Marking the Jews in Renaissance Italy
Politics, Religion, and the Power of Symbols

This book examines the discriminatory marking of Jews in Renaissance Italy and the impacts this had on the Jewish communities.

Flora Cassen (Author)

9781316627471, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 March 2020

233 pages
15 x 23 x 1 cm, 0.34 kg

'… thought-provoking … An important addition to debates on anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, the book will appeal to scholars of religion interested in understanding how Christians attempted to place one religious minority apart from the majority during the Italian Renaissance.' Deborah Kaye, Religious Studies Review

It is a little known fact that as early as the thirteenth century, Europe's political and religious powers tried to physically mark and distinguish the Jews from the rest of society. During the Renaissance, Italian Jews first had to wear a yellow round badge on their chest, and then later, a yellow beret. The discriminatory marks were a widespread phenomenon with serious consequences for Jewish communities and their relations with Christians. Beginning with a sartorial study - how the Jews were marked on their clothing and what these marks meant - the book offers an in-depth analysis of anti-Jewish discrimination across three Italian city-states: Milan, Genoa, and Piedmont. Moving beyond Italy, it also examines the place of Jews and Jewry law in the increasingly interconnected world of Early Modern European politics.

Introduction
1. Origins and symbolic meaning of the Jewish badge
2. Dukes, friars and Jews in fifteenth-century Milan
3. Strangers at home: the Jewish badge in Spanish Milan (1512–1597)
4. From black to yellow: loss of solidarity among the Jews of Piedmont
5. No Jews in Genoa
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Religious groups: social & cultural aspects [JFSR], Judaism [HRJ], Religious intolerance, persecution & conflict [HRAM9], Social & cultural history [HBTB], European history [HBJD]