Abstract:

The private correspondence between Sephardi Jews flowed in the 16th century. Even belonging to the less elaborated written communication modality, the letters written by Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire presented perfectly defined structural features and determined formulations, comprised of an amalgam of Hispanic and Hebrew influences, whose cultural components ca be identified: They reflect the distinctive Castilian structure of the end of the 15th century, based on the six parts of the Ciceronian oratory, and consisted of five parts: salutatio, sometimes exordium, narratio, petitio and conclusio. A part of the formulations referred to models of Spanish letters of the 15th century, but those of strong Christian connotation were substituted for other taken directly from their own Jewish cultural heritage.