L'emencipazione Israelitica (Casale Monferatto)

Bilingual poem by Rabbi Giuseppe Levi Gattinara, published in 1852 to celebrate the Emancipation Edict (1848) and sung during a yearly ritual known as Hag haherut, "Holiday of Freedom." The text, which follows the Italian decasyllable meter in its Hebrew section as well, is an apologia for Judaism as well as a pledge for the cause of the Italian Risorgimento. The melody adheres to the style of Risorgimento hymns. Of the original eight stanzas, Levi recorded only the first Hebrew one, whose melodramatic Italian correspondent is printed below. 

As Lightning against a bright cloud / An angel flies, a messenger of peace. / below the Alps a ray halts. / Reddening the clear sky. / He descended announced by trumpets / Down by the borders of a redeemed Piedmont; / The miserable and the poor are already rising / From the mud, freed by the new covenant. / To the growing divine miracles / Celebrate a new Passover, oh Israel.