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The Jews and the Medici

 Фрагмент от портрет на Катерина Медичи (Catherine de Mйdicis; 1519-1589), нарисуван от анонимен художник между 1547 и 1559 г. Днес картината се намира в галерия „Уфици” във Флоренция

The fate of Tuscan Jewry in the early modern period was inextricably linked to the favor and the fortune of the House of Medici. Though a Jewish presence was registered in Lucca as early as the ninth century and a network of Jewish banks had spread throughout the region by the mid-fifteenth, the organized Jewish communities of Florence, Siena, Pisa and Livorno were political creations of the Medici rulers. And like the Medici Grand Dukedom itself, these communities took shape in the course of the sixteenth century.

In the 1490s, under the Catholic theocracy of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, both the Medici and the Jews were expelled from Florentine territory. When the Medici returned to power in 1512, the Jewish ban fell into abeyance, until the next expulsion of the Medici in 1527. In 1537 Cosimo de"Medici seized definitive control of the Florentine government and reorganized it as a princely state--the Dukedom (later Grand Dukedom) of Tuscany. This state flourished for two hundred years, under seven successive Medici rulers: Cosimo I, 1537-1574; Francesco I, 1574-1587; Ferdinando I, 1587-1609; Cosimo II, 1609-1621; Ferdinando II, 1621-1670; Cosimo III, 1670-1723; Gian Gastone, 1723-1737.

As a sovereign prince, Cosimo I was free to dictate new terms of Jewish resettlement according to his own best interests and those of his regime. Coming from a merchant family himself, Cosimo I recognized the vast potential of Jewish capital and Jewish entrepreneurship, dispersed by the Iberian expulsion of the 1490s. By the mid-1540s, less than ten years after he gained the throne, Cosimo I began recruiting affluent Spanish and Portuguese Jews for resettlement in his capital city of Florence and his chief port city of Pisa. At the same time, many displaced Italian Jews who were neither bankers nor wealthy merchants came to Tuscany as well, particularly after the final expulsion of the Neapolitan community in 1540 and the creation of ghettos in the Papal cities of Rome and Ancona in 1555.

Cosimo I"s liberalism was limited in scope and pragmatic in principle. During the lifetime of his wife Eleonora di Toledo (married 1539, died 1562), it was probably also influenced by her strong relationship with Benvegnita Abravanel, whom the Duchess had known in Naples before her marriage and whose family eventually settled in Tuscany. In the first decades of Cosimo"s rule, Jews thrived particularly in Pisa, where there developed an influential Jewish banking elite. This entrepreneurial class also produced famous rabbinical scholars, including Vitale (Yehiel) Nissim da Pisa, and his son Simone, who graduated as a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Pisa in 1554. There were also scattered settlements of Jewish men and women throughout Tuscany who enrolled in artisan guilds, owned houses and orchards, produced wool and other marketable goods and led generally stable lives.

After actively courting the Jews in the 1540"s and 1550"s and granting them many privileges, Cosimo I began retrenching in the late 1560"s and 1570"s as political relations with Spain and the Papal State became paramount. In 1567 he reimposed badges of identification for Jews, in 1570 shut the Jewish banks, and in 1570-71 restricted legal Jewish settlement to two new ghettos in Florence and Siena.

In practice, Medici rule was characterized by a shifting balance of privileges and concessions, and for Jews in Tuscany the door was never as open nor as closed as it might seem. For example, some returned to live in Pisa only a few years after their expulsion and a Jewish community was permitted, even encouraged, to thrive in that great "special case"--the city of Livorno. In 1591 and 1593, less than a quarter century after Cosimo I ghettoized his Jewish subjects, his son Ferdinando I invited Jewish merchants to to settle in Livorno , granting them free residence, unlimited access to trade and extensive self-government in this new Medicean free-port on the Mediterranean.

The Livorno experiment was a triumph of enlightened self-interest for both the Jews and the Medici. Indeed, this thriving commercial hub became so essential to the Tuscan economy that even Cosimo III (1671-1723), the most bigoted of the Medici Grand Dukes, had little choice but to respect Jewish rights there. Vast fortunes were made by an Iberian merchant aristocracy that gave Livorno Jewry its particular culture and character. However, the Livorno community also included "levantini" from Turkey and North Africa, "ashkenaziti" from Northern Europe and Italian Jews of various origins.

