A series of fourteen short couplets describing the fourteen traditional stages of the Haggadah, written in Judeo-Italian and first published in the famous 1609 Venice Haggadah of Isaac Gershon. The Italian used in the Venice Haggadah lacks a lot of the most divergent aspects of the Judeo-Italian languages, sticking to a more mainline Tuscan grammatical norm, but there are enough obsolete, poetic, or dialectal forms that several footnotes have been included to explain them. Also included is an original English-language rhyming translation! . . .

The Italian rite, unique among Jewish rites, has preserved up until very recently the custom recorded in the Talmud, Masekhet Tagnanith, for communally declared fast days. In this rite, sometimes referred to as the Twenty-Four Blessings, six more blessings are added to the liturgy — the Zikhronot and Shofrot portions more commonly recited on Rosh haShanah, and four different psalms, all interspaced with a poetic litany on behalf of the ancestors’ merit and shofar blasts. It’s a fascinatng service! . . .

Jews all over the world announce the new month on the Shabbat before it with a text known as “birkat ha-ḥodesh” or blessing the month. In many rites, such as the Western Sephardic and Moroccan rites, the fast days 17 Tammuz and 10 Tevet are also announced on the Shabbat before them with a text known as “hazkarat tsomot” or announcing fasts. But to my knowledge, only the Italian rite (and possibly the ancient Eretz Yisrael rite from which much of it derives) have a custom of announcing Pesaḥ on the Shabbat before it. This passage, the Announcement of Pesaḥ (Azcaràd Pesah in Italian traditional pronunciation) is recited on the Shabbat before Pesaḥ, commonly known as Shabbat haGadol (Sciabbàd Aggadòl), after the reading from the Torah. Citing the mystical hekhalot literature, it celebrates the sages who established the rules of the calendar. . . .

The text of the piyyut Ein Keloheinu from a 1483 Judeo-Italian translation of the siddur (British Library Or. 2443), along with a transcription into Italian script, a normative Italian modernization, and the Hebrew and English. . . .