Pair of Torah finials (rimonim)

Exceptional for their size and precious material, these Torah finials are rare survivors of eighteenth-century Italian silver and a testimony to the artistic virtuosity of goldsmithing in Venice. In synagogues, the scroll of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, is often decorated with a set of silver ornaments including a crown, a shield, and finials mounted on the staves. Symbolizing the bond between community and faith, these are decorated with religious emblems like priestly garments, a miniature temple, a menorah, and the Tablets of the Law surrounded by lush floral ornamentation. Such rich embellishment is indicative of the wealth and influential status of the Jewish congregation in the Venetian city-state.

Though they were acquired separately, the finials belong to the same ensemble as the Met’s Torah Crown (2013.443), reunited here for the first time since the 1960s. The maker, Andrea Zambelli, is known to have produced a wide range of ritual Judaica as well as religious silver for the local churches. A later inscription in Hebrew documents that the "crown of glory" [Isaiah 28:5] and its accompanying finials were given by the philanthropist and president of the Jewish community in Padua, Gabriel Trieste, to his congregation in the mid-nineteenth century.