derogatory, as is usual in the West today: “by ‘anti-
semitism’ we mean all instances in which people, because
they are labeled Jews, are feared as symbols of subhuman-
ity and hated for threatening characteristics they do not in
fact possess.” Although the term was invented to express
approval for an anti-Jewish manifesto (by Wilhelm Marr)
in 1873, it is not anachronistic to call Renaissance atti-
tudes towards Jews “antisemitic.” As Lionel B. Steiman
writes, “the ideas and attitudes to which it refers have be-
longed to Western history for two thousand years...There
is an inherent consistency in Western attitudes towards
Jews which justifies use of the term antisemitism” for all
periods of Christianity.
After 1500 there was little direct physical aggression
toward European Jews: most Jews had already been con-
tained or removed by medieval suppression. Judean peo-
ple had been attacked within and without Europe,
suffering through crusading voyages and local, hardship-
motivated riots: Jews were easy targets for aggrieved mobs.
The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) imposed sumptuary
laws to force Jews to dress distinctly from Christians.
States began to expel them by force: England shipped out
most of its Jews in 1290, as did France (1392), Spain
(1492), and Portugal (1496). Similar Italian actions came
later, with Pope Paul IV ghettoizing Jews in Rome in 1555,
practically and psychologically marginalizing them.
Despite their reduced numbers, Jews remained a focus
for vitriolic detestation throughout the Renaissance and
Reformation. Each branch of Christianity had its own sort
of Jew-hatred. For Catholics, Jews were despised members
of a sinning creed: by definition, Jews were opposed to the
redeeming work of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Fre-
quently accused of ritual murder, poisoning water sup-
plies, and excessive wealth accumulation, Jews were to be
kept alive as an example of the depravity of those who re-
ject Christ. It was patronizingly believed that Christ would
redeem the mistaken Jews at his Second Coming, al-
though great energy and sometimes coercion (particularly
in 16th-century Spain) was expended to convert Europe’s
remaining Jews. ERASMUSremarked in a letter (August 11,
1519) that “If hate of the Jews is the proof of genuine
Christians, then we are all excellent Christians.” LUTHER’s
attitude to Jews was initially conciliatory but became more
hostile: his growing antisemitism can be acknowledged
simply by comparing the titles of two of his works: That
Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew (1523) and On The Jews and
Their Lies (1543). Calvinism tends to be associated much
less with antisemitism than Catholicism or Lutheranism,
but this reflects John Calvin’s general silence on Jewry
rather than any affection or tolerance for Judaism.
Despite or because of the low numbers of Jews in Eu-
rope, Jewish characters feature prominently in the litera-
ture of Renaissance Europe. Superficially at least, these
characters are uniformly typecast: they lend money at ex-
tortionate rates, they have large noses, they are scheming
and untrustworthy, they revere circumcision, and they are
murderous in intent. The hateful Jew was particularly
common on the Elizabethan English stage. In Shake-
speare’s play The Merchant of Venice only the happy ending
required by the comic genre prevents Shylock from spite-
fully killing a Christian merchant who cannot pay a debt.
Critics will forever argue about whether or not such rep-
resentations of Jews are innately antisemitic, or whether
the dramas tend rather to show that Christians have simi-
lar characteristics to the Jews to whom they wrongly feel
morally superior. This ambiguity is troublingly apparent
in Christopher MARLOWE’s tragedy The Jew of Malta. The
title character embarks upon a gleeful killing spree, mur-
dering Christians with supposedly traditional Jewish
methods of poisoning and expertly choreographed trick-
ery. But he is provoked into this campaign by Christians
who exploit his money and eventually brutalize him when
he no longer serves any economic end. Are the Jew’s ac-
tions any worse than the Christians’?
Less ambiguous is the tale of the “Wandering Jew,” a
13th-century myth about a Jew who taunted the cross-
bearing Christ that resurfaced during the 1500s. For this
mockery, the Wandering Jew was condemned to roam the
earth until Judgment Day. A pamphlet promoting this leg-
end was printed in 1602, supposedly at Leyden: within two
decades, the text had become assimilated and appreciated
all over Europe. As the influence of this myth indicates,
late-Renaissance antisemitism had international appeal.
The Holocaust of the mid-20th century was, in part,
made possible by the two-millennium-old hatred of Jewry.
Renaissance and Reformation thinkers and nonthinkers
have an assured place in this grim legacy, one that remains
politically hypersensitive to this day.
Further reading: Gavin I. Langmuir, Toward a Defini-
tion of Antisemitism (Berkeley, Calif. and London: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1996); Albert S. Lindemann, Esau’s
Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews (Cam-
bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1997), esp. pp.
3–35; Lionel B. Steiman, Paths to Genocide: Antisemitism in
Western History (Basingstoke, U.K.: Macmillan and New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), esp. pp. xi–xv, 52–70.Antonello da Messina (c. 1430–1479) Sicilian-born
Italian painter
Antonello probably trained initially with COLANTONIOin
Naples. His earliest surviving pictures, such as the London
Salting Madonna, are however more profoundly condi-
tioned by Netherlandish works than anything which
Colantonio is known to have painted, so it seems likely
that Antonello also received tuition from a Netherlandish
painter, probably Petrus CHRISTUSor a close follower. An-
tonello’s St. Jerome in Penitence and Visit of the Three Angels
to Abraham and his London Salvator Mundi (1465) show
the distinct influence of van EYCK. His slightly later Lon-
don St. Jerome in his Study incorporates compositional mo-2222 AAnnttoonneelllloo ddaa MMeessssiinnaa