In addition to banking and trade, especially with the East, the Jews of Livorno developed diverse manufacturing enterprises. In the late sixteenth century, Maggino di Gabriele moved his glass and silk factories there from Pisa, in order to take advantage of the new freedoms. The Jews of Livorno established a monopoly on the Italian production of coral, which they frequently used to ornament their own liturgical objects. In 1632, they imported the first coffee into Italy and then opened the first coffee-houses. In 1650, Jedidiah Gabbai founded a Hebrew press in Livorno, giving rise to a major Jewish printing industry that supplied the Sephardic communities of North Africa and the Near East.

Livorno was a major center of Jewish commerce, second in Europe only to Amsterdam. It was also a leading center of Jewish study and mysticism, particularly under the influence of Rabbi Joseph ben Emanuel Ergas (1685-1732) and other proponents of the Kaballah. Indeed, business, religion, medicine and science could be complementary enterprises. The medical doctor Mose Cordovero was among the pioneers of banking in Livorno around the year 1600. Elia Montalto di Luna, in the early seventeenth century, practiced medicine at the Medici Court while writing treatises on ophthalmology, astronomy and comparative religion.

These fleeting references to people, places and events provide only a glimpse of the extraordinary richness of Jewish history and culture during the two centuries of Medici rule (1537-1743.) Although much historical research has already been done, scholars have only begun to mine the vast resources of the Florentine National Archive. Every day THE MEDICI ARCHIVE PROJECT is making exciting discoveries regarding Jewish affairs, not only in Tuscany but throughout Europe and the Mediterranean world--discoveries that continually reshape our understanding of the past and lead the way to future scholarship.

The Florentine Ghetto

In 1570-71, Grand Duke Cosimo I de"Medici created the first Ghetto in Florence. For many years, he had withstood heavy political and moral pressure from Pope Pius V and King Philip II of Spain to limit the freedom of his Jewish subjects. Cosimo"s decision to ghettoize but not expel them was in fact a gesture of pragmatic liberalism.

The Jews in Tuscany numbered only 795, according to the official Jewish census of 1570 (in Magistrato Supremo 4450, pp.179-80.) Living in small scattered communities, they had long enjoyed cordial relations with the Medici family and the Medici state. Most of these Jews were directly or indirectly involved in banking and their financial network was essential to the Tuscan economy.

To resolve the Jewish question in an orderly manner, Cosimo I de"Medici turned to the Magistrato Supremo, a five-man executive council under direct granducal control. He authorized Carlo Pitti, his agent on this council, to prepare a full report on the Jews in Tuscany and then issue an official recommendation regarding their fate. Magistrato Supremo 4449 and 4450, two volumes of documents in the Florentine State Archive, chronicle this process with almost clinical precision.

Magistrato Supremo 4449

is titled DEI CAPITOLI D" EBREI ("The Charters of the Jews") and contains 245 pages of documents, mostly in Latin. The council"s first task was to determine the current state of Jewish settlement and Jewish business activity in Tuscany, in order to determine the legal and practical ramifications of any eventual decision. In this volume, they assembled all the "charters" of commercial privileges granted to Jews since 1547, forming a detailed record of Jewish financial practice throughout the mid-sixteenth century. After the institution of the Florentine Ghetto in 1570-71, the council continued to file such charters for another thirty years, fully documenting the reorganization of Jewish businesses in the early Ghetto period.

Magistrato Supremo 4450

is titled PROCESSO CONTRA LI EBREI CHE NEL DOMINIO DI SUA ALTEZZA STAVANO ET HABITVANO DICONO CHE HOGI E STATO LORO PROHIBITO, 1570. ("Proceedings Against the Jews Who in the Past Stayed and Lived in His Highness"s Dominion, Which Is Now Forbidden to Them, 1570.") These 270 pages of documents, largely in Italian, record another phase of the information-gathering process. Under Carlo Pitti"s direction, the council sent agents throughout Tuscany to gather complaints against the Jews from their neighbors and Christian business associates. These complaints focus almost exclusively on the moral and practical implications of usury in Christian society, offering many insights into the evolution of state-sponsored anti-semitisim in early modern Europe.

