This is a study of a Renaissance artist and his patrons, but with an added complication, insofar as Leone de’ Sommi, the gifted academician and playwright in the employ of the dukes of Mantua in the second half of the sixteenth century, was Jewish and a lifelong promoter and protector of his community. The article deals with the complex relationship between the court and the Jewish “università” concerning the drama and the way in which dramatic performances also became part of the political, judicial and social negotiations between the two parties, as well as a study of Leone’s role as playwright and negotiator during a period that was arguably one of the best of times for the Jews of Mantua.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Beecher, D., (2025), "Leone de' Sommi and Jewish Theatre in Renaissance Mantua", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Beecher, Donald. "Leone de' Sommi and Jewish Theatre in Renaissance Mantua." Renaissance and Reformation 29 (2): 2010. 5-19. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v29i2.11410. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.