Abstract
The Dominican friar Pietro Ranzano in his History of Palermo, written around 1470, discussed a presumed ‘Chaldaic’ (actually, Arabic) inscription discovered in that city. Ranzano's rendition of the inscription is based on a legend that first appears in Sefer Josippon, a Hebrew historical work from the tenth century. Although later studies proved that Ranzano was misled in his interpretation of the text, perhaps by the Jews of Palermo, this episode is important for understanding Ranzano's attitudes towards Jews, and the value he put on Hebrew books. It also offers a glimpse into the cultural encounters between Jews and Christians in late medieval Sicily.
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