A.D. 1500-1600.
THE JEWS IN ITALY.
The Jews had now been expelled from England, France, parts of
Germany and Central Europe, Russia, Spain, and Portugal.[164] They
were also shut out from Holland and the Low Countries, these being
subject to the control of the Empire. It does not appear that they
had ever established themselves in Sweden, Denmark, or Scotland, to
any great extent. In fact, the only European countries in which they
continued to reside in any considerable numbers, at this period,
were Italy, Poland, and Turkey. It was chiefly in the East and in
Northern Africa, under the rule of Mahometan princes, that they found
a refuge. We shall speak first of the residents in Europe during this
century, and then proceed to record the fortunes of their brethren
who had migrated to the East.
They were received, as we have seen, with more kindness than might
have been expected in Italy. Many of the Popes were far-sighted
enough to perceive that, by expelling the Jews from their dominions,
they were simply transferring capital and intelligence to other
countries.[165] Leo X., in 1513, checked the zeal of certain
preachers, who were inveighing against the Jewish usurers in Rome.
He had no mind to have popular tumults excited, which might oblige
him to drive out men whose residence in the city was so advantageous
to him. His successor, Clement VII., adopted a similar policy. When
he heard of the persecution in Portugal, A.D. 1523, undergone by the
New Christians (as those Jews were called who were recent converts
to the Church), he not only sent an invitation to them to come and
live in his dominions, but intimated that he should not inquire what
had happened to them previously in Portugal. It need not be said
that great numbers availed themselves of his offer. Paul III., 1539,
espoused their cause still more openly. He would not permit the
Inquisition to continue its persecuting and bloody work within the
Papal States. Whatever offences might have been charged against the
Jews in their own land, when they crossed the confines of his, a full
amnesty was granted them. Especially this was the case in the rising
city of Ancona. Entire freedom of trade was permitted, no inquiries
being made as to any man’s creed. There was complete equality of
taxation. No one was compelled to wear any distinguishing badge. We
are told that, in consequence of these measures, Ancona grew rapidly
in population and wealth. It was doubtless in consequence of this
special favour that Cardinal Sadolet complained, at Avignon, of the
extraordinary favour shown to the Israelites; and we learn that,
later in his reign, Paul issued a bull, annulling the decrees he
had made in their favour, and requiring that converts to the Church
should be separated from their relatives.
Ten years afterwards Julius III. confirmed the privileges which his
predecessors had granted; indeed, he went further. Considering that
the Reformation was making dangerous progress in Italy, he thought
it necessary to set up the Inquisition in Rome. But he especially
exempted the Jews of Ancona from its supervision. And, as regards the
other Jews in his dominions, he gave the most stringent directions
to his legates and cardinals to show the most complete toleration
to their religious opinions and observances. They were to make no
inquiry as to what they professed, or what they might formerly have
professed—this last promise being obviously intended to meet the case
of those Jewish exiles who, in their native country, had been induced
to make a nominal profession of Christianity, which they had now laid
aside.
His tolerant treatment of them, however, was subjected to a severe
trial. A Franciscan friar, one Corneglio of Montalcino, had become
a convert to Judaism, and forthwith was possessed with a spirit
of proselytism, which drove him openly to preach the falsehood of
Christianity in the very streets of Rome! He was seized, and inquiry
made as to the cause of his apostasy. Fortunately for the Jews, this
was alleged to be the study of the Talmud, not the personal influence
of any Jew. Of the Talmud, accordingly, the penalty was exacted. It
was ordered to be publicly burned in Rome and other Italian cities.
The Jews, who had lived in terror of a furious popular outbreak or a
stern papal decree, were allowed to escape scot free—an act of mercy
which is gratefully recorded by one of their Rabbins.
But it was different when Paul IV. succeeded to the pontificate, a
man of arrogant and impetuous character, who carried intolerance, it
might be said, to the highest pitch of which it is capable.[166] He
was as stern in his demeanour to the Jews as he was to the Reformers.
