Studies on the Mahzor according to the Italian Rite edited by Mordechai Angelo Piattelli This collection of studies by various Israeli scholars is dedicated to the study of the Italian (Roman) rite liturgy, prayers and piyyutim , their editions and the culture of the Jews in Italy during the second half of the 15th century, the period the first edition of the Mahzor was published (Robert Bonfil, Peter Lehnardt, Mordechai Angelo Piattelli, Yitzhak Akiva Satz). Also included are studies on the typography and contents of this first edition of the Mahzor (Yitzhak Yudlov, Michael Ryzhik and Peter Lehnardt, who compiled the index of piyyutim in the Mahzor). The prayer rite designated ‘rite of Rome’ – together with the related Romanian rite – is the most ancient rite practiced in Europe. This rite is an important link in the history of Jewish prayer, and it retains vestiges of the early Palestinian (Land of Israel) rite even though it absorbed many other religious practices, laws and Babylonian liturgies as did other rites. The original name was "the rite of the loazim" i.e., the custom of the Jews who spoke Latin or one of the other Romanite languages, or ‘the rite of Rome’. This rite was followed in the city of Rome and probably in other Jewish communities in Southern Italy until the final expulsion of the Jews from the South in 1541. The rite spread from Rome to other Jewish settlements in central and northern Italy and thus it was eventually designated the ‘Italian rite’, i.e., the custom shared by all the Jewish communities in Italy. Other communities as well adopted this rite including some in Safed during the 16th and early 17th centuries and some congregations in Constantinople and Salonica. Today this rite is followed in a few communities in Italy and in the Roman rite synagogue in Jerusalem.