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{it} Serena Di Nepi. Sopravvivere al ghetto: per una storia sociale della comunità ebraica nella Roma del Cinquecento. Roma : Viella, 2013. / English ed. 2021.

Abstract

"From the beginning of the 16th century, the situation of the Jews in the Papal States, and especially in Rome, steadily deteriorated. The arrival of Jewish refugees from Spain, an economic crisis, the conflict between the Church and the Reformation movement, and an atmosphere of fear regarding the advance of the Ottomans into Europe resulted in the strengthening of a policy of intolerance on the part of the Church toward foreigners and Jews. Paul IV (Giovanni Pietro Carafa, 1476-1559), who served as Pope between 1555-59, confined Rome's Jews in a ghetto in 1555; the ghetto would last until 1870. Apart from this, Pope Paul IV took several discriminatory measures to marginalize the Jews: prohibition to exercise profitable professions, of Jewish doctors to treat Christians, and of Jewish access to owning property. The Jews had to wear yellow clothes (in various forms) to be easily identified; they could not go out of the ghetto after certain hours; on Sundays they had to attend Christian sermons in the churches. States that the strategy of Paul IV was to force the Jews into an extremely difficult way of life in order to persuade them of the advantages of conversion. Concludes that the survival of the Jews in poverty, and in the crowded and unhealthy environment of the ghetto during 300 years, was possible only due to the strengthening of religion and by the development of a strong network of solidarity in the community."