The Soncino family was originally from Speyer, one of the German towns in which printing had an early impact. After a decree of expulsion in 1435, the family moved to the Italian town that lent the family its name. Soncino printed the first Hebrew Bible in Europe in 1488; the edition of the Mishnahin this exhibit was one of the last Hebrew books printed in Naples in 1492. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in that same year led to massive emigration into Italy. A plague among the Jewish refugees in Naples, along with other unfortunate events, caused the eventual dissolution of the Jewish community in that city. It is unclear what became of Joshua Solomon Soncino, but it is known that his brother Gerson had taken refuge in northern Italy, where religious tolerance was more prevalent than in the south. Gerson Soncino eventually settled in Rimini, where he adopted the tower motif and verse from Proverbs as his printer’s mark – the first for a printer of Hebrew in Italy. The Soncino family was responsible for the printing of approximately 135 Hebrew books between 1483 and 1547. Today its namesake, the New York-based Soncino Press, continues the tradition of publishing Judaica. Excerpt on Soncino sons from David Werner Amram's The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy
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