Jews Restricted to Ghettos in Italy

In 1555 Pope Paul IV issued the papal bull Cum nimis absurdum, which imposed harsh restrictions on Jews living in the Papal States. The bull reflected the intensifying climate of the Counter-Reformation, in which the Catholic Church adopted a more rigid and intolerant posture. Its opening words declared it absurd that Jews, condemned by their own guilt to perpetual servitude, should enjoy comforts among Christians.

Under its terms, Jews in cities such as Rome were confined to segregated quarters, enclosed areas from which they could not leave at night and which had limited gates. The bull also forced Jews to wear distinctive markings, barred them from owning real property, restricted their economic activities largely to dealing in secondhand goods, and limited their interactions with Christians. Venice had already established an enclosed Jewish quarter, from which the term ghetto derived.

The measures formalized and intensified the marginalization of Jewish communities in Italy, and the ghetto system endured in the Papal States for centuries. Conditions in the crowded, walled enclosures were often harsh, and the restrictions were not fully dismantled until the era of Italian unification and emancipation in the nineteenth century.