venice and its minorities 483
Given the potent combination of religious, political, and military con-
siderations, ottoman Muslims were especially disliked and suspected.
somewhat unexpectedly, the position of the Jews was, in certain respects,
comparatively more favorable than that of non-catholic christian groups,
despite the strict segregation, special head-covering, and severe civil
restrictions imposed upon them. Brian Pullan observed that in Venice “the
Jews were more highly privileged than any other community of religious
aliens, with the sole exception of Greeks adhering to the Union of Flor-
ence”; thus Jews could openly have synagogues which christians could
and did visit,80 while Protestants “could expect only liberty of conscience,
as distinct from freedom of public worship, and seize the chance to attend
an embassy chapel.”81 indeed, only in 1657 did the Protestant merchants
from the Germanic lands who resided in the Fondaco dei tedeschi receive
permission to hold religious services privately in the fondaco and to bring
pastors from Germany. as Frederic Lane noted, “no organized Protestant
propaganda was permitted, and Protestantism was tolerated only mar-
ginally as an intellectual plaything of a few skeptics and as the religious
custom of a few foreigners: the German merchants in their fondaco, a
flourishing colony of German bakers, and the many German students at
Padua.”82 summarizing the situation in the late 17th century, Maximil-
ien Misson observed that in Venice, the Greeks, armenians, and Jews
were allowed the public exercise of their religion, while all other sects
or religions were tolerated, but one pretended not to know about their
meetings, which were held in so secret and discrete a manner that the
senate did not have any reason to complain about any abuse or indiscre-
tion. Further, in the course of asserting that Protestants could be buried
in the churches if their relatives desired it because one ignored that there
were Protestants in Venice, Misson claimed that all those who were nei-
ther Jews nor Greeks nor armenians were deemed to be catholics.83 as
Lane concluded, “Venice was far from being any champion of freedom of
thought in principle [.. .] But men of a great variety of views succeeded
one way or another in living in Venice pretty much as they pleased, and
80 see B. ravid, “christian travelers in the Ghetto of Venice: some Preliminary obser-
vations,” in s. nash, ed., Between History and Literature: Studies in Honor of Isaac Barzilay
(B’nei B’rak, 1997), pp. 111–50, photo-reproduced in ravid, Studies on the Jews of Venice.
81 see B. Pullan, The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice (oxford, 1983), p. 154.
82 see Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic, p. 395.
83 see M. Misson, A New Voyage to Italy (London, 1739), vol. 1, book 2, p. 484, repr. in
ravid, “christian travelers in the Ghetto of Venice,” pp. 132–33.