People of the Book

This chapter opens with a priest, struggling with alcohol withdrawal, who clumsily gives communion. His name is Giovanni Vistorini. He was an orphan, adopted by monks in Venice at age six, whose skill with languages made him the perfect candidate to become censor for the Inquisitor. Vistorini drinks and goes out into the street, meeting a friend, Judah Aryeh. The rabbi keeps his head down, and Vistorini wonders, “How many small humiliations had it taken to bow him over into that cringing stoop [...]” (151). The men discuss a book to be censored and get into an argument when Vistorini suggests Aryeh talk to the printer.

Later, Aryeh reveals his gambling problem. He asks a wealthy woman, Dona Reyna de Serena, for money for his congregation. She is a Jew pretending to be Christian to live a free life. Dona Reyna asks the rabbi to get the Haggadah approved by the censor, so she can leave Venice. The rabbi agrees. He then uses Carnivale, the festival of masks, to hide his Jewish identity and gamble the Dona’s money away. He is found out as a Jew and must flee.

In Aryeh’s meeting with Vistorini about the Haggadah, the men get into another argument.