The Roman Ghetto

This chapter analyzes the Roman Jewry's political condition—the scene of the drama, its setting, and its background—and draws a picture of the core of Roman Jewish life: the Roman Ghetto. By the eighteenth century, the ghetto had become a wretched place. What had set the decline in motion were policies begun in 1555 by Pope Paul IV and continued by his successors, often with greater rigor. Over hundreds of years, there was an incremental hardening of limitations on Jews that the canon law of the Church had established as early as the eighth and ninth centuries. The bull Cum nimis absurdum set policy not only for Rome, but also for all places under direct papal rule, which meant most of central Italy. It also put pressure on adjacent principalities to follow suit.