This first Haggadah printed in Venice is the second edition of Isaac Abrabanel’s enormously popular commentary on the Haggadah, Zevach Pesach. During the 16th century, the ruling authorities of Venice did not allow Jews to own printing presses. Therefore, Hebrew books produced in Italy during this period were published in Christian printing houses. The title page of this early Haggadah bears the printer’ emblem of Marco Antonio Giustiniani, a patrician Venetian who opened a Hebrew press in 1545. This Haggadah is the 3rd volume to come off of his press. Giustiniani’s emblem was a representation of the Temple in Jerusalem as it was imagined to have looked. Unexpectedly, the image of the building is modeled on the Muslim’s Dome of the Rock. The adoption of the Islamic imagery for the Holy Temple was the result of the popular acceptance of the Crusader’s representations of the Temple as the Dome of the Rock.

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