472 benjamin ravid
in the city of Venice for the following five years. it appears that the only
individuals to respond were Jews, and consequently in 1385 the senate
issued a new charter to go into effect in 1387, good for ten years, allowing
them to lend at interest, and in the following year it granted them land
on the Lido to use as a cemetery.60 However, in 1395, the senate decreed
that upon expiration of the charter in 1397, all Jews were to leave Venice,
and henceforth could not remain in the city for longer than 15 days. then
in 1402, alleging that at the end of 15 days they would leave for Mestre and
then return for another 15 days, it was provided that after the 15 days had
expired, they had to be absent for four months, further extended in 1496
to a whole year. also, from 1397 on, all Jews in the city were required to
wear a distinguishing yellow circle on their outer garment in order to be
recognizable as Jews, changed in 1496 to a yellow head-covering to make
evasion more difficult.61
despite these restrictions, some Jews resided in the city without explicit
authorization, and their ranks included doctors, merchants, and literati,
as well as unidentified individuals who left their traces in archival docu-
ments. the Venetian government acknowledged their presence by legisla-
tion that sought to control them. to give one significant example, in 1408
it forbade Jews from holding religious services in premises rented from
christian landlords, subject to a year in jail and a fine of 1000 lire for both
the christian landlord and the Jewish tenant, while all other Jews present
at the services were to spend six months in jail and pay 300 lire. subse-
quently, however, when in 1464 the Jews requested an alleviation of this
measure, the collegio granted their wishes. Pointing out that Pope Pius ii
(1458–64) had allowed Jews to practice their religion and had threatened
with excommunication anyone who forbade them from doing so, it estab-
lished that henceforth for the honor of God they could freely recite Psalms
and praise God according to their laws in the premises that they rented,
as long as not more than ten persons (the minimum quorum prescribed
by Jewish law for the recitation of certain prayers and the public read-
ing of the Pentateuch) participated. no traces have been found of any
60 on the admission of the Jews to Venice and subsequent events down to 1397, see
r. Mueller, “Les prêteurs Juifs de Venise au moyen age,” Annales 30 (1975), 1277–1302, and
“the Jewish Moneylenders of Late trecento Venice: a revisitation,” Mediterranean Histori-
cal Review 10 (1995), 202–17.
61 see B. ravid, “From Yellow to red: on the distinguishing Head-covering of the Jews
of Venice,” Jewish History 6 (1992), 179–210, also published in book form with the same
pagination in B. Walfish, ed., Frank Talmage Memorial Volume II (Hanover, 1992), photo-
reproduced in ravid, Studies on the Jews of Venice, 1382–1797.