The Venetian Ghetto plays a uniquely important relation successful the past of segregation. By the clip it was founded, connected 29 March 1516, Jews had already been forced to unrecorded successful chiseled areas elsewhere successful Europe; but what made the Venetian Ghetto truthful antithetic was that it established a wholly caller mode of thinking—and talking—about Jewish confinement. Previously, Jewish areas had gone by each sorts of antithetic names (Judenstraße, Juiverie etc). These names tended to subordinate to a circumstantial determination (such arsenic a thoroughfare oregon square) oregon were highly vague. This meant they couldn’t easy beryllium applied to different Jewish areas elsewhere.
The connection ‘ghetto’ was different. It had thing to bash with Jews astatine all. Originally, it came from the verb gettare, meaning ‘to throw’, oregon ‘to cast’; and was utilized arsenic the sanction of an land successful Cannaregio, due to the fact that that was wherever the communal copper foundry had thrown its rubbish. When the Venetian authorities confined the city’s Jews determination successful the aboriginal sixteenth century, the island—now covered successful tenement buildings—kept the name; and soon enough, ‘ghetto’ was utilized to picture not conscionable the place, but the instauration of Jewish confinement itself. This proved crucial. Since the connection wasn’t linked to a street, oregon a square, oregon thing similar that, but inactive conjured up a consciousness of full isolation—by virtuousness of the ghetto’s location—it came to connote a precise peculiar type of confinement. As such, it could beryllium easy exported to picture Jewish quarters elsewhere—and yet adapted to picture sites of confinement oregon exclusion the satellite over.
When we deliberation of the Venetian Ghetto, however, 1 of the archetypal things astir of america deliberation of is astir apt Shylock from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Unfortunately, Shakespeare ne'er really visited Venice; and scholars present recognise that Shylock’s quality is much a reflection of anti-Jewish hysteria successful aboriginal seventeenth-century London than thing that was going connected in Italy astatine that time. But it is inactive a utile representation for 2 reasons. On the 1 hand, Shylock’s mistreatment successful the play isn’t a cardinal miles distant from however Jews successful Venice were treated.
From the beginning, they were taxable to strict and often humiliating restrictions–and were often the people of unit and discrimination. On the different hand, the information that Shakespeare chose to marque Shylock a nonmigratory of Venice is simply a telling illustration of the Ghetto’s profoundly planetary character. It was a microcosm of the Jewish world. Eventually consisting of 3 distinct, but connected, ghettos, it was location to Jewish migrants and refugees from Germany, Spain, Portugal, the Ottoman Empire, modern Ukraine and Russia—and beyond. It retained links with Jewish communities arsenic acold afield arsenic Amsterdam and Alexandria; and it came to power the mode Jews were perceived—and thought astir themselves—far and wide.
In my book, The First Ghetto: Venice and the Jews, I tried to bring some of these elements to the fore. I wanted to constitute a genuinely societal past of the place. Using a wealthiness of modern testimonies, I amusement however the Jews of Venice not simply survived centuries of hardship and oppression, but thrived. I research the detonation of Hebrew printing, and the proliferation of poetry, music, and thought; and I besides effort reconstruct the lives of the mean radical successful arsenic overmuch item arsenic I can—bringing to beingness the sights, sounds, and smells of their mundane existence.
But I besides realized that the Ghetto’s communicative could lone genuinely beryllium understood by mounting it successful a overmuch wider context. I wanted to amusement however its beingness has been shaped by Venice’s ain shifting fortunes: how, having been archetypal called into beingness by migration and war, its endurance was guaranteed by Venice’s decline; and its bequest twisted by Napoleon’s Italian campaigns, Austrian rule, Italian unification, and the tragedies of the Second World War.
The books I person chosen are intended to bespeak these 2 cardinal facets of the Ghetto’s character. In my ain research, I person relied heavy connected the wealthiness of Italian assistance which has been produced successful caller years (such arsenic the indispensable studies by Donatella Calabi, Riccardo Calimani, Ennio Concina, Ugo Fortis, and Renata Segre—to sanction conscionable a few), but determination are immoderate truly splendid works successful English springiness a large penetration into some the Ghetto’s interior workings and its broader setting. I’ve besides picked 1 caller successful French that is truly precise overmuch worthy reading.
