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Title : standard furniture garrison
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>> from the library ofcongress in washington, dc. >> roberta i shaffer:good afternoon. good afternoon. my name is roberta shaffer andi have the privilege of serving as the law librarian of congressand it is indeed my pleasure to welcome you this afternoon to our program markingthe 500th anniversary of the establishmentof the venice ghetto. it's quite appropriateactually that the library
of congress be the venuefor this commemoration. and as many of you alreadyknow, venice during the period that it was a ghetto,so up until 1797 when that 20 something napoleonbonaparte lifted the flood gates. it was a flourishingcommercial publishing center. many, many arts and muchliterature and music was created and disseminated fromthe venice ghetto and it had quite a contribution tothe life of the venetian republic and the life of thewhole region around it.
but probably the most importantreason for us to be the venue to begin this commemorationis the fact that it was kind of a melting pot. now many of you know thatthe word ghetto is associated at least originally bymany with the venice ghetto as the first instanceof that term being used. but there is i understandsome controversy about the origin of the word. this region which wasthe confined community
that became the venice ghetto yearsbefore had been the foundry works of that region. and i like to think that that'sthe origin from the italian word because in many ways it reallysignifies the melting pot that the venice ghetto was. and also that it was a place that much culture andcommerce was forged. so if you'll excuse my beinga bit punish this afternoon that is why i prefer to think
that the term foundry was indeedthe reason for the creation. and the library of congressitself is a great melting pot of intellectual creation. as many of you, i hope, know we haveover 165 million items representing over 420 languages, wehave maps, manuscripts, movies and of course booksand many, many other artifacts of intellectual creationand the history of humanity. so for all of thesereasons, we are delighted to be hosting this commemorationthis afternoon and we welcome you
and we hop you will havethe opportunity at the end of the program to viewa really small sampling of the wonderful treasuresthat are part of the library of congress collections thatare relevant to the topic that we will discuss todayand looking at the topic through a very long lens of howwhat our scholars will share with us has relevanceto contemporary life. so speaking of contemporarylife, it is indeed an honor to welcome the new ambassadorto washington from italy,
his excellency armando varricchio,who has had many, many post. he served in budapest, in belgrade. he's been in brussels. served his own foreignministry as an equivalent of an undersecretary very recentlyand is coming back to washington for the second time he washere a number of years ago as the economic advisorto the embassy of italy. he is marking this year his 30thanniversary in civil service. so although we're markinga 500th anniversary today,
we're also markinga 30th anniversary. he came to civil service after abrief stint in the private sector. we are delighted by therelationship that we have through the cultural attachã© renatomiracco with the embassy and we know that our new ambassadorwill continue the tradition. he has a phenomenalintellectual curiosity. this is not his first trip eventhough he just came to washington to the library of congress. and so we are absolutelyhonored that he is
with us this afternoon,your excellency. [ applause ] >> armando varricchio:good afternoon. thank you very much robertafor this very, very warm and friendly welcome here. you're right. this is not the firsttime here had a privilege to attend an event a few weeks ago. and this shows importance
that i attach thisgreat institution, the library of congress. we are celebrating today500 years great anniversary when leonardo loredan, thedoge of venice, ruler of venice and the venetian senate inearly spring day march 1516 and venice decided that the jewishcommunity had to be segregated in an old part of the city closeto an area that we call cannaregio. they were not aware thatthat decision was conducive to change history in a way.
i don't want to enterinto the pronunciation with the word ghetto or jhetto. i think that we should havea glottologist working on it. but it is true that we tendto believe that because of the location, because that part of the city was anindustrial site, a foundry. from that very name wenowadays have been accustomed to use this word, ghetto. the idea of the venetian rulers wasto segregate people and this one
of the topic that we arepre-discussing today la cittã degli ebrei the city of the jews,segregated space and the admission of strangers in the jewish ghetto. but what does segregationmean actually? it might sound paradoxicallythat a city like venice, venice was a winner ofthat time globalization. we tend to believe that theglobalization is a very recent world, this is not the case. venice was really globalized city.
you had venetian shipruling the waves in what was called the venetian sea and now we are accustomedto name adriatic sea. they were sailing throughout themediterranean down to the east, the areas that we now call syria,the great city of constantinople. so they were particularlyopen to different cultures, different ideas, differentreligions. but nonetheless they decidedto segregate the community. what is particularly intriguing isto think about segregation today.
because we do thinkthat that community made out of very talentedpeople there were merchants, there were intellectuals,the were bankers. they responded in thebest possible way. they did continue their journey. and their journey and thejourney that we can admire here with the display of this greatpiece of art, the books that thanks to the library we will enjoy, was a journey throughout theirmind, throughout their spirit.
this means that you can segregatepeople, you can close a border but you cannot segregate your mind. thanks to their ability,to their deep knowledge, to their great personality,those people, people that were not different for anybody they werepart of the society. there were an active part of thesociety continue their journey. they produce ideas,they wrote about law, about the arts, about daily life.
so they remain an activepart of the society. and by the way venice shouldnot have been the same without the great contributionof the jewish venetian. they were a very, verydynamic component to society. since then we've accustomed to havedifferent ghettos not just jewish but in other part of the societiesand see we tend to use this word. we are in the library ofcongress so we tend to read books. but books are so useful to us. cicero we used to say thathistoria est magistra vitae,
because of history we can learnto better understand our present. the historians havea great privilege. they look into the past andthey offer us opportunities to think about the present. it is not up to historians tosay what we should do nowadays and what should doparticularly in the future. but they are offeringus a current reading. and i think that we will enjoylistening to great contributions of very prominent scholars.
afterwards, some of you willhave the opportunity to be and to receive a great treat ireceived by looking at those books. but first and foremost ithink that by going back to that early spring day of 500 dayswe will have opportunities to think about our present and particularlywhat lays in front of us. thank you very muchfor having me here. >> natalia indrimi: good evening. i'm natalia indrimi the director ofthe centro primo levi in new york. i like to thank roberta shafferand ambassador varricchio,
armando for inviting us toparticipate in this event which i believe with and ihope will be the beginning of a fruitful collaborationwith the library of congress. our center has beenactive in new york for about 18 years presentingthe work of primo levi as well as the history of italian jews. the history of italian jews and theparticular combination of the lens through which primo levi hasportrayed and transmitted it to the public all over the worldhas-- is especially symbolic.
we are talking aboutone of the smallest and longest living minorities in theworld which jews have lived in italy for over 22 centuries and havebeen always in the range between 30 and 50,000 people so avery, very small population that has not assimilatedat all but integrated and coexisted being influenced,that influencing the italian society to a very high degreeafter the tragedy of joshua which primo levi has brought tous in very unique universal terms. the way in which the history ofthis minority become symbolic is
to show what a small groupof people who are different but fully participatory do to largersociety as the rule in systems as the forms of governmentschange in that country. and i think that by studying therelationship with an italian jews and italy as first ascombination of smaller states and then as a unified country. there is a lot that we can gain intrying to understand the world today and how we in a meltingpot relate to each other and to a larger societyin which we live.
the way in which our center worksis by supporting programming, both academic and public,and publishing, we have an online magazine, printedmatter that is free for everybody to enjoy and a smallpublishing house. what we provide forthe academic world and the general public is aninterface with enormous treasure of italian libraries and archives that are also extremelywell-organized through a unified portalcalled siusa.
and that anybody from here or fromanywhere in the world can access. what's always surprisingand interesting is to see the traveling of books. i mean, what we have in italy hasoften it create an interlocutor, a book that is in italyas an interlocutor in a library in the unite states. there is no library in theunited stated and here we have of course the most preciousexample of italian collection here but that doesn't feature a pieceof the history of italian jews.
some in very important ways like thejewish theological seminary library which by the way was founded byan italian rabbi sabato morais. the two smaller librarieslike colombia and the library of congress, the [inaudible]library that he wrote that is by 80% of italian origin. and the fact that it's such asmall population has left a legacy that we can find and follow in so many different places i thinkis per se something to reflect upon and something to investigate.
