ABSTRACT
Rahel Morpurgo (1790-1871) was a Triestine poet and member of the well-known Luzzatto family, to which the celebrated Shemuel David (Shaddal), her cousin, also belonged. As her fi rst biographer Vittorio Castiglioni points out,2 many distinguished and celebrated intellectuals were related to her family, as were the Kabbalist and playwright Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto, and Efraim Luzzatto who lived in London. In this intellectual environment Morpurgo was initiated into Jewish culture, receiving an exclusive education from private teachers. After learning the Pentateuch and its commentary by Rashi,3 she studied the Babylonian Talmud at the age of fourteen. Her cousin Shemuel David sent her poems to the journal Kokhavey Yizhak, where they were published from 1848 to 1859 and contributed to her fame. She lived in an especially signifi cant period for the history of the Jewish people, and became widely known and appreciated from the moment that her fi rst poems appeared.
