In response to:
Reckoning with a Troubled Past from the March 23, 2023 issue
To the Editors:
To Magda Teter’s point, in “Reckoning with a Troubled Past” [NYR, March 23], that “no physical traces have survived” of anti-Jewish libels in Europe beyond the two she references, may I add another: the Latin inscription beneath the Madonna della Rosa ensconced on the exterior of Orsanmichele in Florence: “HANC FERRO EFFIGIEM PETIT IUDAEUS ET INDEX IPSE SUI VULGO DILANIATUS OBIT MCCCCLXXXXIII” (A Jew attacked this statue with a knife and, confessing, was torn to pieces by the crowd and perished—1493).
M. Barry Katz
Monroe, New Jersey
