Giustina Levi-Perotti: The Nineteenth-Century Afterlife of a Fourteenth-Century Jewish Poet Who Never Existed

This article explores the literary fabrication of Giustina Levi-Perotti, a fictitious fourteenth-century poetess, and her mistaken inclusion among the canon of Jewish writers. Originally invented during the sixteenth century by Italian humanists seeking local prestige, her literary persona was later attributed a Jewish identity by nineteenth-century Jewish scholars eager to demonstrate longstanding Jewish contributions to European literature. This article retraces how this pseudepigraphic construct emerged, evolved, and was eventually dismantled, revealing broader insights into historiographical practice, Jewish emancipation discourse, and the ideological functions of literary forgery in both Renaissance and modern scholarship.