Jews in Florence

Abstract

The first sporadic Jewish presence in Florence is attested from the 1320s. In 1437, Jewish bankers were formally granted the license to lend money at interest in Florence, an act that stimulated the establishment of a small but permanent Jewish community composed of families from central Italy and their entourages (100–300 people). The fate of the community was closely connected to its elite’s banking specialization and to the Medici patrons who protected them. Threatened with expulsion on multiple occasions, Florentine Jews managed at times to stave off exile thanks to the economic services they offered the state. The presence of wealthy patrons, most notable among them Yehiel da Pisa, also benefited Jewish intellectual life, as evidenced by both Hebrew manuscript production and cultural flourishing in the last decades of the 15th century. Figures such as Elijah del Medigo, Abraham Farissol, and Yohanan Alemanno were all active in Renaissance Florence, while Christian interest in Hebrew and kabbalistic traditions led humanists such as Giannozzo Manetti, Marsilio Ficino, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola to associate with Jewish scholars. Around the time of the Florentine Republic (1527–1532), the city saw an initial influx of Sephardic Jews, whose traditions and economic focus were different from the established local Jewish community. After the Medicis returned to Florence, they granted generous freedoms to these “Levantine Jews” (1551), hoping to attract them to the capital and benefit from their mercantile networks. This initial experiment failed, and only with the Livornina of 1591 was a growing Sephardic presence drawn to the Medici state—not to Florence, but to coastal Livorno. In 1570, the Jews of Florence and the surrounding countryside were ordered to resettle in a segregated enclosure, the third ghetto to be established on Italian soil after Venice and Rome; the community grew to 600–700 individuals due to the destruction of rural communities and their confluence into Florence. In the 17th century, the economic activities of Florentine Jews dwindled significantly as a result of the forced closure of Jewish banks and new limitations imposed by the Medicis. Despite these restrictions, Jewish life endured. Current research is increasingly shedding light on the opportunities and challenges Florentine Jews experienced during the ghetto period, a previously understudied topic.