He renewed all the hostile edicts that had been in force against them
in the time of his predecessors. He prohibited them from holding
real property, and compelled them to sell what they were possessed
of within six months,—of course at a ruinous loss. He debarred them
from trading in corn, or any of the necessaries of life, though he
allowed them the privilege of dealing in old clothes, with which
traffic they have been so generally associated in the popular fancy.
He ordered all their synagogues but one to be destroyed. He was the
first to shut them up in the Ghetto, where, for centuries afterwards,
they were forced to live. He obliged them again to wear a distinctive
dress—the men yellow hats, the women yellow hoods—to abstain from
work on the Sunday, to keep from all intercourse with Christians, and
especially from attending them as physicians, and to pay a tax for
the instruction in the Christian faith of any Jews who were inclined
to embrace it.
His rule, however, only lasted for four years, and Pius IV., who
succeeded him in 1559, somewhat, though not very greatly, relaxed
the sternness of his predecessor’s policy. He maintained the
enforced residence within the Ghetto, but he enlarged and improved
it, and forbade the exorbitant rents which the owners of houses had
hitherto exacted. He removed several restrictions on their trade, and
permitted them to hold real property up to the value of 1500 ducats.
He allowed friendly intercourse between them and their Christian
fellow-subjects, and, though he would not dispense with the cap,
which was one of their distinguishing badges, he changed its colour
from yellow to the less remarkable one of black.
Pius V., 1566, a man of austere and sombre character, revived in a
great measure the harshness of Paul IV. He banished the Jews from
all the cities in his domains, except Rome and Ancona, and revived
most of the severities with which Pius IV. had dispensed. He seems
to have tolerated the presence of the Jews at all, only because by
that time it had come to be generally understood that to expel them
from any country was to destroy its commercial prosperity. There
was little change in their treatment when Gregory XIII. followed,
A.D. 1572. He promulgated a bull, which he caused to be fixed at the
entrance of the Ghetto, which prohibited the reading of the Talmud,
and required all Jews who were more than twelve years of age to
appear periodically, for the purpose of listening to sermons preached
for their special conversion. What effect these had in producing the
desired result, we are not informed.
In 1585, however, Sixtus V. assumed the pontificate—a man of
far higher character and more commanding mind than any of his
predecessors during the present century. His mode of dealing with
the Jews was at once humane and statesmanlike. He swept away with a
stroke of his pen the vexatious and frivolous restrictions which had
been imposed on them; he gave them free access to, and unrestrained
residence in, all the cities of his dominions; he allowed them to
carry on whatever trade they might prefer; he ordered the full
toleration of their religion; subjected them to the same civil
tribunals and the same taxes as their Christian fellow-subjects. He
also limited the amount of usury which they were permitted to exact
to eighteen per cent.
After his death, in 1590, there was a succession of Popes who vacated
the papal chair almost immediately after occupying it.[167] Clement
VIII., who was elected in 1592, confirmed the bull of Pius V., by
which they were banished out of all the papal cities except Rome and
Ancona; but to these he added Avignon, where they have since resided,
with full liberty of holding their religious belief and maintaining
their form of worship.
In the other Italian States their condition during this century
appears to have been quite as good—somewhat better, indeed, than
it was at Rome. In Florence they were kindly received, and so well
protected by the laws, that we are told it was a favourite saying in
that city, that ‘a man might as well insult the Grand Duke himself as
a Jew.’[168] In Venice they were equally in favour. They had already,
in the previous century, obtained permission to set up a bank in the
city, the Senate being aware of the commercial advantages obtained by
the residence of the Jews among them. They disapproved the step taken
by the Spanish and Portuguese kings, and themselves employed Jews
on missions of importance, as for instance Abarbanel, to negotiate
a treaty with Portugal; and in 1589, another Jew, Daniel Rodriguez,
to put down some troubles in Dalmatia, which he successfully
accomplished. In Livorno (Leghorn), which the Medici in the latter
part of this century took under their special protection, designing
it to become a great mart of European trade, a quarter was especially
assigned to the Spanish and Portuguese exiles, who flocked thither in
great numbers. It was, indeed, declared to be a Jewish colony, and
it has continued to flourish from that day to the present time. The
Spanish language is still spoken by the Hebrew population, and the
Mosaic ritual is maintained, says a modern writer, in great splendour.
