Iscrizioni ebraiche in Terra di Lavoro con attestazione di ebrei di Piazza Armerina

In 1892, the historian and archaeologist Gabriele Iannelli published a note concerning two Hebrew epitaphs allegedly of the late 15th or early 16th century that were found in Terra di Lavoro (Northern Campania) and which have been since forgotten. The first epitaph is known only through an trascription made in the 18th century by the Christian Hebraist Alessio Simmaco Mazzocchi. The second is a funerary inscription found at Castel Volturno, belonging to a certain Ester from Piazza, which is to be identified with Piazza Armerina in Sicily. This text is the first known evidence of a Sicilian Jewish presence in Campania besides the documentary sources. The whereabouts of both inscriptions is presently unkown, but some old copies and a paper squeeze of the second inscription have been detected in the archive of Graziadio Isaia Ascoli.