Data sheet
Name: Ossuary of the Levi-Minzi family*
Location: ossuary A, no. 115-117
Author: Dario Viterbo (sculptor)
Construction date: 1925-1952
In the perimeter walls of the cemetery there are chapels, columbaria and ossuaries, which are not really typical of the Jewish tradition.
Among the ossuaries that of the Levi-Minzi family is interesting from an artistic point of view. It is decorated with a marble bas-relief by the Florentine sculptor and goldsmith Dario Viterbo (1890-1961), who took refuge in the United States in 1941.
Franco died a few days after his birth in 1925 and the representation of a jug pouring water into a basin, a traditional symbol of the Levites who wash the hands of the Cohen before the blessing of the people, is dedicated to him. His father Giacomo died in 1931 and the representation of a hand-held pomegranate, which is a symbol of honesty and fairness for the Jews as it would contain 613 seeds, the same number as the prescriptions written in the Torah, is dedicated to him. The seven lights of the seven-branched candelabrum are dedicated to his mother Anna Marx who died in 1952. It is surmounted by the Cohen’s blessing hands with the fingers joined two by two and the thumbs touching.
