Sara Copia Sullam

Sarra Copia Sullam (Sara Copio, 1588/1590–1641) was an Italian poet and writer who lived in Italy in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. She was Jewish and very well educated. Despite being married, for many years she had what appears to have been an extremely close relationship, by correspondence only, with a writer, Ansaldo Cebà, whom she admired but whom she never actually met. He was a Christian, and at that point in his life he had become a monk. He appears to have fallen in love with Sarra, and constantly urged her to convert to Christianity, but she resisted.

In 1621, Sarra was accused of a serious crime of belief, a heresy, and was in danger of trial by Inquisition. She received almost no support from many of her friends, including Cebà. She died of natural causes in 1641. Of her writings, a number of her sonnets and her Manifesto (a response to the accusation of heresy) are all that have survived to the present day.

Early life Sarra was born in Venice between 1588 and 1590 to a Jewish family. Her parents, Simon and Ricca Copia, had two more daughters, Rachel and Esther. Sarra was given a basic education in both Jewish and Italian cultures, and learned several languages including Ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew. Sara’s father died around 1603. In her poetry, Sarra demonstrated her knowledge of both the Old Testament and the New Testament, as well as her familiarity with the works of Aristotle and Josephus. She started writing poetry in Italian at a young age and continued for the rest of her life.

Around 1613 she married Giacobbe Sullam, who had Modenese ancestry. Apart from her daughter Rebecca, who died at only ten months, and an aborted birth, she does not appear to have had any other children. She and her husband loved the arts, and invited to their home both Christian and Jewish writers, poets, intellectuals, artists, and clerics.

Sarra and Ansaldo Cebà In 1618, Sarra read the book La Reina Ester (Queen Esther), a drama written by an author called Ansaldo Cebà. Twenty seven years her senior, Ansaldo Cebà had been a diplomat when he was younger, but had decided to spend the rest of his life living as a monk. He had gone on retreat in one of Genoa's monasteries.

Cebà's book made a great impression on Sarra, and so she wrote a letter to him. In the letter she admitted that she carried the book with her all the time, and even slept with it. Cebà responded to Sarra's letter, and this was the start of four years of letters, gifts and poems, exchanged between the two.

Ansaldo Cebà wrote to Sarra that he wanted to help her convert to Christianity. He was aware of how beautiful Sarra was, because his servant, whom he sent with presents for her, had told him so. And on one occasion Sarra sent Cebà her portrait, writing: "This is the picture of one who carries yours deeply graven on her heart, and, with finger pointing to her bosom, tells the world: "Here dwells my idol, bow before him.""