![]() ![]() Schmettau’s album amicorum perished during the Second World War, but it is known to have been kept at the City Library of the city of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russian Federation), and to have contained an inscription by Menasseh on folio 63r. ISBA II), and fellow Silesian Nathanael Vechner (cf. ![]() ISBA I, 46f.), Johann Heinrich Hottinger (cf. His album amicorum contained, i.a., inscriptions by Johann Meisner (cf. In 1654 he returned home from Switzerland, where he had met with the Orientalist Johannes Buxtorf the Younger. In the Low Countries he also visited the universities of Franeker, Harderwijk, Utrecht, and Leiden, as well as meeting with Menasseh ben Israel in Amsterdam. 10 He started his academic studies in Frankfurt an der Oder and continued in Groningen (1651), 11 where he met the well-known Orientalist Jacobus Alting, as well as other scholars. ![]() Heinrich Schmettau or Henricus Schmettavius (1629–1704) was born in the Silesian city of Brieg (now Brzeg, Poland). More than half a century onwards, Molanus may have thought he was, or perhaps he just wished to succinctly portray Menasseh, not only as a doctus vir but as a leading figure within the Jewish community of Amsterdam as well. To the right of the actual album leaf, there is a handwritten note by the collector, Molanus, reading: Manus Manassis ben Israel Archisynagogi Amstelodamensis – ‘Hand (autograph) of Menasseh ben Israel, the Archisynagogus of Amsterdam.’ We are not aware of any evidence suggesting that Menasseh was, in fact, an archisynagogus, i.e., the leader of a synagogue. The dating of the inscription takes the form of a combination of the Gregorian month of April and the Jewish year 5410, in line with the other inscriptions we discovered until now, except the two earliest ones (Hottinger 1640 and Meisner 1645). 8 On the contrary, he did it carefully and with pleasure (‘lubens’). Nevertheless, Menasseh’s entering of his ‘few words’ into learned visitors’ alba cannot be seen as evidence of unwillingness, as Roth suggests. The inscription as a whole matches the format described in more detail in ISBA I, 36f. in particular the dedication for Meisner, ISBA I, 38). Likewise, the Latin words are far from unique among Menasseh’s dedications (cf. The Hebrew and the Aramaic epigraphs are both from what could be termed Menasseh’s ‘stock of phrases.’ In our alba found so far, the Hebrew phrase is used in those of Pauli and Zollikofer, the Aramaic Golden Rule in those of Meisner, Pauli, Árkosi, and Hottinger the exact combination of the two occurs in Pauli’s album. Menasseh’s inscription, pasted on folio 249b of Molanus’s collection, reads as follows: 5 Molanus’s collection, Autographa Doctorum Virorum, is now kept in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hanover, as Ms XLII, 1989, 1. Jacobi’s album was lost, but the page containing Menasseh’s inscription was preserved by the Lutheran theologian Gerhard Wolter Molanus (1633–1722), a Hanover collector of autographs. Christian colleagues from all over Europe frequented his house.’ 3 After completing his studies, this ‘Vir multilinguis & polyhistor’ (Meier), 4 became a sub-conrector, conrector, and finally, in 1678, the rector of the Schola Hanoverana (Hanover City School), the later Ratsgymnasium. In 1650, prior to his stay in Strasbourg, 2 he made a tour that included the Low Countries, and apparently had a meeting with Menasseh ben Israel, who by then ‘had attained the pinnacle of his scholarly aspirations. From 1639 onwards he studied in Helmstedt, Königsberg, Rostock, and Strasbourg, where he studied Theology and obtained the title of Magister in Philosophy. Hermannus Jacobi was born in 1620 in Hanover, 1 where he died in 1683. Keywords: Menasseh ben Israel album amicorum Hermannus Jacobi Hanover Henricus Schmettavius / Heinrich Schmettau Silesia ![]()
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