the history of traveling of eachof this book and what they did to the place and the-- wherethey landed and the students that were able to read them is verymuch important part of our culture and our society and somethingthat we always ought to remember because the destiny of books and libraries is alwaysuncertain especially when we are in tight times of crisis that peopletend to diminish what the books do and instead our basiseven in the face of basic, very, very, basic needs.
i'm going to leave the podiumto our distinguished speakers and i just want to add that ihope very much that the books that are here at the libraryof congress of italian and italian jewish origin andthe books that are [inaudible] and this libraries arefeatured in our website and in others will begin a newdialogs and continue the dialogs that have been initiated so farby scholars like bernard cooperman who was been a champion ofunderstanding bringing the history of italian jews herein the united states.
again, thank you very much andplease welcome our speakers. >> bernard cooperman: thankyou very much natalia. welcome ambassador. thank you roberta, thankyou everybody for coming. i am a professor by profession,right, that's what i do for a living which means that i can onlyspeak in 50 minute blocks and they've only givenme 30 minutes. so i'm going to talk very fastnow and then you'll understand and you'll have to slow it downon the tape afterwards trying
to understand what i said, ok. so let my try-- first of alllet's put on a picture here. how do we do? oh, there we are, ok. can you see that? yeah. all right. so, i'm going to skip aroundand i'm just going to try to hit some highlights to tryto make sense out of this. so forgive me if i'm too fastand i assume there'll be time
for questions afterwards andwe can do it and i'll try to also let you know about some ofthe things you'll be able to see in the room out there and whatthey are and so forth and so on. so the first questionis what is a ghetto and what do we assume it to be. we assume for most people andthe ambassador put it very well, there is a sense ofsegregation, there is a sense-- if you ask the averageperson, most people if you ask in america what is a ghetto,
they don't know it hasanything to do with jews. they think the ghettowas the intercity, it's african-americans,it's latinos. in american the word haslost its jewish connotation. but if you ask my studentswho know anything about jewish history they will tellyou the ghetto is a terrible period and the ghetto gives its name topre modern to the pre modern world. there's a very famous article thatis called ghetto and emancipation, as if all the jews lived in a ghettoand then they were led out, right?
then they were let free,who let the dogs out, or who let thee jews out, right? so all the jews runout of the ghetto and suddenly they become apart of the modern world. and so there is a sense thatthe ghetto was an enclosure, was an expulsion from society thereis one absolutely horrifying book by a very well knownsocial scientist from new york whose name iwon't mention but if you look at my articles you'll see himand who compares the ghetto,
if you'll excuse me, to a condomthat protect society from the jews who are germs and that,you know, this is insane. it's absolutely nuts. but it is part of anarrative of jewish history that says the jewsused to be excluded, the jews used to be punishedand then suddenly perhaps with the french revolution,perhaps the american revolution, perhaps with the austrianedict of tolerance that suddenly they were let out.
so there's this notion ofexpulsion and exclusion. and the idea was that the jews wereexcluded from not only the contact with the outside world but fromthe culture of the outside world. it was a sense then that the jewsgain their legal rights of citizen and once they become a citizen,discrimination was over. we, you know, we are nowthe messianic era has come. now in that story what is theassumed motive for the ghetto? why did they create a ghetto? well first of all we all knowthat everybody hated the jews.
anybody here who rememberstom lahrer may remember that wonderful song about nationalbrotherhood week and, you know, the black folks hate the white folks and the white folkshate the black folks and everybody hates the jews, right? so it's a kind of a narrative thatjews and other people have come to tell and that narrativeof course has been emphasized by the holocaust andby everything else. we said, they always hated the jewsthey always prosecuted the jews.
why did they hate the jews? that's obvious. they hated the jews becausethe jews weren't christians because they killedchrist, they are deicides. they are condemned forever lethis blood be upon our hands for all times, right? that's the account of thecrucifixion and so forth. and that becomes, andthis is very important and i hope you won't seeme as just an idiot taking
in big words and-- or big phrases. this is actually extremelyimportant to emphasize. the idea that this hatred is ageold, we now call it anti-semitism, right, which is in fat a new wordit was made up in the 19th century. it's a political term andhas very specific meanings. but we use it for everything andwe have all kinds of organizations in both the jewish community andthe non-jewish community to stamp out anti-semitism, to getrid of this age old hatred and has only changed itsface from time to time.
it is arguably theonly ahistorical idea in all historians toolbox, right? the only thing that isn't subjectto change is anti-semitism. it just changes its rhetoricbut it's always there. everybody always hates the jew. so that's the first argumentthat ghetto is an example of christian anti-semitism. the second argument is thatit has to do with economics. christianity was-- because of averse in the bible and because
of their interpretation of ityou shouldn't lend an interest to your brother. this was understood that christianscould not lend an interest to each other and thereforejews were led in. of course everybody hatedthem because you have to pay them interest but thejews were the only people in christian society that werelegally allowed to lend an interest. let me tell you, first ofall you may have gathered from the way i presentedanti-semitism
that i think that's a sillyunderstanding of animosity between groups but let metell you about this business about money lendingit's absolute nonsense. it is not true thatthere was no credit in medieval christian society. how do you think venicetraded all over the world? if you were sending out aboat believe me you tried to share the risk. believe me the merchants invested.
they had contracts thatwere written in ways that theoretically hid thefact that there was interest. real interest was not whatjews were involved in. the real money that ransociety, the real money that governments worebonds and so forth. that wasn't a jewish myth. there are a few jews here andthere but that's very unusual. what jews are doing is providingwhat we use credit cards for today. that is, they were providingconsumer credit, right?
and they were providing itto relatively poor people. now, i assume that some peoplewill walk away saying cooperman, that's me, is an anti-semi. my mother would be surprisedbecause she raised me jewish but be that as it may be i want toassure you that the kind of credit that jews did and it'svery important to my story, the kind of credit that jewsdid was an ugly kind of credit. i don't mean that the jewswere ugly people i don't mean that they were nasty.
i mean that that kind of creditis horrifying in its results, why? because poor people need it. and when people get involved in loans no matter howlow the rate of interest. think about check cashing places. think about the labor departmentjust put out a report about people who borrow against their card. the average borrowing against acar in this country is for $700. and 40% of those loans resultin the car being repossessed.
because people get tied up and theyget hung up and there's no way out. so you have to remember that although it wasa profitable business, although it was a veryspecific business, the reason jews are admittedto do this is first of all because even though money lendingis legalized in europe it's a myth that there was no legalmoney lending and there were notarizedtext that show that money is beinglent and so forth.
please by the way somebody tellme when i'm out of time here because i looked at mywatch i think i started at 20 after but i'll forget. i keep looking at. but jews are-- what happens isthat even though it is legal to do, no one wants to do it, right? because it's a hard business,you have to go done people for the money very often the peopleyou've lent money to can't afford to pay you back of courseyou need the money too,
right, it's your money. it's just one of those businessesthat christians didn't like to do. we know by the way that manychristian wealthy people invested money with the jews andmade money off of this too. in other words, they lent moneyto jew who then lent money to the poor people, right? it's never that simple and we couldgo on for an hour and a half just about the nature ofthe credit business. but the bottom like is thatsocieties need that service
at the same time, iwant to stress this, that kind of moneylending has three elements in it that are very important. first of all that kind ofmoney lending will be something that the society itself. the government will have a stakein making cheaper and cheaper. they will try to keepit as cheap as possible. the people who are lending the moneyare trying to make money from people who will probably neverpay them back, right?
so it's a very, you know, thin margin here even though itlooks like a horrifying thing. but as a result of that because there is pressure there ialways going to be pressure to force down the rate of interest. the jews are going towant to live in areas where there are a lot of customers. the government willuse that to force them to accept a lower rate of interest.
in venice, within a relativelyshort time the jewish community was subsidizing the banks. the jews were admitted to lendmoney at interest to the poor people but fairly soon the jews weresubsidizing their own banks because the rest of the communityneeded the banks to exist in order to be able to livein the city, right? very few people actuallyown these little pawnshops or banks whatever wewant to call them. but because there's thispressure from the government
to lower the rate--nobody will take the job because it doesn't make a living. so the jews pay loan bankerssignificant sums to open banks that don't make a profit. so that's the first thingyou want to understand. the second-- i know it's interestinghow well these things work. the second thing is, i mean,think about trump university and how they made money, right? ok. so i don't knowwhy that came up.
