Lucca to Florence (1880–83)

This chapter studies the hearings for Shamama v. Shamama in Lucca, which began on January 7, 1880. When the Luccan judges issue their ruling, they upheld the Livornese court's verdict, proclaiming that Nissim had died stateless and Italian law applied to his estate. Accordingly, his will was held to be valid. The judges determined that Nissim had renounced his Tunisian nationality, which he was permitted to do based on the “natural right” of expatriation. Yet Nissim had failed to fulfill the requirements of the royal naturalization decree. Rejecting Mancini's claim that Nissim was an oriundo italiano, the judges ruled that he had never acquired Italian citizenship. They also summarily dismissed the idea that Jewish law might be Nissim's national law. The Lucca ruling came as developments on both sides of the Mediterranean transformed the nature of the Shamama case. The legal questions that most preoccupied either side shifted—from a laser focus on nationality to the status of Nissim's will under Jewish law. By the time the court of appeal in Florence delivered the final ruling—a decade after Nissim died—the landscape of the lawsuit had become almost unrecognizable.