*
John Julius Norwich, A History of Venice
(Vintage)
Although archetypal published astir 50 years ago, this is inactive the champion spot to commencement for anyone who wants to get to grips with the Venetian Republic. Superbly written and lovingly researched, it offers a magnificent survey of the Serenissima’s past from its legendary instauration successful 421 to its last illness successful 1797. It gives a wide content of wherefore Venice came to beryllium specified a important span betwixt East and West, however its erstwhile unchallenged maritime supremacy collapsed, and however those factors shaped its often fractious politics.
Margaret Plant, Venice: Fragile City 1797-1997
(Yale University Press)
This monumental survey continues Venice’s communicative from the abolition of the Republic to the extremity of the twentieth century. Unlike Norwich’s book, it is much focussed connected the societal and taste dimensions of Venice’s past and arsenic a result, brings to airy the issues of Venetian and Italian individuality which formed the backdrop to the experiences of its Jewish residents.
Brian Pullan, Rich and Poor successful Renaissance Venice: The Social Institutions of a Catholic State, to 1620
(Harvard University Press)
No database of books astir Renaissance Venice (and its relations with Jews) would beryllium implicit without Brian Pullan’s classical study. It explores however the Republic of Venice handled the occupation of mediocre alleviation successful a play of profound political, social, and economical upheaval—and however the Republic veered betwixt relying connected Jewish moneylenders to conscionable the needs of the ‘working poor,’ and establishing charitable lending banks (known arsenic monti di pieta) successful its taxable cities to marque Jewish lending little necessary.
Robert C. Davis and Benjamin Ravid, ed., The Jews of Early Modern Venice
(Hopkins University Press)
This fantabulous measurement contains a bid of concise and authoritative essays connected cardinal aspects of the Ghetto’s aboriginal history, written by starring experts successful the field. There are immoderate peculiarly invaluable contributions connected the relation played by Jews successful planetary commercialized (and the instauration of the 2nd and 3rd ghettos to accommodate Jewish merchants, primitively from Spain and Portugal); connected the persecution of Jewish apostates from Catholicism by the Inquisition; and connected Jewish women and household life. It’s large for dipping into, too.
Mark R. Cohen, trans. and ed., The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi. Leon Modena’s Life of Judah
(Princeton University Press)
Leon Modena was (1571-1648) was 1 of the Ghetto’s starring figures during the aboriginal seventeenth century. He was a antheral of galore talents. As good arsenic being a salient rabbi, helium besides tried his manus astatine implicit 20 different professions, too—from matchmaker and translator, to amulet-seller and euphony teacher. Above all, helium was a literate colossus—churning retired dozens of works during a agelong and fruitful career. His autobiography is unquestionably 1 of the astir vivid and engaging portraits of mundane beingness successful the Ghetto astatine its peak—and this is simply a superb edition. We spot up adjacent his fractious narration with his wife; the overpowering grief helium felt erstwhile his son, Zebulun, was killed successful the street—and his continual anxiousness implicit the authorities of relations betwixt the Ghetto and the authorities of Venice.
Simon Levis Sullam, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy
(Princeton University Press)
A prof astatine Ca’ Focari, University of Venice, Simon Levis Sullam has written extensively astir the past of the Jews of Venice successful the interwar period. In this singular book, helium offers a strikingly revisionist relationship of Italy’s relation successful the Holocaust. Challenging the story that the Holocaust was ‘imposed’ connected Italy by Germany, helium lays bare the grade to which Italians willingly facilitated the deportation and extermination of Jews successful the play 1943 and 1945, erstwhile the Mussolini’s puppet Italian Social Republic was occupied by Nazi Germany. Some of the book’s astir harrowing parts woody with the deportation of the Segre household from Venice. It is simply a gripping, revelatory read.
Jean d’Ormesson, Histoire du Juif errant
(FOLIO)
One of France’s astir eminent men of letters, Jean d’Ormesson is connected fantabulous signifier successful this ambitious humanities novel. The publication follows the communicative of Simon, the ‘wandering Jew’ down the centuries. But what makes it truthful absorbing is that it is besides acceptable successful Venice. This isn’t an accident. As d’Ormesson makes clear, obscurity other does the Jewish past and Jewish contiguous blur unneurotic arsenic seamlessly arsenic successful Simon’s ain character—and arsenic such, the caller is an engaging grounds to the continuities of the Ghetto’s history, and to the agelong shadiness it casts.
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Alexander Lee’s The First Ghetto: Venice and the Origins of Modern Antisemitism, a finalist for the 2026 Cundill History Prize, is disposable now.
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