the second-- ah democrats. the second point you want tounderstand is that these pawnshops, these little places where somebodywill bring their stuff to sell, they are often selling what wewould call seconds or end of cloth or out of season goods, right? it's very importantto remember this. so they're selling in otherwords off-brand stuff. anybody here go to marshalls? ok. so, you know what marshalls in.
marshalls, you go in thereand you buy last season's good or you buy things that have afew less threads per square inch in the knitting of the-- in the weaving of the fabricand so forth and so on. you buy things thatthe company was trying to get rid off andso forth and so on. that is what jews did. and remember the economy of the early modern cityis dominated by guilt.
and these guilts control themanufacturing and the price and the quantity and thequality and everything. and jews are not justlending money at interest. they are also in effect running asecondary market, a gray market. they are running themarshall stores every where that they are allowed to life. naturally, the guild merchantsdon't want to jews there because they cut the price. on the other hand, it's niceto have somewhere you get rid
of your extras, yourend of season goods. and so the jew servesfirst of all a function of providing economic relief tothe poor, second with its problems, second they are selling andcompeting with established merchants and the third thing that jewsare doing and there's no doubt about this and it sounds not nicebut i assure you it is true is that these shops arefencing agencies. that is, the peoplewho bring them things to pawn have often stolenthose things, right?
and that is a serious problem. and if you go into anyused furniture store or any used clothing store,you had better believe that a large proportion of what ison sale there has not in one way-- it's more complicated thansimply saying it was stolen. but i assure you that a large part of it was not exactlythere legally, all right? so that is a function ofthis kind of gray economy. it's an economy in useditems, off brand name items
and stolen materialand things like that. ok. so that is why jews are let in. that is what they to. now in order then to take the nextstep i want to say that what happens if you want to understandwhat the ghetto is, the ambassador said quite correctly. there is a decisionto exclude the jews or to segregate the jewsand that's quite true. but we have a word for that.
we call those gatedcommunities, right? everybody laughs when i say that. but think about it. what is a gated community? i can live here andyou can't, right? now, you could say yes but thejews would have rather lived somewhere else. how many jews do you thinklived in venice before 1516? how many people vote 300 people?
i'll tell you that in1516, 900 jews were at one moment admittedinto that ghetto. how many lived there in 1514? or, let's say 1500. take a guess. how many people would say 500? how many people would say 1500? nobody is saying anything. come on guys.
you're like my classes. who give me $1500? 1500 jews, 1500 jews? going ones. 1500 jews going twice. how many people here would say, "oh there were only 500jews before the ghetto." ok, i got one. how many? three hundred, ok.
you want the real answer is? so what was the ghetto? it was a way of lettingthe jews into venice. now wait a minute. where did the jews live before? so let me try to show yousome quick maps here, ok? this is a 1500 map of the city. there are no jews yet. there is no ghetto in thecity there are no jews
in the city except people who come in on short term peddlinglicenses and so forth. the ghetto is going to be-- i don't know if there's--no there's nothing. ok. so but up at the top is where the ghetto wasgoing to be established. here you can see thisis a larger map. this is already 1550 and if youlook at the top of the map here, this is the area wherethe ghetto was established
as we heard it was a foundryit was an old industrial zone that had been openedup, let me show you. [ inaudible remark ] and now i want to show you somethingimportant for you to understand. we're going to skip that. i'll come back to that. ok. the first ghetto was called,in italian, the ghetto nuovo. the second ghetto was-- somepeople here speak italian. the second ghetto wascalled the ghetto vecchio.
now, does that make sense? no. because the new ghetto shouldn'tcome before the old ghetto unless you realize that the wordghetto means foundry. and as we heard it means a foundryor a melting pot like that i'm going to use that in my next talk andnot admit i stole it from you. but the ghetto, the first area that the jews were givenwas an old industrial area. they were given that area to live in and that area is calledthe ghetto nuovo.
that's how we really knowthe word comes from venice. there are a lot oftheories about maybe it came from somewhere else that belong. if you look down below, the first ghetto wasestablished in 1516. by 1541 the jews need more space andso they are given the second space. understand i said to youthe jews were admitted because they provided moneylending and they provided peddling and they provide they were part
of that extended graymarket thus the old ghetto which is the newer ghetto, right,the ghetto vecchio which is in fact the newer ghettowas established for jews who are bringing the trade of theottoman empire into venice it is for levantine merchants and thatis an indication of how venice which had once as the ambassadorquite correctly said once dominated the eastern mediterranean, venice own the easternmediterranean, right? but at this point the ottomanshave become so powerful
that venice is now forced. if it wants the rights of itsmerchants to trade in istanbul or constantinople thatit becomes istanbul, they have to also admitottoman subjects. so this ghetto, the second ghettois an extension that is given to the jews who are comingfrom the ottoman empire. now if you look up in the thirdarea, you can see the ghetto in nuovo which is the kind ofpinky square, the bluish thing down below is the ghetto vecchio.
if you look at the yellow up on theright, that is the newest ghetto. by 1633 the word ghetto hadcome to mean not a foundry but the place where jews live. and so by that point whenthey give the spanish and portuguese jews anew ghetto they get it and it is called the newest ghetto. that is 1633 and that is anattempt by venice to get access to the huge imperial trade ofthe iberian empires, right? you know, we talk about the americanempire and we bemoan the fact
that perhaps the americanempire is over, but it was a very shortlife empire, right? it was a very shortempire, maybe 50, 60 years. if you want to take it backto first world war maybe, but spain ran the worldfor 250 years. that's what you call an empire. that's how to build an empire. those hispanics don't let them in. they'll take-- oh i'm sorry.
it's just-- i live oncnn what can i tell you? ok. so, there's another thing and here is the entryway into that ghetto. and that's just another map of it. now, let me-- what do i have left? i have about 10 minutesleft, something? ok, so not bad, not bad. how long we leave outthree quarters. ok. now, what i want tostress to you is this.
i used the term gated community. and obviously, you know, everybodylaugh, "what are you talking about? gated communities arefor fancy people." thank you. this is an admission of jews. now, would the jews have likedto have places somewhere else? sure. sure they would've. in fact, in 1509 jewish moneylenders were already negotiating for spots on the rialto forplaces to live right on the rialto
at the bridge, the main commercialhub, the wall street of venice. and instead they got this place butwould jews have preferred no ghetto? no, don't be silly because first of all it gave thema place of their own. it gave them the rightto live in the city. the community, there are rumorsthat the community got to be as big as 5000 jews and there is awonderful lecture that i heard by a man named david cassuto who wasonce the vice mayor of jerusalem. he's an architect who figured
out that there are literally wasnot enough space in the ghetto for everybody to sleepat the same time. there were 5000 jews there-- it just wasn't that big and so wehave this whole theory the jews slept in shifts. slept in shits-- oh no. whatever they did, right? they live there but it's not so. the community was probablynever much more than 2500 jews.
there were bigger jewishcommunities. rome's jewish community got to about8000 and livorno's jewish community on the other side of thepeninsula got to be about 5000. amsterdam was close to 5000. prague may have beenas much as 10 or 15000. so but venice is one ofthe biggest cities in one of the biggest jewishcities in europe and one of the richest and wealthiest. now i just want-- let me--i'm going to skip this.
i just want to show youa couple of pictures of synagogues in thevenetian ghetto. if you haven't been there,go there, quite remarkable. this is the ashkenazi synagogue. this is the outside ofthe spanish synagogue which was built a little bit later. this is the canton synagogue. the pictures aren't that greatbecause i took them off the web and i don't have very good ones.
ok. so now let me now sum this up,i've got about five minutes left so let me see if i canbring this together for you to make some sense of it. what did it mean that the jewswere given their own city, their own business that theseare people whom venice needs and wants and attracts? the first thing i want you tounderstand is it does not mean. we always talk about in terms ofrights, toleration, assimilation, getting along, going together.
