Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
cluding medicine, trade, banking, fashion and publishing. Despite a 10-year censor-
ship order issued by the Church in Rome in 1553, Jewish Venetian publishers contrib-
uted hundreds of titles popularising new Renaissance ideas on humanist philosophy,
medicine and religion - including the first printed Qur'an.
Interfaith Enlightenment
Leading thinkers of all faiths flocked to Ghetto literary salons. In the 17th century, the
Schola Italiana's learned rabbi Leon da Modena was so widely respected that Christi-
ans attended his services. When Venetian Jewish philosopher Sara Copia Sullam
(1592-1641) was anonymously accused of denying the immortality of the soul - a
heresy punishable by death under the Inquisition - Sullam responded with a treatise
on immortality written in two days. The manifesto became a bestseller, and Sullam's
writings are key works of early modern Italian literature.
Signs of Restriction
On the wall at No 1131 Calle del Ghetto Vecchio, an official 1704 decree of the Repub-
lic forbids Jews converted to Christianity entry into the Ghetto, punishable by 'the rope
[hanging], prison, galleys, flogging…and other greater punishments, depending on the
judgment of their excellencies (the Executors Against Blasphemy)'. Such restrictions
on Venice's Jewish community were abolished under Napoleon in 1797, when some
1626 Ghetto residents gained standing as Venetian citizens.
The Enduring Legacy
Mussolini's 1938 Racial Laws revived discriminatory rules, and in 1943 most Jewish
Venetians were deported to concentration camps. As a memorial on the northeast end
of the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo notes, only 37 returned. Today few of Venice's
400-person Jewish community actually live in the Ghetto, but its legacy remains in
bookshops, art galleries and religious institutions.
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Ca' d'Oro
MUSEUM
