Serena Di Nepi
SURVIVING THE GHETTO, TOWARD A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN 16TH-CENTURY ROME
Brill, 2020. ISBN: 978-90-04-43118-8
Reviewed by Andrea Yaakov Lattes1
During the first half of the sixteenth century, a series of phenomena affected the stability and calm of Jewish life in Rome, the Pope's state capital. First of all, as a consequence of the expulsion of Jews from Spain, a large number of Iberian refugees arrived in the city, which destabilized the pre-existing social equilibrium. Then, in 1543, the Domus Conversorum (The House of Converts), an ecclesiastical institution responsible for the conversion of non-Catholics but in particular Jews, was erected in Rome; afterwards in 1553 the Talmud was burned in the central square of Campo di Fiori, and later, the rumor of a ritual murder case even spread throughout the city. These events created an atmosphere of fear and insecurity for the Jews residing in the church state, who truly feared an expulsion from their homes and businesses, similar to that of the Iberian Jews. According to this new book by Serena Di Nepi, professor of history at University of Rome, this is the context in 1555 when the new elected Pope Paul IV decreed that all Jews living in his state reside in a single neighborhood, which was later known as ghetto. No doubt that all these circumstances turned Jewish life upside down and created not only confusion and uncertainty, but also led to a substantial social and demographic reversal, as well as to a revolution in the Jewish community order.2
How did Roman Jews react to these changes? Furthermore, how did Jews of that period manage to survive and maintain their Jewish identity? These questions have been asked by scholars in recent years, including Di Nepi.3 The author's attempt here is, therefore, to reconstruct a broader social context in which Roman Jews lived during the second half of the sixteenth century. In fact, the birth of a ghetto cannot be attributed exclusively to the evolution of violent anti-Jewish thought and practice of the Church; it must also be placed in the broader context of the great events of the time. According to this reconstruction, Jews then were anxious and afraid. For them the creation of a ghetto would have been almost a palliative or even an antidote to remove the specter of expulsion. For this reason, no attempt was made by the Jewish population, which indeed preferred imprisonment in a ghetto instead of expulsion, to annul the papal decree. The consequences of these events were considerable, in particular the developments of social dynamics. The author emphasizes the transformation of the community management group, with inclusion of representatives of non-Roman Jews, referred to as Ultramontani or “from beyond the mountains,” and a new and more pronounced economic gap, with clear distinctions between social classes and between rich and poor. In fact, the wealthy, often lenders, had to develop a much wider range of action than in the previous period, as the papal bull imposed on Jews the exclusive trade of second-hand clothing and prohibited them from owning real estate, thus forcing merchants to look for new avenues of work. In addition, one of the theses of this volume is that creation of the ghetto strengthened the role of rabbis within the Jewish leadership.
The volume is divided into seven chapters. The first describes the situation of Jews in Rome before the infamous 1555 papal bull which established the ghetto, the impact suffered with the arrival of refugees from Spain, their fear of a subsequent expulsion even from the Church State, and, consequently, the acceptance of the ghetto as a compromise. Chapter Two describes the birth of the ghetto and the atmosphere of insecurity and violence that blew in in those years. The next chapter attempts to outline the traits of the political and leading class in the Roman Jewish community immediately following the creation of the ghetto. The author uses only notarial documents without considering sources internal to the community and she succeeds in underlining Jewish social transformation inside the ruling class.
In Chapter Four, the author tries to outline the careers of some wealthy lending families during the same period when the jobs they could engage in were very limited. The stories of families engaged in loan banking and in selling of used clothing (stracci) break down the stereotype of the Jewish rag seller and reveal how dynamic Roman Jewish society was at the time. On the other hand, within this new regime, it still was possible for Jews to cover a very broad range of work associated with used clothing, from holding the monopoly contracts for used clothing from the hospitals, the constant short, medium and long-range travel, the prudent use of market stalls, and the interplay between internal agreements and external ratifications sanctioned from the granting of lender licenses.
The fifth chapter is perhaps the most original and interesting of the volume. Di Nepi examines the sectors, mechanisms, rules, and criteria with which the Jews applied themselves to the only trade they were allowed to practice, stracceria or rag selling, a topic that has never before been discussed in such depth. The close look at this old clothes affair can hold surprises. Some stracci, such as the bundles (fardelli) of clothing from the hospitals, were of much higher value than others and the places and methods of selling these stracci could become a system of accumulating capital, just like the management of spaces in the city markets. . Thus, we learn about the agreements for the purchase of used clothing bundles between Jewish merchants, negotiations for the leasing and re-letting of market places outside the walls of the ghetto, as well as about the educational curriculum for community younger members of the community, which included business trips through Italy in order to develop other financial opportunities and journeys to participate in textile fairs and meetings with partners in "rags." Di Nepi also writes about how this trade had become a very lucrative business for those with contracts to purchase from hospitals used clothing which belonged to deceased patients. Important information could be obtained from this chapter, such as a list of the names of Jewish merchants purchasing the bundles, for example, an analysis of families and different social groups inside of Jewish society.
Chapter Six deals with relations between Jewish lenders and the ecclesiastical authorities who issued their licenses. In this chapter, too, the list of safe conduct holders issued by the authorities is of particular importance, as one can deduce who was able to travel and how many people actually traveled. The closing chapter, on the other hand, describes the relations between Jews and the notaries who recorded their operations, whether they were Jews or Christians.
This book actually indicates some new perspectives to Jewish life in Rome at this time. Its merit is in the attempt to broaden the historical vision beyond the guidelines already established in the past, moving beyond the dual track and lachrymose description of ghetto life that is centered on the ideas of absolute poverty and complete isolation, in order to show a more complex phenomenon.
1 Yaakov Andrea Lattes, PhD, has taught at the Department of Jewish History of Bar Ilan University, Israel; at Gratz College, Philadelphia; and at Yaad Academic College, Tel Aviv. His research deals with the early modern society, in particular regarding Jews in Italy, especially the social and political developments of Italian Jewry in the present. Lattes, has published four books, as well as about forty papers about Jewish history in Italy, Jewish political tradition, history of Jewish institutions.
2 About this phenomenon see: A. Y. Lattes, “Le fasi di un fenomeno urbanistico ed organizzativo ebraico nell'Italia del cinque-seicento,”, Cheiron, 57-58 (2012): 131-141.
3 K. Stow, Theater of Acculturation. The Roman Ghetto in the 16th Century, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), and see also its review in: A. Y. Lattes, “K. Stow, Theater of Acculturation,” Zakhor, VIII (2005), p. 232-235.