Persecution of Jews in Italy

Roman emperors
Under Christian emperors, Jews were persecuted in the Roman and Byzantine Empires, which included forbidding Jews from marrying Christians, restricting Jewish ownership of slaves, punishing Christian converts to Judaism with death, prohibiting Jews from bearing witness against orthodox Christians in court, and forcing Jews to convert to Christianity.

Ambrose of Milan
During the fourth century, Bishop Ambrose of Milan was hateful toward Jews. Ambrose defended a bishop involved in the destruction of a synagogue and expressed that he wanted to have burned down a synagogue with his own hands. He also blamed the Jewish people collectively for the death of Jesus Christ.

Philaster of Brescia
In 388, Bishop Philaster of Brescia encouraged the populace of Rome to set fire to a synagogue.

Ostrogothic Italy
After being incited by clergy, a Christian mob burned down synagogues in the Ostrogoth capital city, Ravenna, in 519. A synagogue was also destroyed by a Christian mob in Milan in around 507.

Papacy
During his years as the Pope from 590 to 604, Gregory I described Jews as “preachers of Antichrist” and complained of Jews being stubborn. He considered Judaism Jewish superstition, depravity, and faithlessness and was disgusted with converts who “return to their vomit.” Gregory also opposed Jews having ownership over Christian slaves. Popes Stephen III in the eighth century, Leo VII in the mid-tenth century, and Gregory VII in the 11th century referred to Jews as being the enemies of God or Jesus Christ. Benedict VIII, the Pope from 1012 to 1024, ordered the execution of a number of Jews for alleged blasphemy against Jesus Christ.

The popes of the papacy have made laws restricting Jewish people, which include Jews being prohibited from holding public office, prohibited from the construction of synagogues, prohibited from testifying against Christians, forced to live in ghettos, forced to wear a Jewish badge and hat, expelled from the Papal States, forced to attend conversionist sermons, and forbidding Jews that converted to Christianity from returning to Judaism, even if the conversion was by force.

The Inquisition was an ecclesiastical tribunal that was used to persecute heretics. It was initiated by the Catholic Church, established by Pope Gregory IX in the 13th century, and lasted for centuries. Officials of the Inquisition or inquisitors targeted suspected Jewish converts to Christianity who relapsed to Judaism and Christians who converted to Judaism. They were tortured and punished with death. Pope Julius III allowed Franciscan Cornelio de Montalcino, who converted to Judaism, to be burned at the stake in Rome in 1554, and Pope Paul IV (1555-1599) ordered over 20 Jews who converted to Christianity and were suspected of secretly practicing Judaism to be burned in Ancona.

Victor of Palermo
In 598, Bishop Victor of Palermo confiscated synagogues and converted them to churches.

Louis II
Louis II, emperor of the Carolingian empire, decreed the expulsion of Italian Jews in 855.

Landolfo VI
Landolfo VI, prince of Benevento, forced a number of Jews into converting to Christianity in 1065.

Frederick II
The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II required Jews in Naples and Sicily to wear a badge.

Blood libels
Jews were forcibly converted and killed in Trani in the 1290s after a blood libel, which is a false accusation that Jews killed a Christian, usually a child, for a ritual. In 1475, following a blood libel for the death of Simon of Trent, over a dozen Jews were killed. Other blood libels occurred in Ancona in 1456, Bassano in 1485, Fano in 1492, and Asti in 1553.

Frederick III
King Frederick III of Sicily in 1310 prohibited Jews from owning Christian slaves, treating Christian patients, or holding public offices and ordered Jews to wear distinguishing clothes in Sicily. In 1312, he ordered the Jews of Palermo to live outside the city wall in a ghetto.

Ghettos
For the purpose of segregating Jews, ghettos were established in many locations in Italy between the 14th and 18th centuries. They were established in Palermo in 1312, Venice in around 1325 and again in 1516, Ravenna in 1515, Ancona, Bologna, and Rome in the 1550s, Florence and Siena in the 1570s, Mirandola, Padua, and Verona in the first decade of the 1600s, Mantua and Rovigo in the 1610s, Ferrara and Pitigliano in the 1620s, Cento, Lugo, Modena, Pesaro, Senigallia, and Urbino in the 1630s, Conegliano Veneto, Este, Genoa, Reggio Emilia, and Turin between the 1660s and 1670s, Gorizia in 1696, Acqui, Casale Monferrato, Finale, Moncalvo, and Vercelli between the 1720s and 1730s, and Correggio in 1779.

Palermo and other massacres
Jews were massacred in Palermo in 1339, and other killings of Jews occurred in 1392 in Monte San Giuliano, where there were also forceful conversions to Christianity; other Christian mobs killed hundreds of Jews in Modica and Noto in the mid-1470s. There were also massacres of the Jewish community in Asolo in 1547 and in Senigallia and Siena in 1799.

Bernardine of Feltre
Antisemitic sermons preached by the Franciscan Bernardine of Feltre in the late 15th century led to the expulsion of Jews from Bergamo, Brescia, Gubbio, Perugia, and Vicenza.

Expulsions by monarchs
King Ferdinand II of Aragon expelled Jews from Sardinia and Sicily in the early 1490s and from Naples in 1510. Jews were expelled from Naples again in 1541 by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Jewish people were also expelled from Gorizia by Charles' successor Ferdinand I, from Pesaro by Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino in 1558, and from the Duchy of Milan by Duke Philip I of Milan in the late 16th century.