The conversion of a Jewish woman in 18th-century Verona. 1 copy worldwide.

[Catholic conversion] / [Judaism]. Distinto ragguaglio di quanto è occorso nella conversione di una donna ebrea con un figliuolo e due figliuole alla cattolica religione battezzati da monsign. illustriss. e reverendiss. Giovanni Bragadino vescovo di Verona, conte ec. Verona: Nella stamperia del seminario presso Agostino Carattoni, 1746. 4to [25.0 x 19.1 cm], VIII pp., with woodcut arms on title page, woodcut head-piece and woodcut initial. Bound in later marbled card. Minor edge wear and staining to binding. Creases and wrinkling suggest that the item once was folded and sealed as a letter/correspondence, minor toning and soiling, marginal mend and small hold at fold on final leaf.
 
 
Very rare (1 copy worldwide: Biblioteca della Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino [Trento]) first and only edition of this unusual report concerning a Jewish woman—a certain Sara Bassan—who with her son and two daughters converted to Catholicism in Verona in 1746. 
 
The account, whose very existence points to the infrequency of such conversions, contains nothing of the miraculous or revelatory. Instead, we are a given a day-by-day narrative of how Sara Bassan’s curiosity about conversion was cultivated by scores of named Catholic individuals in the Veneto, including clergy of all sorts, other converts, experts in Hebrew (or ‘Jewish’) language, etc. 
 
Sara Bassan left the Verona Ghetto of her own accord, but she required initial instruction about such matters as working on the Sabbath, food prohibitions, and the supposed polytheism and idolatry of Catholicism (the Trinity, the veneration of saints and images, etc.). Thereafter she and her children were given catechetical instruction, wowed with the grandeur of church architecture and decoration, etc., and eventually were baptized by Giovanni Bragadino, Bishop of Verona. The report in essence could serve a practical roadmap to the conversion of Jews who were open and receptive to Catholicism. 
 
 
OCLC, OPAC/SBN/ICCU and KVK locate only the copy at the Biblioteca della Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino (Trento).
 
*Giambattista Carlo Giuliari, Gli anonimi veronesi, p. 19, no. 78; OCLC no. 797370186.