venice and its minorities 473
organized Jewish community or scuole, but it is reasonable to assume that
some kind of embryonic association or at least ad hoc consultation must
have existed.62
a major change took place in 1509, as Jews living on the terraferma were
among the refugees who fled to Venice in the face of the invading armies
of the League of cambrai. although the Venetian government ordered
the refugees to return home after it retook the captured areas, many Jews
remained in the city. eventually, in 1513, realizing that Jewish moneylend-
ing was very beneficial since it could provide the hard-pressed treasury
with annual payments while assisting the needy urban poor whose num-
bers had been swelled by the war and obviate their need to borrow ille-
gally from fellow christians, the government granted two wealthy Jewish
moneylenders a five-year charter permitting them to engage in money-
lending in Venice. also, some Jews were authorized to sell second-hand
goods known as strazzaria, literally rags but, by extension, second-hand
clothing and other used items, especially household furnishings that, prior
to the industrial revolution when relatively inexpensive mass-produced
items first became available, were sought by a large part of the population,
as well as foreign diplomats and visitors to the city, and even the govern-
ment itself for state occasions.
Many Venetians, especially catholic preachers, were greatly bothered
by the new phenomenon of Jews living spread throughout the city. conse-
quently, in 1516, the senate required all Jews to live together, segregated and
enclosed on the island in cannaregio already then known as the Ghetto
nuovo (the new Ghetto) because of its association with the municipal
copper foundry previously located across the canal, “il ghetto” or “getto”
from gettare in the sense of pouring or casting metal, whose area came
to be known as the Ghetto Vecchio (the old Ghetto).63 to prevent Jews
from moving about the city at night, gates were erected at the two bridges
leading out of the Ghetto nuovo. christian guards were to open these
two gates in the morning when the Marangona bell sounded and close
62 For further details on the Jews in 15th-century Venice, see B. ravid, “the Legal status
of the Jews of Venice to 1509,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research
54 (1987), 169–202.
63 For the definitive reconstruction of the history of the area of the ghetto before it
was assigned to the Jews and the immediate course of events afterward, see e. concina,
“Parva Jerusalem,” in e. concina, V. camerino, and d. calabi, La città degli Ebrei: Il ghetto
di Venezia: Archittetura e urbanistica (Venice, 1991), p. 1149; for a brief english summary, see
ravid, “the Venetian Government and the Jews,” pp. 7–10. see also chambers and Pullan,
eds., Venice: A Documentary History, pp. 338–39.