176 Tasca
research based on new documentary evidence has overturned these earlier
views by confirming that many Sardinian Jews converted and remained on the
island, where they gradually integrated with the rest of the population. For
instance, documents indicate that there were 50 conversos between 1343 and
1536, with five in Sassari (between 1343 and 1487), 15 in Alghero (between 1382–
1536) and 26 in Cagliari’s Castello (in the period 1366–1486).36 They were mainly
merchants, tailors, butchers, cobblers, and canons, who, in the face of all odds,
kept up steady relationships with both Christian as well as Jewish communi-
ties. This fact evidences the presence of a particular feature of the Catalan-
Aragon world—the homeland of most of the Sardinian Jews and converts—in
Sardinian territory. Furthermore, the greatest number of conversos—although
not always openly declared as such—was to be found in Cagliari’s Castello,
home to the largest Jewish community on the island.
However, the conversos of Alghero need to be divided into two categories:
above all, those Jews who were converted before 1492; and then those who,
having stayed on the island after the Edict of Expulsion, chose conversion
rather than exile. This is the case for several exponents of the well-known de
Carcassona family. They are first mentioned in Alghero in 1422, with Samuele,
the aljama’s secretary and holder of the right to collect the king’s taxes. From
1448 onwards, there are records of his four sons—Maimone, Mossè, Zarquillo,
and Salomone (alias Nino)—who were already noted in a previous bibliogra-
phy, but about whom we have more detailed information today. Their descen-
dants converted to Christianity and remained in Sardinia from then on. They
were well integrated with the rest of the population and maintained some of
their former privileges. Nino’s sons, Felicio and Bernardo, worked in Alghero’s
royal saltworks; Francesco, probably another of Nino’s children, inherited the
contract to claim royal taxes in Alghero. Francesco’s four children—Enrico,
Guerau or Geraldo, Giovanni, and Angelo—are also recorded; Angelo held the
tax collector’s contract in Alghero until 1536.37
Translated by Sally Davies
36 A recent work has addressed this matter in greater detail and should be referred to for a
complete analysis of the data that can only briefly mention here; see Cecilia Tasca, “Nuovi
documenti sui Conversos ebrei nella Sardegna medievale,” Biblioteca Francescana Sarda
12 (2008), pp. 71–97.
37 Tasca, “Ebrei e società,” docs. 967–1000 and 1002–1017.