THE MEDICI ARCHIVE PROJECT is now preparing complete transcriptions of both Magistrato Supremo 4449 and 4450. These documents will be published in a definitive critical edition, including scholarly essays, English summaries and full indices.

The Medici Family

The Medici family of Florence can be traced back to the end of the 12th century. It was part of the patrician class, not the nobility, and through much of its history the family was seen as the friends of the common people. Through banking and commerce, the family acquired great wealth in the 13th century, and political influence came along with this wealth. At the end of that century, a member of the family served as gonfaliere, or standard bearer (high ceremonial office) of Florence. In the 14th century the family"s wealth and political influence increased until the gonfaliere Salvestro de" Medici led the common people in the revolt of the ciompi (small artisanate). Although Salvestro became the de facto dictator of the city, his brutal regime led to his downfall and he was banished in 1382. The family"s fortune then fell until it was restored by Giovanni di Bicci de" Medici (1360-1429), who made the Medici the wealthiest family in Italy, perhaps Europe. The family"s political influence again increased, and Giovanni was gonfaliere in 1421.

Giovanni"s son, Cosimo (1389-1464), Cosimo il Vecchio (the old or first Cosimo), is considered the real founder of the political fortunes of the family. In a political struggle with another powerful family, the Albizzi, Cosimo initially lost and was banished, but because of the support of the people he was soon recalled, in 1434, and the Albizzi were banished in turn. Although he himself occupied no office. Cosimo ruled the city as uncrowned king for the rest of his life. Under his rule Florence prospered.

Cosimo spent a considerably part of his huge wealth on charitable acts, live simply, and cultivated literature and the arts. He amassed the largest library in Europe, brought in many Greek sources, including the works of Plato, from Constantinople, founded the Platonic Academy and patronized Marsilio Ficino, who later issued the first Latin edition of the collected works of Plato. The artists supported by Cosimo included Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Alberti, Fra Angelico, and Ucello. During his rule and that of his sons and grandson, Florence became the cultural center of Europe and the cradle of the new Humanism. Cosimo"s son Piero (1416-1469) ruled for just a few years but continued his father"s policies while enjoying the support of the populace.

Piero"s sons, Lorenzo (1449-1492) and Giuliano (1453-1478) ruled as tyrants, and in an attack in 1478 Giuliano was killed and Lorenzo wounded. If the family fortunes dwindled somewhat and Florence was not quite as prosperous as before, under Lorenzo, known as the Magnificent, the city surpassed even the cultural achievements of the earlier period. This was the high point of the Florentine Renaissance: Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Boticelli, Michelangelo, etc. But Lorenzo"s tyrranical style of governing and hedonistic lifestyle eroded the goodwill of the Florentine people. His son Piero (1472-1503) ruled for just two years. In 1494, after accepting humiliating peace conditions from the French (who had invaded Tuscany), he was driven out of the city and died in exile. For some time, Florence was now torn by strife and anarchy and, of course, the rule of Savanarola.

Upon the defeat of the French armies in Italy by the Spanish, the Spanish forced Florence to invite the Medici back. Piero"s younger brother Giuliano (1479-1516) reigned from 1512 to 1516, and became a prince; he was followed by Lorenzo (1492-1519), son of Piero, who was named Duke of Urbino by Pope Leo X (himself a Medici, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent); and upon Lorenzo"s death, Giulio (1478-1534), the illigitimate son of Lorenzo the Magnificent"s brother Giuliano, became rule of the city but abdicated in 1523 in favor of his own illegitimate son, Alessandro (1510-1537), to become Pope Clement VII. Alessandro became hereditary Duke of Florence.

If the rulers since Lorenzo the Magnificent had been weak and ineffective, this changed when Cosimo I (1519-1574) ascended the throne in 1537 at the age of 18. Cosimo was a descendant not of Cosimo il Vecchio but from Cosimo"s brother. He quickly consolidated his power, and under his rule Tuscany was transformed into an absolutist nation state. Although politically ruthless, Cosimo was highly cultured and promoted letters and arts as well as the Tuscan economy and navy. He founded the Accademia della Crusca, a body charged with the promotion of the Tuscan language (which has become the standard Italian of today), the Accademia del Disegno (Academy of Design), renewed the university of Pisa, and conquered Siena and Lucca.