don't be silly. this is a society which is definedby ethnic and religious factors. and people did not. they may have crossed thoselines on a daily basis, at night when theyslept with somebody. you can never tellwhat they're doing. and believe me everybody is sleeping with everybody especiallyduring carnival. but these are segregatedsocieties in a way
that our society doesn'tknow how to deal with. we live in a segregatedsociety not as much as it was 30 or 40 years ago. but you look around look atresidential neighborhoods and you see that peopletend to live in groups. and we have an ideology in oursociety of openness, right? i move to this countryfrom canada at a time when the civil rights act was just-- the country literally tore itselfapart to try to maintain and foster
and build up that ideology when itcame to racial segregation, right? but the whole idea of thiscountry is this ideology and we think that's the norm. it's not the norm here andit certainly is not the norm in other societies and wesomehow say they're immoral. no they're not immoralbecause the anxieties of groups that are separate livingnext to each other in crowded urban situations,is always real. you can work against it.
you can try to articulatean ideology of openness. but in this society nobody thoughthat everybody should be the same. and remember please, this isvery important to remember. i started out by saying everybodyknows that christians hate the jews. if it weren't for the christianityjudaism would not have survived in europe. if it weren't for the church,judaism would have been eradicated. the church has an ideology thatsays the world will be saved by the ultimate redemptionof the jews.
and as a result thechurch worked consistently, there were exceptions here and therebut consistently church teaching is that the jews must befostered and protected and kept within the society because they arethe ultimate redemption of mankind. if you'll ask me, a jew, i thinkit's a crazy-- i know jews. i wouldn't make them theredemption of nothing. but the christians havea mishegas, a craziness. [ foreign language ] but it is a catholic doctrine.
so it's very importantto remember that. that doesn't mean thereisn't anxiety. but where does that leave us? i want to just end off witha couple of quick moments. first of all what wasmentioned before the idea that the jews have their own city that this was the cittã degliebrei, the jews have their own city and therefore theyhad obligations there. they had to control behavior there.
there are legal implications. jews were in charge of the streets,jews were in charge of crime, jews were in charge of membership. jews would keep some jews outand allow certain jews in. i want to show you one ofthe most famous characters from the ghetto of venice. his name, you'll seehis book out there. he wrote a-- on sec, letme show you the title page. his name is mayor bengavriel [assumed spelling].
his first name was mayor, agood hebrew name but he was born in madshow amaya and so initalian they called him magino, magino gabrielle was quite acharacter and in the 16th-- there you see a pictureof him in the middle. you could see that he's dressed inthe latest most fashionable clothes. he does not have a badge. he does not have a long beard. he does not have a hat, because he'san italian jew they didn't bother with all that stuff.
and what did he do? he taught italians how to make asecond crop of silk worms each year. how did you do it? by keeping the bhakti,the little worms warm. where did you keep them warm? well there were womenand they had dresses and they-- you could keep them. and so here you see a picturefrom his book of him handing that little sack, you see thelittle in the woman's hand?
that's full of little silkwork cocoons and she gives it to her neighbor, the neighborgives it to the nest lady and the lady is there ready tobring the worms into bed with her, right, and keep them there. and if you think that'sa craziness it's not because in fact wehave travelers who say that this was quire regularly done. it was one of the ways that italiansgot two sets of silk works each year and improve their produce.
but now, you can look at maginoand magino is a character. he's obviously-- look at how he'sdressed, look at what he is here and he really is one ofthe most fascinating people of the venetian ghetto. but he is typical in avery interesting way. he's not an intellectual. he is not a rich merchant. he is an operator. he is one of those guys thatmake movies about on wall street.
you know, she's one of theseguys who's always got a new idea. he got the pope's sisterto invest in his idea. he got-- sorry, ferdinando demedici to invest in his idea. he was sure he was goingto build everything. and he also made himself aconsole of the jewish nation. and he-- this jew from venice getsde medici to give him the right to bring as many jews as hewanted to venice's rival the city of livorno on the otherside of the country and to be there chief fellow.
within about one year, the jewsthere say, "you're our what?" and they throw him out andthey rewrite their constitution so that no more is this charltonor this operator running things. and like a lot of people whodream of making a lot of money, his eventually thrown out. but i want to go back just to a verydifferent jew and this is the fellow that i mentioned before,that i showed and passed over before leon modena. leon modena and thisis my last point.
leon modena was born in theghetto of venice in 1571. he lived there his entire life. every time he leftall he could dream about was coming back to the ghetto. he dreamed of the ghetto. he loved the ghetto. and he was an unbelievable failure. he was a famous rabbi. he spoke, he wrote, he was friends
with the ambassadorialclass in venice. he wrote books thatwere published in french and in english andso forth and so on. he wrote in hebrew and he wasa terrible failure primarily because he was addicted to gambling. and as a gambler he lostevery cent he ever made. at one point he was givingfour sermons every saturday in different synagogues in theghetto and he went through the money like water because he gambled.
he wasn't gambling just for nothing. gambling was a problemin the ghetto. and i want to mentionas i end this thing, i really am comingto the end i promise. the [foreign language]stealing his time. his sons, one of his sons diedfrom alchemical experiments. he was trying to make a quick buckand he poisoned himself with arsenic and ended up bleeding to death. second son left the city,was captured by the turks.
he's actually expelled from the cityfor gambling and alcohol abuses. he leaves, he eventually ends upand leave or nowhere he has to write to his father because heis now a prisoner and slave and the father sends money butthe kid never comes to visit him. the third son is aboy named zebulon. it's his pride and joy he callshim zebulon because the bible says that zebulon was a tribe thatlived on the sea and they live in venice and it's on the sea. and this is a boy who sand in thesynagogue choir and he's wonderful.
and then the boy gets involved ingangs in the ghetto and he gets in a fight with the head of the gangover a prostitute and he is stabbed on the street and they run andcall his father this old rabbi here and he comes and he's holding hishead in his lap as the boy dies. now, what i want youto understand then is that the ghetto was many things. it was not a condom. it was the city of the jews. but that means that ithad all the complications
and all the plussesand minuses of cities. it had intellectuals, it hadmerchants, it had gang fights, it had prostitutes, ithad robbers, it had theft, it had selling goods on the slide. that ladies and gentleman is theghetto and the book that i'm working on right now has this it'ssubtitled "the ghetto of venice, the birthplace of jewish modernity". thank you very much. and i now introduceprofessor stefano villani
who knows much moreabout venice than i do. >> stefano villani: than you. thank you so much to the libraryof congress and to the embassy for being organize this event. it's always difficult tospeak after berny and actually in my talk i'm asking whether whereghettos for non-catholic christians. to answer to this question we musttherefore first address the issue of what was the protestant presentin italy in early modern times. the information as itsknown dates from 1517,
following the establishment of theghetto of venice when martin luther on the heave of all saints putout this 95 thesis at [inaudible]. luther's work quickly circulatedthroughout whole germany and europe already in 1520the first anti-lutheran text, the [foreign language]. politi was published in italy atflorence spreading information about the german religiousdebate among italians. lutheran ideas spread in italy amongreligious orders and in particular in the augustinian one to whichformerly luther himself belong.