At Ferrara, the Spanish and Portuguese emigrants were received with
the same favour, and the like privileges, which had been accorded by
other Italian princes. Their numbers were so great, that the duke
was induced, probably by popular clamour, to revive an old law,
requiring them to wear a small yellow circle on the breast. From the
same cause, popular pressure, he was obliged in 1551 to dismiss the
whole of the Hebrew population from his realm, in consequence of a
widespread, though it would seem unfounded, belief that they had
brought the plague into Ferrara. They were, however, soon permitted
to return. Many Jews also settled at Bologna, Cremona, Modena,
Mantua, Padua, and other large towns, where they were kindly received.
At Naples only of the Italian cities they were not permitted to
find a home. In the first instance, as the reader has learned,
a considerable number of the Spanish exiles had found refuge in
that city, where they had been received in a friendly manner. But
the invasion of Charles VIII. of France exposed them to fresh
persecution. Wearied out by their endless trials, they lost heart
at last, and consented to embrace the Christian faith. But, as in
the other instances, the conversion was only nominal, and the danger
had no sooner passed than the pseudo-converts returned to their
former profession. A few years subsequently Gonsalvo de Cordova took
possession of Naples in the name of the King of Spain. He raised
the question as to whether they ought not to be driven out of the
country, which had now become part of the Spanish dominions. But
the idea had now got possession of most people’s minds, that to
expel the Jews from any country was to do it serious injury. He
therefore proposed to introduce the Inquisition, which would retain
the Jews in the land, but compel them to keep to their newly made
profession. This, however, did not please the Neapolitans, who rose
in insurrection, and the government were fain to compromise the
matter by expelling the Jews; though it is affirmed by some of the
Jewish writers (as, for example, Orobio de Castro) that these stern
measures were adopted only so far as the Sephardim (or Spanish Jews)
were concerned.
In this century great numbers of Hebrew printing-presses were set up
in Italy, which were under the management of learned Jews. Among
these was the celebrated Abraham Usque, by whom the well-known Bible
of Ferrara, a Spanish version of the Old Testament, was printed.
Hebrew presses were also erected at Cremona, Leghorn, Padua, Genoa,
Rimini, and Verona, as well as the central city of Rome. The renowned
Daniel Bomberg of Antwerp established himself at Venice in 1516,
and his works attained great celebrity. He also published the first
complete edition of the Talmud, and the first Rabbinical Bible. To
this age also belongs Rabbi Joseph, the historian of the French
Crusades and the sufferings of the Jews in Castile, Asarja de Rossi,
and Abraham Portaleone.
FOOTNOTES:
[164] It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that they were not
to be met with in those countries. Even in England, though the law
forbade any settlement, Jews were occasionally to be found, whose
presence was tolerated. This was still more the case in France
and Germany; while in Spain and Portugal great numbers remained,
whose profession of Christianity was very widely known to be a mere
pretence. Of them we shall speak in the next chapter.
[165] Sultan Bajazet was shrewd enough to apprehend this. When he
heard of the banishment of the Jews by Ferdinand, he exclaimed: ‘A
wise king this, who impoverishes his own kingdom to enrich mine!’
[166] Paul IV. was the Pope whose overbearing dealings with Queen
Elizabeth precipitated the rupture with the English Church. He was
also the author of the well-known _Index_ of prohibited books.
[167] Urban VIII., Gregory XIV., and Innocent IX.
[168] A remarkable instance of the esteem in which they were held in
Florence is to be found in the quarrel between Florence and Milan in
1414. The Florentines, considering that they had cause of complaint
against the Duke of Milan, sent a Jewish banker, named Valori, as an
ambassador to him. The duke refused to receive a Jew as an envoy,
which the Florentines so highly resented that they declared war
against him.