate of the University of Padua and the only one that identifies its recipient as a rabbi within the body of the text.

The document preserves most elements of the Padua “Jewish format.” It opens with In Dei Aeterni Nomine Amen (“In the Name of the Eternal God, Amen”), instead of the usual invocation of Christ, yet retains the Christian date formula Anno Christiano (“in the Christian year”). It also notes that the ceremony for this Jewish candidate was held in the university’s Aula Augustiori (“Grand Hall”), rather than in an ecclesiastical venue, as was customary. The text lists professors and coursework, including the study of Avicenna under Professor Francisco Bonardo. The two witnesses were prominent local rabbinic figures, R. Jacob Alpron and R. Leon (Yehudah) Saltaro da Fano; the latter had granted Cantarini rabbinic ordination five years earlier. Cantarini’s graduation fell in October 1623 (noted elsewhere as October 31), and the diploma explicitly certifies the customary dual degree, Philosophia et Medicina (“Philosophy and Medicine”).

Among the prominent faculty who supported Cantarini’s candidacy for graduation was the philosopher Cesare Cremonini. According to the Padua Jewish communal archives (April 19, 1624), Cremonini, together with Cantarini, negotiated a privilege protecting the Jewish dead from being used in university dissections. The diploma also bears a contemporary addendum on the inside back cover dated August 1630; it records presentation to the Venetian Officio di Sanità (“Venice Office of Public Health”) and marks Cantarini admesso (“admitted”), officially authorizing him to practice medicine in the city during the Venetian plague. During the plague that struck Padua the following year, he wrote a medical letter to his brother, the fellow Padua-trained physician Caliman, on July 18, 1631, outlining preventive measures; tragically, Caliman died twelve days later, on July 30, 1631. Cantarini later petitioned the Venetian authorities and was granted an exemption (May 15, 1643) from the law requiring Jews to wear a red or yellow hat, thus allowing him to don the black cappello (“hat”) associated with medical graduates.

Cantarini maintained a large medical practice serving Jews and Christians alike, and he prepared summaries and commentaries on Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna. He also authored several religious works, including halakhic responsa, biblical commentaries, and philosophical/theological treatises. He thus functioned within his community as both a physician and a rabbi, embodying the dual cultural ideals among Italian Jewry. He died in 1650 and was buried in the old Jewish cemetery of Padua.

Sotheby’s would like to thank Rabbi Dr. Edward Reichman for his scholarship and assistance in cataloguing this diploma.

Physical Description

Small booklet bound in contemporary tooled red leather (233 x 169 mm); calligraphic Latin on ten double-sided pages (10 leaves; 20 pages), written in a spacious ceremonial hand with occasional gold-leaf lettering and generous margins; no added illustrations (as is typical for Jewish diplomas avoiding Christian imagery). The text opens “In Dei Aeterni Nomine Amen” and retains “Anno Christiano”; venue Aula Augustiori is named in the text. Contemporary annotation on the inside back cover records presentation to the Officio di Sanità (Venice) and the notation “admesso,” August 1630.

Binding: contemporary Italian red leather, boards decoratively gilt à la fanfare, gilt-tooled spine; four small holes in the boards at top, bottom, and along fore edge, possibly once serving to secure wax seals

Literature

Marco Osimo, Narrazione della Strage Compiuta nel 1547 Contro gli Ebrei d'Asolo e Cenni Biografici della Famiglia Koen-Cantarini (Casale-Monferrato, 1875).