refer my ideas circulated since1530s in many areas of italy. significant reform groups affirmingvenice creates to a political elite which claim its autonomyfrom rome in ferrara where the dutch's nearfrance offer protection to enter dock saintcalvinist and then luca where the entire city portrayedopenly sympathize for the new ideas. reform groups more or less structureare report in milan, cremona, como, pavia, udine, pagua,vigencia modena. enables in the 1540s a spiritualcircle that develop orthodox ideas
without being openlyprotestant gather around the spanish theologian juande valdez challenging traditional catholic doctrines. the spreading of heresy in italyled the pope paul iii in july 1542 to organize a special committeeof six cardinal with the task of proceeding againstheretics, those suspected of heresy and those who help them. the congregation of the holy officeor the roman inquisition was born. the holy office unlike thealready existing spanish
and portuguese inquisitionwhich were born mainly in order to control the jews and the muslimswhat converted to catholicism was so established to stop the diffusionof protestant ideas in italy. the congregation was given thetask of creating a structure of tribunals all over theentire italian peninsula. it was heavily centralizedinstitution. everything was reportdirectly to rome. since pius v pontificatethe practice that the pope himselfpreceded over the meetings
of the cardinal once a weekusually on thursday was established. the congregation was also meetingonce a week without the pope, usually on tuesdays torevue all the cases, judge it in the local tribunals. on december 7, 1965 onthe heave of the hand of the council vatican ii the popechanged the name of the congregation of the holy office into that ofthe congregation for the doctrine of faith which is still exist. because of the dispersion ofthe archives and documents
which are secure over the years. it is difficult to establish thenumber of prophesies and death of the death sentences executed by the 48 local seedsof the inquisition. we know that 128 people wereburned at the stake at rome. rough calculations suggest thatin the four centuries of activity of the holy office, 11 to 1400 of people were executedthroughout italy. the last death sentencewas carried out in 1761.
about half of the sentenceswere against protestant. the others concerndiabolic witchcraft, men with ministrio deconfesiã³n or celebrated mass without being ordained priestand again jews and muslims. the spanish inquisition was moreferocious for bringing out for than 1200 death sentences. their oppression played an importantrole in preventing the spread of protestant ideas in italy. many were those whochoose the path of exile,
italian protestant churcheswhere if founded abroad in geneva and zurich and london. an italian branches of thegeneva church were established in paris, leone and [inaudible]. italian protestant churcheswere then active in valtellina which from 1512 wasunder the control of the swiss canton of the grisons. the grisons joined the reformationin the 1530s and therefore since then ulting valtellinafor several decades co-existence
between protestant andcatholics was practiced. this experiment of co-existent between different religiousconfessions however ended in blood in 1620 when the pro-spanishrevolt against the domination of the grisons led to themassacre of hundreds of protestants between 400 and 600people were killed. the only other place thatsaw a protestant presence in the italian peninsula werethe valleys west of pinerolo in piedmont part of theduchy of savoy where most
of the population were waldensians. these areas of the westerner half since the middle ages had seenthe presence of heretical groups that not even the lastgreat crusade internal to christianity in1487 had weed out. they're waldensians whodid not speak italian but the french dialectestablish a relationship with the swiss protestant and in 1532 formally joinedthe reformation becoming
calvinist church. for 30 years the waldensiansmountains resisted in arms to any attempt of the duke of savoyto bring them back to catholicism. on june 5, 1561 in cavour a peacetreaty between the representatives of the waldensian communitiesand those of the duke of savoy was signed. this treaty granted religiousfreedom to the waldensians in precise and defineterritorial limits. the agreement was condemned byrome and the waldensian communities
which then existed till to calabriawere massacre in the same year with thousands of deaths. since then the waldensian valleyswere sort of [foreign language]. and in those mountain municipalities around 15,000 waldensians couldbuild temples, organize schools and they have pastortrainee in geneva. the waldensians could not moveoutside the prescribed areas of the valleys mentioned in thetreaty, the high valley lucerne, valley san martino castrozza.
we don't find the expression ghettoto define the waldensians valleys in any influent at the time. this was an expressioncoined in the 19th century and since then muchusing the historiography. but even though it wasnot a space enclosed by walls the term ghetto welldescribes the idea of a space that allowed the presence of people of different religionin a catholic country. the valleys that very welldefined and precise boundaries.
the cavour treaty is in fact thefirst edict of tolerance issued in europe which surpass theprinciple of [foreign language] in shine in the piece ofoxberry 1555 which stated that in par subject were to followthe religion of their ruler. over the years waldensians familiessettle outside limits that set up by the treaty of cavour. in 1655 an ordinance imposed tothe waldensians who are settling in these areas either to convert tocatholicism or to leave their homes. a massacre followed in which itdoesn't mean that about 1700 men
and women were killed and148 children were taken away from their valleys and given to catholic familiesto be educated as such. the massacre provoked theignition of the protestant world and the memory of theprotestant anger was enshrined by john milton in afamous [inaudible]. the waldensians valleys, theghetto of the hubs represent and thus the only area of religiousfreedom in the italian peninsula after the massacres of thewaldensians of calabria
and of the protestantsof valtellina. in evidence of those places infermented over the year's practice of tolerance and co-existents. it was only with the patent electorsgranted by duke carlo alberto of savoy to the waldensian onfebruary 17, 1848 that the terms of the treaty of cavourwere overcome. the patent electors granted tothe waldensians the possibility of building temples outside ofthe 13 parishes of the valleys, the waldensians set in turin ingenuine after the unification
of italy they adopted theitalian language instead of french and established churches throughoutthe peninsula in very major city. except from the waldensian valleysin all italian states protestant and foreign non-catholics were notallowed to stay even temporary. and those were found run the risk tobe persecuted as formally heretics. every year on holy thursday the bullin china domeny was solemnly read in letting an italianfrom the [inaudible] of saint peter's basilica. this battled document listedthe most serious case punishable
by excommunication and the list is in 1610 the excommunication wasclear prescribed for all the sites, likely fights, lutherans,indians, calvinist, huguenots and baptist anti-trinitarianapostolate of the christian faith. those who were aware of thepresence of heretics were obliged to report them to the inquisition. in 1592 italian catholics wereexplicitly forbidden to live in countries where masswas not celebrated openly. in 1623 gregory xv issuedthe bull romanum pontificem
which reiterated the ban forheretics to travel in italy. from a purely theoretical pointof view a protestant persecuted by the inquisition hadonly the option to choose between the conversionto catholicism and the condemnation is a relapsedheretic which followed the transfer into the hands of thesecular authorities to carry out the death sentence. if the legislation excluded insuch a precise and dramatic manner, the possibility for hereticsto travel, trade and settle
in a catholic country,in reality things run in a complete different way. since the 16th centuryflexible practices correspondent to the draconian rule and heretictravelers would have behave in a prudent and judicious way wereusually left entirely undisturbed. it is obviously clear that thepresence of a strict rule even if not always applied let theample space to an arbitrary and arrogant discretiontherefore over the years, the protestant countries try oftensuccessfully to introduce elements
of perfection for protestantswho needed to travel in catholic countries. for example, after the approvalof the peace treaty between spain and england in 1605 it'sprovisions regarding the protection of british travelersfrom any persecution of the spanish inquisition where infact the standard the old thing the mediterranean countriesunder the jurisdiction of the roman inquisition. the only condition that were imposedon them were not to do any kind
of religious propaganda, not tobehave without giving scandal in the eyes of catholics. that means no to publiclyexpress their idea in said to a known catholic faith. these flexible practices led tothe establishment in many parts of the italian peninsulaof south communities of foreign protestantsas permanent residence. in early modern italy fora known catholics live in the great trading cities of theitalian peninsula, venice, milan,
janua, livorno, rome, naples. in the republic of venice,known catholic foreigners study at the university of paduawhere students who came from protestant lands had thisspecial status or serve a soldiers in the fortress of palmanova. in the north, there was a continuousosmosis between the catholic and the protestant worldwith merchants and craftsmen who move from place to place. in other italian cities,
the presence of knowncatholic foreigners, were very limited often temporaryand due to the individual choices that in their singularityescape through a general rule. of course especiallyin north in italy, most of these foreignheretics were from germany. there were also depending onthe place of french huguenots, dutch calvinist, thischarismatic greeks and armenians. known catholic british are thestructure presents only in venice, genoa, naple and livorno.
in the later city, in the17th century, german speaking and english speaking protestantcommunities were established. the de facto tolerancetowards protestants and protestant merchants was alsogranted in the port cities of nice in the duchy of savoy and [foreignlanguage] in the papal states. you know, these places, protestantswere asked to do their best not to be recognized as such because intheory it was impossible for them to reside in any italian state,they were not demanded to reside in a particular part of the city.
