Jewish Life in Early Modern Rome

Kenneth Stow

Contents: Introduction; Part 1 The Papal Challenge: The burning of the Talmud in 1553, in the light of 16th century Catholic attitudes toward the Talmud; The consciousness of closure: Roman Jewry and its ghet; Expulsion Italian style: the case of Lucio Ferraris; The good of the Church, the good of the state: the Popes and Jewish money. Part 2 In Search of Conversion: Church, conversion and tradition: the problem of Jewish conversion in 16th century Italy; A tale of uncertainties: converts in the Roman ghetto; Neofiti and their families, or perhaps, the good of the state; Delitto e castigo nello stato della chiesa: gli ebrei nelle carceri romane dal 1572 al 1659. Part 3 The Jews of Rome: Prossimità o distanza: etnicità, sefarditi e assenza di conflitti etnici nella Roma del sedicesimo secolo; Ethnic rivalry or melting pot: the 'edot' in the Roman ghetto; Ethnic amalgamation, like it or not: inheritance in early modern Jewish Rome; Abramo ben Aaron Scazzocchio, another kind of Rabbi; The knotty problem of Shem Tov Soporto: male honor, marital initiation, and disciplinary structures in mid-16th-century Jewish Rome; The new fashioned from the old: parallels in public and learned memory and practice in 16th century Jewish Rome; Corporate double talk: Kehillat Kodesh and Universitas in the Roman Jewish 16th century environment; Marriages are made in heaven: marriage and the individual in the Roman Jewish ghetto; Writing in Hebrew, thinking in Italian; Jewish pre-emancipation: ius commune, the Roman communità, and marriage in the early modern Papal State; Index.