In 1569 Cosimo was named Grand Duke of Tuscany. He set the style for the new absolute rule by concentrating the administration of Florence in a new office building, the Uffizi (where he also began a small museum for art works; the entire Uffizi is now a museum), and moving his residence across the river to the Pitti Palace, bought in 1549 and enlarged and remodeled several times by Cosimo and his descendants. He built a private corridor between the Pitti Palace and the Palazzo Vecchio in the city, where the government met. Vincenzo Galilei moved his family, including the ten-year old Galileo, from Pisa to Florence in the year of Cosimo"s death.

Cosimo"s son, Francesco I (1541-1587) was an ineffectual ruler under whom Tuscany languished. His younger brother, Ferdinand (1549-1609), who had been made a cardinal at the age of fifteen, became Grand Duke upon Francesco"s death in 1587. Ferdinand II was a capable administrator under whom Tuscany flourished again.

Ferdinand was an admirer of Tomasso Campanella and tried to protect him as best he could. He was interested in scientific matters, and had a great armillary sphere constructed by Antonio Santucci, his cosmographer.

Ferdinand appointed Galileo to the professorship of mathematics at the university of Pisa in 1588. In the year of his accession, Ferdinand married Christina of Lorraine (1565-1637), who was the grand daughter of Catherine de" Medici, Queen of France. Christina was well-disposed to Galileo and as a favor in return for some services rendered by Galileo when he was still in Padua found a position for his brother in law Benedetto Landucci. It was to Christina that Galileo later wrote his letter on science and scripture, "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Lorraine."

Ferdinand and Christina had four sons and four daughters. The eldest son, Cosimo II, ascended the throne upon his father"s death in 1609. Galileo had tutored Cosimo in mathematics during some summers, and therefore the young Grand Duke knew him well and admired him enough to offer him a court position in 1610, after Galileo had dedicated Sidereus Nuncius to him and his family. After a bout of fever, in 1615, Cosimo"s health deteriorated, and he died in 1620.

Cosimo"s son, Ferdinand II (1610-1670) was just ten years old when he became Grand Duke, and until his majority the government was carried on by the two Grand Duchesses, Cosimo"s mother Christina of Lorraine, and Cosimo"s wife, Maria Magdalena of Austria, the sister of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II.

During the outbreak of the plague, in 1630, Ferdinand distinguished himself, but he was not a strong ruler and was unable to protect Galileo from the Inquisition in 1633. In 1657, together with his brother Leopold, Ferdinand established the Accademia del Cimento, or Academy of Experiment, a forerunner of more permanent scientific academies, such as the Royal Society of London (1660) and the Royal French Academy of Sciences (1666). The Accademia del Cimento stopped functioning in 1667.

The Florentine and Tuscan economy had been slowly stagnating since the end of the sixteenth century. Under Ferdinand II, his son, Cosimo III (1642-1723), and his grandson, Gian-Gastone (1671-1737), the city country slipped into insignificance. Cosimo III"s rule was one of incompetence and religious intolerance. Gian-Gastone"s rule was too short to repair the damage. In 1735, an arrangement was made between Austria, France, England, and the Netherlands that a swap should be made with Lorraine going to France and Tuscany to Austria in return. In 1737 Austrian troops occupied Tuscany. One of Gian Gastone"s last acts was to erect a memorial to Galileo in the church of Santa Croce and to inter Galileo remains there. During the transference, several parts of Galileo"s skeleton were taken as relics by various people. One of Galileo"s fingers is now housed in the Museum of History of Science in Florence.

Gian-Gastone had no male heir, and the House of Medici died with him.

The Medici family dominated Florentine politics for two and a half centuries and presided over a cultural achievement that is equalled only by Athens in the golden age. The family also got its genes mixed with those of most royal families in Europe. Medici women included Catherine (1519-1589) who married Henry II, King of France and ruled the coutry after her husband"s death; Maria (1573-1642) married Henry IV, King of France. Maria"s daughters became queens of Spain and England. Cosimo II"s wife, Maria Magdalena, was the sister of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor.