Before the Ghetto

The Medici and the Segregation of the Jews in Sixteenth-Century Tuscany

Mancuso, Piergabriele (ed.)
Baldi Bellini, Davide (ed.)
Basile, Gaston Javier (ed.)

Established by Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1570, the ghetto was officially justified by claims of repeated Jewish violations of canon laws (condotte) and banking regulations. However, a comprehensive investigation conducted by the Magistrato Supremo (1568–1570) found such infractions to be rare, minor, and isolated, insufficient to justify sweeping restrictions. At the time, Tuscany’s Jewish community, about 700 individuals dispersed across the duchy, had strong social and professional ties with the Christian majority, particularly through Jewish moneylenders who provided affordable credit to the lower classes.
In truth, the ghetto’s creation stemmed from an ideological and bureaucratic process that framed even minor Jewish transgressions as serious threats to Jewish-Christian separation. Carlo Pitti, the powerful Medici chancellor and a staunch opponent of Jewish presence in Tuscany, played a key role. He promoted the ghetto as a political achievement aligning the Medici state with the Counter-Reformation Church and as a profitable investment for the ruling elite. This volume explores this pivotal moment in Tuscan Jewish history, offering the first annotated edition of the official documents that led to the community’s urban segregation.