on the contrary, there were requestto adopt pneumatic strategies to avoid being discoveredas for example not to eat meat duringholidays of obligations. the typical example of this practicecommon told the catholic country that for commercial reasonsof protestant presence is that of livorno where knowncatholic merchants were protected by monco proporio issued bythe grant duke of tuscany in 1593, the so called levornina. this decree designed to protect
from the inquisition the jewishcumbersome versus desire to settle in livorno was addressed to themerchants of whatever nation, levantini and ponentini, spanish,portugese, greeks and germans, italian jews, turks and moores,armenian, persian and others. gradually, the levorninabecame a point of reference for whole known catholic christianswho wanted to settle in tuscany. between to the end of the 1500s andthe early 1600s, not many british and dutch settle in livorno. those who did so wereoften ship captains
in the service of the grand duke. less frequently, they were merchantsand although there were no precise that have very oftenthey were catholic. it was only in 1620swhen the english and dutch mercantilepresence increase in number that gradually theprotestant element emerge of becoming predominantin a few years. there were a few dozen people andalmost all of them were bachelors or had left their wives homeclearly showing that at least
in their intention, their stay inlivorno was conceived as temporary. eventually, the growing foreignpresence led to the establishment of formal national communities, the[inaudible] officially recognized by the tuscan governmentstructure with their home statutes and self-governing bodiesheaded by a counsel. we did not have diplomatic status and only represented themercantile community. the german presence in livorno,at least until the middle of the 18th century wascompleting negligible.
the few german merchants withintheir early modern hate to reside in livorno joined the dutch nation which in fact was calleddutch-german nation hat's [foreign language] germanica. there was also smallgarrison of german soldiers, and a number of abjuration ofthese soldiers make us think that among them themajority were protestants. it must be emphasized that thetolerance granted to the protestants of livorno was a limited andcontrolled one which offer
to them neither the freedomof worship nor the possibility of religious frugalities, not to worry with the quorumand dignity their debts. on the contrary, itallowed catholic frugalities and inquisitorial control over them. gradually, with thegrowth of importance of their mercantile communities,british and dutch started to feel uneasy with this strictlimits imposed on their freedom and sought to widenthe space of tolerance.
the history of the protestantpresence in livorno in the 17th and 18th century is that's alsothe history of the conflict of this communitieswith the political and religious tuscanauthority to assert their right to live openly theirreligious beliefs. the first to clean thisright were the british, it was since 1644 triedseveral times to have a protestantminister for their community. very significantly, the tuscanauthorities both locally
and centrally werewell aware of the fact that the protestant worshipwas practiced in the city. it did not try any objections. however, every time thatthe protestant went over and above the limit of desirabledescription and this correction in the presence of this protestantminister became publicly known the inquisition intervene forcing thestate authorities to expel them. between 1644 and 1670s we knowat least of 10 expulsions. it was only in 1697 that theambassador's chaplain could informal
exercise his ministry also forthe english mercantile community of livorno thanks to extraterritoriality granted to the english diplomats. at first this happened, ifnot secretly, with discretion and prudence then since1707 openly and publicly. this change was obtainedby england threatening to break off diplomatic relationwith tuscany if they did not agree to this request and evenmenacing military intervention. however, it is significant that evenafter 1707, it was explicitly ask
to the british that the buildings where the protestant congregationmet should not be recognizable in many way as a chapel or a churchin contrast to the jewish synagogues which are to be clearly recognizablein the case of protestant places of worship, they assist softof talking invisibility. in the 1640s the dutch andthe english communities of livorno were allowedto have grave yards where they could erectindividual tombs. almost certainly before thenthey buried their deaths
in anonymous common graves. all these cemeteries, foralmost half a century, however, could not be fenced. fences to protect the burialsof not catholic from animals and grave robbers were ask in 1685by the dutch in 1706 by the english, difficult negotiations follow. the dutch at first write theissue first fenced their cemetery as early as 1695. the english could also only in 1746.
one of the reason whichprevented the erection of walls around the known catholiccemeteries was the fear that the religious rightscould be celebrated there and seen from the outside. and for this reason, even wheneventually the construction of the wall was permitted, this hadto be short enough to allow those who were outside to see what wasgoing on inside the cemetery. the religious authorities wanted toaffirm so in a symbolic way the fact that the burial of hereticshad nothing to do with religion
and for death reasons much attentionwas devoted to forbid catholic to attend any protestantfrom their own service. the protestant in livornolive all over the city. their issues in the central cities,the ordering less prestigious areas, the same thing as far as i know canbe say the fall the italian cities in which there wasa foreign presence. the co-existence inthe same urban space-- they co-exist in the sameurban space led eventually to process assimilation especiallyamong the wealthy foreigners.
in 1616, the inquisitor of turincomplained the swish merchant married catholic women, waschildren he did not know which church they belonged to. we know dozens of dozens of foreignprotestant who are having decided to settle in italy foreverconverted to catholicism. in some, there were no protestantghettos in italy, on the contrary as we have pointed out, protestantwere asked to be as invisible as possible to formallyadmit the presence of organized protestantcongregations beyond the violation
of the canon law who they've meantto admit that it was possible to be a christian without beingcatholic and this was inconceivable. the closest thing to a christianghetto is the fondaco dei tedeschi, the german fondaco in venice. this ethnic institution wasestablished well before the reformation in the mercantilecenter of the city close to rialto bridge [foreignlanguage] where medieval buildings that in the maritime mediterraneancities were used as warehouse and definitely also toaccommodate the foreign merchants.
the words come from arabicfunduk literally warehouse house. between the 11th andthe 14th century, fundachi were built allover the mediterranean. gradually, they losttheir shelter function and became essentially placewhere they live with custom taxes. with 1500s, the great periodof the fundachi had concluded. the end of this system wasdetermined mainly by the impact of the full constantinoplein 30 shrines and on the mediterranean tradewith the consequent search
of new atlantic routes andthe progress in shifting of commercial accessto the northern europe. the fondaco dei tedeschiin venis established in 1228 following the model ofvenetian fundachi gesan same in the islamic countries was theonly one of this medieval structure to survive in the italian peninsula. the structure permanently houseabout 120 german merchants in addition to a largenumber of workers, as cooks and carriers the venetian sea atthe direction of that fondaco.
every german mentioned wasobliged to stay in the fondaco. the boatman referredthem to the venice from the mainland were forbiddento take them to another place that was not the fondaco. a personal interpreter was assignedto every merchant and was supposed to assist him in all his dealingsand of course to control it. entering the fondaco,the merchant had to hand over their weapons and their money. as a matter of fact, manyof these measures were meant
to prevent tax fraud. in 1505, the building ofthe fondaco caught fire. the republic he gave order to immediately rebuildit at his own expenses. the speed with which this decisionswas taken relies creates the economic importance thatthe republic attributed to the german presence. the new fondaco completed in1508 was a compact, beautiful and harmonic buildingdecorated with fresco
by jojo na tisi [assumed spelling]. on the ground floor on the square,courtyard they were the shots. in the two floors abovethere were the houses for the merchant and their factory. many of the german merchants invenice joined the reformation. already in 1529 the pope lamentedthat the fondaco was a center for heretical propaganda. in subsequent year of the 16thcentury of no much information about the religious lifeof the fondaco the silence
of the sources led us tothink that known probability, the republic was able to obtaincautious attitude on the part of the german community offeringit's political protection in exchange of prudent behaviorsthat would avoid any scandal. this dynamics were clearly similar to those we have just describedfor the tuscan scenario. but everyone they knew that thefondaco dei tedeschi was nest of heretics. in 1634, the apostolic minister ofvenice wrote to the congregation
of the holy office that inthe fondaco dei tedeschi in rialto almost all themerchants were heretics. in the changing religious climb thatfollow the hand of the 30 year wars in 1650, the firstlutheran pastor disguised as a physician move in the fondaco. he started to secretly celebratethe protestant cult in two rooms on the third floor of the building. at easter of 1651 about 150lutherans did the communion. the presence of the successor to thefirst minister was denounced in 1654
and they are cast of the [inaudible]it was spelled from venice. these are [inaudible]turning point in the life of the german protestantcommunity of venice which to avoid possible futureproblems work out the set of articles which organizethe worship rigorously to ensure the secrecyof the community. there were clear provision fornew comers and prescription role to access the worship hallwithout arousing suspicion. in addition to the detail longerversion they also prefer an
abbreviated document that that wasright to the younger new members of the time of theirhunter in the community. the fondaco, and i'mgoing to finish, was clear at the sametime both an institution of coexisting and of separation. it is not unlikelythat when the decision to establish the jewish ghettowas made the german structure as in some measure representa model for this project. in this brief overview wehave examined the three models
of integrous coexistent thedeveloping their early modern times in italy towards protestant. the [inaudible] ghetto ofthe waldensian valleys, the de facto tolerance grantedto foreign protestants in livorno and other mercantile cities providedthe [inaudible] publicly express their belonging to churchdifferent from the catholic one. in the fondaco they did this invenice a sort of christian ghetto on ethnic grounds whichreproduce the multi-confession of the german nation.
the study of this practice oflimited tolerance in the italy of counter reformation isobviously significant in itself to investigate the methodsthat they've allowed to maintain commercialrelationship outside the congressional boundaries. beyond this however in the5th century of the founding of the ghetto the study of theseevents made for us beautiful to study jewish history in a context that goes beyond the tragichistory of anti-semitism.
