Descrizione

8vo (182 x 135 mm). 90, [3]. Modern marbled cardboards, lettering piece with gilt title and initials A.L. (Aldo Lozito) on spine, original printed paperback preserved. Several pencilled marginalia and underlines. On the front pastedown ex-libris of Aldo Lozito. Handwritten ownership entry on title page. Author's dedication to his brother Massimiliano with the motto "Nomen est omen". Lightly browned, but overall a very good copy. 
First edition, published in 1925 (5865 in the Jewish calendar). This rare publication is the first study of the onomastics of Italian Jews and includes "approximately 1,650 surnames corresponding to 9,800 families — on average, one surname for every six families. This large number of surnames is due to the fact that, while each Italian surname broadly corresponds to a number of families, the Jews of the four German communities who immigrated less than a century ago have almost every family with their own surname". As well as this long list of surnames organised alphabetically, the work includes a history of their origin and etymology, the changes they underwent over time (including as a result of state laws), German-Jewish onomastics, and the history of the Jews of Italy and the country's noble families. There is also an interesting bibliography showing the scarcity of materials in this field of Jewish onomastic studies at the time, thus demonstrating the absolute importance of Schaerf's work.
The publication, written by Samuel Schaerf, had a curious fate: created to celebrate Jewish families who had become part of Italy's ruling class at the beginning of the 20th century, it was used by anti-Semitic figures such as Preziosi and Barduzzi to compile proscription lists during the period of the racial laws. In particular, an excerpt published in 1938 became an instrument of persecution.
Italian Union Catalogue, IT\ICCU\CUB\0585890.