Century
16th–17th Centuries
Birth
Venice, Republic of Venice
Tradition
Italian Sephardic
Primary Field
Literature & Intellectual Culture
Occupation
Poet, salon host, polemicist, musician, and intellectual
Associated Work
Manifesto di Sarra Copia Sulam; Venetian literary salon; correspondence with Ansaldo Cebà
Sephardic Connection
Venetian Jewish woman from the Italian Sephardic milieu who participated publicly in early modern literary and philosophical debate
Historical Contribution
Sarra Copia Sullam was one of the most visible Jewish women in the intellectual culture of seventeenth-century Venice. Educated in Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, Latin, music, and literature, she hosted a salon that brought Jewish and Christian writers into sustained conversation. Her correspondence with the Genoese poet Ansaldo Cebà began with their shared interest in his epic treatment of Esther, but Cebà repeatedly attempted to convert her to Christianity. Sullam remained Jewish and later defended herself publicly when the cleric Baldassare Bonifacio accused her of denying the immortality of the soul. Her surviving Manifesto, poems, and letters reveal a skilled polemicist negotiating gender restrictions, confessional pressure, and literary rivalry. She is essential to understanding Jewish women’s authorship and interreligious intellectual exchange in early modern Italy.