>> roberta i shaffer: i'm goingto invite both of our speakers to the podium now and we'll havea question and answer period. if we have to cut off the question and answer period pleasedo not be alarmed because we will have areception following this. and i hope you'll take thatas an opportunity to talk with our speakers and our scholars. i believe we have microphones, so if you'll race your hand amicrophone will come to you.
i think its working. professor cooperman, youindicated that besides venice or other fairly large jewishcommunities throughout europe at that time. did any of these communitiesreplicate the segregation that existed in venice be it inamsterdam or any of the other areas? >> bernard cooperman: yeah,that's a great question. one of the surprising things that[inaudible] they did this work was to realize that venice even thoughthe word ghetto i have no doubt
comes from venice. in fact, the idea ofspecial segregation as a way of allowing the communityin goes back much further. frankfurt, the jews are expelledby the merchants of frankfurt and the bishop of frankfurt buildsan area right next to the gate of the city to accommodatea hundred jews. it was a very ample area. by the time the rothschild's livethere it had its estimated 3000 jews living in that same space.
so these places becomevery attractive and the same method is used. in other words, what you have isthe merchants control the zoning within the walls and they wantthe jews out but the bishop who wants the jewish taxes andtheir contributions to the economy or whatever or wants the there as jews gives them aspace in his territory. the same thing can be seen krakow. one if the beautiful things youhave here, one of the treasures
of the library of congressis the nuremberg chronicle. nuremberg chronicle waspublished in 1490 and it is one of the most elegantly andbeautifully illustrated geographic, you know, it's kind of like an atlas and a picture bookand a history book. and if you look at krakow thereyou will see that there's the city of krakow and then just cross alittle bridge there's the city known as kashmiris or in polishit's called kashmirs. the jews had lived in krakow.
there had also been jews in kashmirsthey are two separate jurisdictions. when the jews are eventuallyforced out by the merchants of krakow they are put inthe ghetto of kashmirs. but it's not a ghetto. it's a separate city there is awall around the jewish district but the jews control it andin fact the rest of the city of kashmir is very angry at thejews because they don't take care of the sewage and theydon't maintain the wall and they're very angry at them.
but again you see thatsame kind of thing. so the idea is done in many areas. now in amsterdam there is no wall. and in livorno there is no wall. that's one of the importantthings about livorno and pisa there was never inlivorno or pisa a formal area. but livorno and pisa are acustom zone and jews can't go out elsewhere in tuscany. so there is a ghetto which justdidn't have physical walls it has
economic walls, right? and, you know, theduke of tuscany said, "i'm going to make thejews build this wall and they're going to pay for it." and the jews didn'twant to pay for it, so. i don't know how thatcomes up all the time. [ laughter ] sorry. >> yeah i-- it's on?
ok. i have several questionsone to each one of you. you went through a whole list of different historicalfeatures can you outline to us where you got the sources from? these are 500 year old data. i mean i would think that thereweren't computers 500 years ago. and where did you, you know, youjust elaborated on the facts. where do you do your researchand where your recourses are? >> stefano villani: yeah, yes.
i work extensively on the records ofthe inquisition in rome for and many of the things that i'm saying hereare actually can be based on some of the documents of the inquisition. so for example in very recent timesi've been working on the hundreds of duration of protestants and from that duration they arevery formalized documents. you usually think that thesedocument enrich people presented them self in front of theinquisitor and converted to catholicism reallyconversion narratives.
on the contrary they'revery bureaucratic documents. they are more similar to theform that you are filling up for the green card and fora real narrative conversion. and you can get someof the data for these. in the case of thefondaco dei tedesch a lot of work has been donesince the 19th century. there are two huge volumes edited bygerman scholars that yes would dug up all the documents inthe venetian archives. so it really-- and then, imean, in the case of livorno
that is probably theplace that i know best. there are documents aswell in the correspondents of the local state authoritieswith again duke of tuscany. so it's really-- i waspresenting here a short summary of a major research. i'm planning actually towrite a book on the presence of protestant foreignersin italy and so in the book you willfind older reference. [ inaudible question ]
>> bernard cooperman:basically, one of the things that my own teachersdid not realize was that there are many more documentsabout jews in general archives than there are in jewish archives. and that's an interesting question. jews are overrepresented in generalarchives and i'm not sure of why. there are all kinds of theories asto why this might be but i think one of the reasons is basicallywhat was i talking about in terms of the ghetto.
the jews you see in a city, jewsdon't have any of the mechanisms that other people canuse to defend themselves. they are not part of the guild. they don't have a cousin whois the mayor of the city. they don't have accessto the leaders of power. and so what they dois they go to court. and they go to court all the time. and there are people who think thatjews, oh jews we're always afraid of going to non-jewish courts andthat they only went to rabbis.
baloney! it's not at all true. jews trusted the non-jewish courtsthey knew what the non-jewish courts were they knew they could relyon them especially on italy. i mean, as much as you canever rely on a court, you know, but this were establishedlegal procedures. >> i make questions forprofessor cooperman. so, you know, i'm with you in termsof pushing back against, you know, the kind of modern idea that themedieval or early modern ghettos that these were essentiallyprisons that, you know,
had no redeeming featureswhatsoever. but i wonder if there's maybe like alittle bit of kind of overcorrection in this revision in terms of, youknow, when you start using analogies to gated communities, you know, orwhen you just kind of say things like well, we have tounderstand that, you know, these kinds of ethnic religiousfactions this was just par for the course in pre-modernsocieties. i mean there was something newabout the kind of segregation that was being instituted in venice.
and yes, ok, so you have precursorslike frankfurt and the idea to some extent goes back further. but, you know, the notion ofcreating an area that jews must live in and only jews can live in. in other words, thisisn't just the kind of basically open jewishquarter that's densely jewish but has christians who live -- you know, i mean thereis real separation here. the idea of surveillance,right, that, you know,
yeah ok so maybe the idea ofa jewish quarter having a wall around it, yeah, that's older. but the idea of these areas beingguarded, the idea of, you know, you have to break over any kindof outward facing windows or doors and there is real scrupulousnessabout that. some saying, you know, are you kind of undermining a little bitthe importance of the concept of segregation in terms ofthe early modern jewish gap. >> bernard cooperman: excuse me, areyou suggesting that i would reach
for a joke and sayridiculous things-- you know, well, let me say "of course you're rightbut you're wrong," ok? i'll try to very briefly, i mean, i can go on as youmight know for hours. but let me say this. first of all i try to hint atsomething that's very important. and that is that groupsliving together, right, the idea that everything will behunky-dory and everybody will all go
to each others berm let'sput some confirmations and we'll all drink wine togetherand so forth and so on although in italy they drink winetogether but that's another thing. but that kind of idea that likei have students who say to me, "wait a minute, jews liveseparately or jews live-- ", who did they playwith on the street? and the answer is they played withother jews if they played at all. why would you think? but they didn't goto school together.
there were no commonschools you ding-dong. i mean, actually it my kidsnot my students not you, right. but we look at the world from theassumptions to the 21st century. we projected back and say,"well but if it wasn't like that that must mean something." and what the meaning wegive it are the meaning-- we use things like surveillance. these societies surveilledeverybody. you know, these are small places.
if a foreign merchantcame to london, just what professorvillani was talking about with the fondaco dei tedeschin venice, if foreign merchant came to london they immediatelyhad the innkeeper right down everything he broughtin, everything he took out and we have these records. the government kept records. surveillance is not the new thing. so that's the first thing.
the second thing is obviouslythere are anxieties when groups that are truly different from eachother and ideologically different from each other livenext door in each other. the social anxieties, culturalanxieties, if we in america with all of our facebook and all of our moneyand everything can't live in peace with each other thenhow much more so. and of course it gets worse attime with economic downturn, at times of war tensions allkinds of things like that. so yes obviously theyare separate communities.
the problem is though thatwe understand that difference as if it is the antithesisof our perfect society. our society ain't perfect andthat was the 16th century not the 21st century. >> thank you. my wife and i and a smallgroup just came back last month from three weeks exploringjewish italy and the italian peopleare wonderful. they are wonderful!
