CUZZERI, SEMA (
):
Italian poet; resident at Padua. He witnessed the terrible attack on the ghetto of Padua on Aug. 20, 1684. He portrays the sorrows of that time in an Italian poem entitled "L'Innocenza Illesa," and narrates the horrible cruelties recorded in Isaac Cantarini's "Paḥad Yiẓḥaḳ"; he describes in detail the ghetto of Padua and the persecutions that occurred there, and defends the Jews against the groundless accusation, made at that time, of cruelties committed against the Christians of Budapest. The contents of the still unpublished poem are given in Antonio Ciscato's "Gli Ebrei in Padova," pp. 203 et seq. (Padua, 1901).
