the tax revenue and commercial benefits provided by Jewish subjects and
without creating a conversoproblem. As a physical and legal space for Jews,
the ghetto had more in common with the classical Jewish quarter than, say,
with the Nazi ghettos. Although Jews were confined to the ghetto at night,
Jews and Christians were allowed to enter and exit the ghetto in Venice and
other Italian ghettos freely during the day.
Moreover, although the original intention of the ghetto was to isolate and
marginalize Jews by delineating a Jewish space, the ghetto assured a Jewish
presence in Venice and other major Italian cities, a first step in the process of
Jewish urbanization. Thus, the ghetto paradoxically provided a sense of stabil-
ity amid harsh conditions, and fortified Jews with a greater sense of security
and belonging. While intended to curtail interactions between Jews and
Christians, which had increased during the Renaissance, Jews were instead sit-
uated in the heart of Venice and eventually every major Italian city, thus
assuring that they would remain an integral part of urban life and culture in
Italy. To be sure, the ghetto affected Jews differently. Poor Jews languished,
while rich Jews were able to participate in the cultural world of the Baroque.
The new sense of security and confidence among Jews at the beginning of
the sixteenth century was reflected in several Jewish defenses of usury.
Abraham Fassisol, a Avignonese Jew living in Mantua, challenged the
Aristotelian argument that because money was barren and therefore not sub-
ject to the law of supply and demand, it must be exchanged gratuitously –
the heart of the Christian condemnation of Jewish usury. Don Isaac
Abravanel, who settled in Italy after fleeing from Spain, incorporated a five-
part defense of Jewish usury into his commentary on Deuteronomy. Other
defenders of Judaism included Simone Luzzatto of Venice, whose treatise on
the economic utility of Jews eventually became a blueprint for subsequent
defenses of Judaism, and Leone Modena. At the beginning of the seventeenth
century, Modena invited his composer friend Salomon de Rossi to compose a
series of Baroque-style choral pieces for use in the synagogue. Though bor-
rowing the style of the Baroque, this music was clearly Jewish because of its
Hebrew text and function.
The emergence of the ghetto as a new standard for Jewish residence
reflected an attempt to reinvigorate Catholicism and a concern regarding the
religious commitment and intensity of Catholics. This concern would
heighten precipitously during the sixteenth century following the challenge of
Martin Luther and the Reformation. The Protestant Reformation linked two
distinct waves of Jewish expulsions in the Holy Roman Empire and the Italian
states, where the absence of a central authority had precluded any mass expul-
sion of Jews. From 1450 to 1520, momentum for expulsion had emanated
largely from towns and the lower clergy. The papacy, prince-bishops, and other
secular authorities generally remained aloof from such agitation. Typically,
higher authorities eventually readmitted Jews, overriding the aims of locally
issued edicts.
World Jewry in flux, 1492–1750 109