>> bernard cooperman:clearly he ate a lot of pasta. >> no, no. i had a little blog with the groupbecause i took a lot of photographs and i just was citingexamples of the friendship. my wife had to go to thebathroom and [inaudible] and the lady left therestaurant alone. there was no one in the restaurant and she took her togo to the bathroom. >> bernard cooperman: for thisyou have to comfort him to talk
about you going in the bathroom. >> well there is abathroom here so she canme. >> bernard cooperman: letme tell you something. no italian would havegotten away with saying that about his wifein a public place. >> but we learned thatin the 15th century, italy was basicallya group of states. and correct me if i'm--and then in the central and southern part itwas ruled by the papacy.
a lot of the sephardic jews cameto italy they didn't like being under the rule and so withthe invitation of many towns and wealthy families like the[inaudible] and one of the-- and ferrara the este family. they came there. but when the families moved awayor in the case of the este family and ferrara, when thelast person died and there was no heir the papacycame in and took away a lot of the freedom of the jews.
took away a lot of thebusiness and set up the ghetto. so my question really is, isthat in many areas the jews lived without a ghetto andthey live, you know, very happily with thegeneral community. so why do you feel thatthe ghetto was something that the jews would want to live in. >> bernard cooperman: so is it-- first of all i have to say thatprofessor villani is much more of an expert on general italianpolicy and the papacy in italy
and his attitudes, youknow, with general history. so i'll say somethingand then maybe you want to clarify and tell me what i miss. but let me just say this. first of all, the description thatyou've been given or the description that you repeated here is correct but fundamentally toosimplistic, ok? so for example the veryfirst charter to spanish and portuguese jews to openlypractice judaism even though they
had been living as christians eventhough they had been baptized, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,was given in papillon cona in 1514 and then in the 1530s and 1540s. so it is simply not true that itwas a simple arbitrary decision or difference between the papalauthority and the-- not papal. what tends-- but the question wasasked before is relevant here. i have argued and i've written aboutthis and i'm trying to write more about it that the ghetto is reallya product of commercial competition. but as in our society, right, ikeep pointing back to our side
because it's the modelthat sits in front of us. historians are not supposed touse an anachronistic models. but in our society when peopletalked about discrimination against african-americans duringslavery or after slavery, right, after 1863 during jim crowafter the civil rights movement and so forth and so on. we use a rhetoric about they and us. and that rhetoric isbased on anthropological or pseudo-anthropologicalcategories or sociologic.
they are like that,you know, those people. it doesn't matter what the peopleare but we use those terms. but that's not what's going on. that's the words we use to justifywhat is very often a power play, a commerce play, a control of money. if you want to understand, forexample the riots in baltimore, the first thing you should lookat is the way money is allocated by the city council of baltimore andby the bank of baltimore to allow, you know, building in certainparts of the city as opposed
to other parts of the city. you know, very often it has a lotmore to do with economics and thing. so out there you have thepapal decree of the ghetto. venetian ghetto was 1516. the papal ghetto [foreignlanguage] is 1555. and there are all kinds ofbooks that will tell you that the popes it'sbecause it's paulo ov, paul iv who is a carafawho is a crazy guy. everybody in rome hated him.
everybody was so happy when hedied that they dance in the streets and they burned all hispapers and so forth and so on. and he was an old fanatic and ananti-semi and everything like that. and so there is a famous book by oneof my colleagues, one of my friends who wrote about how theghetto in 1555 is part of a conversionarypolicy by the popes. there's only one problem with that. that's not what it says. what it says is jews are movinginto the nicest streets in rome.
what the hay. i forgot exactly howthey say that in italian. but they say excuse me jews shouldlive in their part of the city and we're going to put up a wall. now what i'm saying is yes religiousrhetoric is used and i'm not saying that the church didn't becomeobsessed with the jews. it certainly did. it always has been and i saidthe church was the most tolerant that the church was the reasonfor the survival of the jews
but there are periodsespecially in the 19th century when italy is unifying and papalcontrol is being threatened. the papacy becomes reactionaryin a way that's astonishing and it backs off ofmany of the principles that it had self hadstood for, for centuries. all right, good, weknow that in times of trouble society,you know, change. and they become more restrictive. i mean we've seen it in our societymany, many times in the hundreds
of years of americawhich isn't that long in the few hundred yearsof american history. but what happens is that thesethemes become more powerful and yes they become part of an institution that's really whatprofessor villani and his teachers and there's on-- this wholeproject about the inquisition. that's what they're work on. the way the inquisition reallyis a bureaucratic institution. part of, you know,that kind of thing.
so, yes that happens butit's not as simple as, oh the spanish jews didn't-- because in fact the spanish jewsare very happy to live in rome. they fight like hellto live in rome. and alexander vi who doesnot get the best press in papal history was verynice to the spanish jews and made the jews ofrome let them in. maybe you want to say something? >> good afternoon first of alli'd like to thank you gentlemen,
the library of congress and thegovernment of italy for bringing joy to my heart and this topic. i'm an armchair historian and comefrom the family of sephardic rabbis. my thinking was that the jewsthat were brought to rome to build the coliseum wherethe first jews brought to italy, i guess officially. that's not true? >> bernard cooperman: no. >> can you explain upon that?
>> bernard cooperman: no theydidn't build the coliseum but the argument is thattitus brought jews as slaves. and everybody will takeyou to the arch of titus. did you go to the arch oftitus when you were in italy? >> yeah i think. >> bernard cooperman: all right. so the destruction of the templeis '70, jews think its '68 but its apparently '70 and use-- have that arch and you see themenorah for supposedly the menorah
for their argumentsabout people usually say. and they say these jewsare brought as slaves and there are wonderful poems by ifany of you know the hebrew poetry of judah lieb gordon and so forth. was it judah lieb gordon? yeah, i think it wasjudah lieb gordon. about the slaves whoperish, you know, in the-- with the lions, you know, and theyeat them and all that kind of stuff. it's a great story.
the truth is that when themaccabees won in 165 bce, right? so that's a long time. that's 230 years before thedestruction of the second temple. when they come they send anambassador to rome and the jews in town meet them there and arevery happy and celebrate them. so jews had been living in rome fromat least the second century bce. no, no, no. the ghetto was 1555. they lived all over the city.
>> roberta i shaffer: pleasecontinue this conversation as part of the reception and the display. i would like to take thisopportunity, however, to thank and introduce you to thecurators of the display. particularly julia wolfe [assumedspelling] who brought the idea that commemoration of the 500 yearsof the venetian ghetto was a topic that the law library and theeuropean division of the library of congress shouldpresent to the community. and so thank you julia,nathan dorn, anthony mullan
and anne brener [assumed spelling]who are our wonderful curators and are anxious to talk to you more in the room just behind thisone about the collection. and please, please continue theconversation over a glass of wine. if you would be so kind to alsofill out the evaluation form that should have been inyour program it will help us in the future to makewonderful programs like this. and thank you so much for coming.