Leo Modena was sincere at each moment. On one day he broke a lance for the Talmud and Rabbinical Judaism, on the next, condemned them utterly. He disapproved of gaming, and grieved that the stars had given him this unfortunate propensity, for he believed also in astrology; yet he prepared a Talmudical decision defending it. When the Venetian college of rabbis pronounced the ban on cards and dice, he pointed out that gaming was permissible by Rabbinical principles, and that the ban had no justification. His disciple, Joseph Chamiz, a physician and mystic, once asked him his opinion on the Kabbalistic transmigration of souls. Modena replied that as a rule he would profess belief in the doctrine even though convinced of its folly, in order not to be pronounced a heretic and a fool, but to him he was willing to express his sincere and true views. Thereupon Leo Modena prepared a work to expose the absurdity and inconsistency with Judaism of the belief in transmigration of souls. But so feebly was this conviction rooted in his nature that, having had an extraordinary experience, he again, at least for a time, believed in the transmigration of souls, a favorite theory of the Kabbala.
The Ghetto of Venice must have been a totally different place from that of Frankfort, or Prague, or from the Polish-Jewish quarters, since it was possible for men like Leo Modena, with his peculiar principles, and Simone Luzzatto, as little of a genuine rabbi, to be members of the rabbinate. In the largest Italian community next to that of Rome, consisting of 6,000 souls, there were cultivated Jews interested in Italian and general European culture, and enjoying not only social, but also literary intercourse with Christian society. The walls of the Ghetto formed no partition between the Jewish and the Christian population. At this time, in the age of Shakespeare, there was no Shylock, certainly not in Venice, who would have stipulated as payment for his loan a pound of flesh from his Christian debtor. The people properly so called, workmen, sailors, and porters, precisely in Venice, were milder and more friendly towards Jews than in other Christian cities. Jewish manufacturers employed 4,00 °Christian workmen in the lagoon city, so that their existence depended on their Jewish employers alone. At the time of a devastating pestilence, when, even in this well policed city, the reins of government became slacker and looser, and threatened to fall from the hands of those in power, Jewish capitalists voluntarily offered their money to the state to prevent embarrassment. There were not a few among them who vied with the cultivated classes among the Christians in the elegant use of the Italian language in speaking and writing, and in making good verses. Besides the two rabbis, Leo Modena and Simone Luzzatto, two Jewish poetesses, Deborah Ascarelli and Sarah Copia Sullam, are illustrations thereof. The first, the wife of Joseph Ascarelli, a respected Venetian, translated Hebrew hymns into elegant Italian strophes, and also composed original verses. A Jewish-Italian poet addressed her in verses thus: "Others may sing of great trophies, thou glorifiest thy people."
The graceful and spiritual Sarah Copia (born about 1600, died 1641) excited a certain amount of attention in her time. She was an original poetess and thinker, and her gifts, as well as her grace, brought her temptations and dangers. The only child of a wealthy father, Simon Copia (Coppio) in Venice, who loved her tenderly, she yielded to her inclination for instruction, and devoted herself to science and literature. To this inclination she remained true even after her marriage with Jacob Sullam. Sarah Copia Sullam surpassed her sex and even men of her age in knowledge. She delighted in beauty, and breathed out her inspirations in rhythmic, elegant verses. Young, attractive, with a noble heart and a penetrating understanding, striving after high ideals, and a favorite of the muses, Sarah Sullam fascinated the old as well as the young. Her musical, well-trained voice excited admiration. When an elderly Italian priest, Ansaldo Ceba, at Genoa, published an heroic poem in Italian strophes, of which the scriptural Esther was the heroine, Sarah was so delighted, that she addressed an enthusiastic anonymous letter full of praise to the author (1618). It pleased her to see a Jewish heroine, her ideal, celebrated in verses, and the attention of the cultivated public directed to Jewish antiquity. She hoped that thereby the prejudice against the Jews of the day would vanish. Sarah did not conceal from the poet that she always carried his poetical creations about with her, and at night put his book under her pillow. Instead of finding satisfaction in the sincere homage of a pure woman's soul, Ceba, in his zeal for conversion, thought only of bringing her over to Christianity. When he heard Sarah's beauty extolled by the servant whom he sent with presents and verses, love for her awoke in him. This was increased by her sending him her portrait, accompanied by enthusiastic verses in the exaggerated style of that time, in which she said: "I carry my idol in my heart, and I wish everyone to worship him." But the beautiful Venetian Jewess did not allow herself to be entrapped. She held firmly to her Jewish beliefs, and unfolded to her priestly friend the reasons that induced her to prefer Judaism. In vain did Ceba, by tenderness, reproofs, and sentimental languishing, with intimations of his speedy end, and his longing to be united with her in heaven, endeavor to make her waver in her conviction. When he begged permission to pray for her salvation, she granted his request on condition that she might pray for his conversion to Judaism.
Her exceptional position as poetess, and her connection with Christians of high rank, brought her renown, not unattended by annoyances. Slanderous fellow-believers spread the report, that she esteemed the principles of Judaism but lightly, and did not fully believe in their divinity. An unprincipled Christian priest, Balthasar Bonifaccio, who later occupied the position of bishop, published a work accusing the Jewess Sarah Sullam of denying the immortality of the soul. Such a charge might in Catholic Venice have had other effects than that against Uriel da Costa in free-thinking, Protestant Amsterdam. Not merely fine and imprisonment might have been inflicted, but the Inquisition might have sentenced her to the dungeon, to torture, and perhaps even the stake. Hardly recovered from illness, she wrote (1621) a manifesto on the immortality of the soul, full of ripe dialectics, noble courage, and crushing force, against her slanderous accuser. The dedication to her deceased father is touching, and still more touching is her fervent psalm-like prayer in melodious Italian verses. The consciousness that she, a woman and Jewess, could not rely on her own strength, but only on help from above, spreads a halo about her memory. The end of this affair is not known. Ceba's epic "Esther" probably induced Leo Modena to translate Solomon Usque's tragedy on the same subject from Spanish into Italian verse; he dedicated it to Sarah Copia, whose epitaph he composed in melodious Hebrew verses.
Leo Modena also had frequent intercourse with Christians. His peculiar nature, his communicative disposition, and great learning, as also his wit and his fondness for gaming, opened the doors of Christian circles to the volatile rabbi. Christian disciples sat at his feet. The French bishop Jacob Plantavicius, and the half-crazed Christian Kabbalist Jacob Gaffarelli, were his pupils. Nobles and learned men corresponded with him, and permitted him to inscribe his works to them with flattering dedications. Leo Modena held in Italy nearly the same position as Manasseh ben Israel in Holland. In the conversation of serious men and in the merry circle of gamesters, he often heard the ceremonies of Judaism ridiculed as childish nonsense (Lex Judæorum lex puerorum). At first he defended his religion, but gradually was forced to admit one thing and another in Judaism to be defective and ridiculous; he was ashamed to be so thoroughly a Jew as to justify all consequences. His necessities led him, on pressure from Christian friends, to render single portions, and at last the whole, of the Jewish code accessible to the Christian public in the Italian language. An English lord paid him for the work, with the intention of giving it to King James I, who made pretensions to extensive