Fifteenth-century Florence was a city on the up, with its Jews an integral part of its economic and cultural expansion under its rulers, the Medici family

The city’s commerce and banking helping to fuel the blooming of art and culture that would become known as the Renaissance.

The Jews had played a key role since 1437 when Cosimo the Elder allowed some Jewish families to settle in Florence and lend money at interest. For the next 150 years it was a mutually beneficial relationship and the Medicis’ hands-off approach meant that the Jewish community became fairly socially integrated.

How that largely positive relationship came crashing down in 1570 when the Florence Ghetto was established is the subject of The Jews, the Medicis and the Florence Ghetto, an exhibition organised by the Uffizi Galleries at Palazzo Pitti. Curated by Piergabriele Mancuso, Alice Legé and Sefy Hendler, it examines the evolution of the relationship between the city’s ruling family and its Jewish community.

A few decades after the first Jewish families settled in Florence, many had succeeded in moving away from money-lending and become merchants, goldsmiths and physicians — and thanks also to the Humanists’ increasing interest in the Hebrew language and the Kabbalah, even writers. Jews were allowed to rent (but not to buy) anywhere and the norms of separation were often ignored with wealthy Jewish families sometimes having Christian servants.

The Jewish financial elite grew wealthy and enjoyed a lifestyle similar to their gentile counterparts. They also played a leading role in the promotion of culture, creating schools and transcribing Hebrew manuscripts, often illuminated by Christian artists.

The celebrated diarist Meshullam da Volterra corresponded with Lorenzo de Medici, and even convinced him to expel the anti-Judaic preacher Bernardino da Feltre.

Also striking was the use of Old Testament iconography in Florentine art. Florence — the small city-state — self-identified with David, king of Israel, the boy who slew Goliath. Joseph became a symbol of “the morally impeccable statesman, guided by God”. Cosimo I felt a particular affinity with him and chose him as the leading character in a stunning series of tapestries.

“The almost symbiotic relationship that had developed between Jews and non-Jews is suddenly interrupted by the ghetto,” says Mancuso. “It creates a trauma. With the ghetto Jews are segregated and socially excluded. Now they can only be rag traders or deal in second-hand goods.”

So what was the point of creating the Florence ghetto? Mancuso points out that, unlike in the case of the Roman ghetto, its aim was not the conversion of the Jews. More likely, it was to do with Cosimo I’s desire to be Grand Duke of Tuscany and to appease Pope Pius V, who advocated Jewish-Christian separation. There is a suspiciously close proximity between the Pope’s conferring on Cosimo I the title he had long coveted in 1569 and the creation of the ghetto.

For the Medici, though, the ghetto was also a successful financial enterprise. Unlike other ghettoes, it was the Medicis’ private property and the rents paid by the Tuscan Jews forced to relocate there provided a steady income. It was also thanks to the Medicis’ impeccable record-keeping that we know so much about life in the ghetto and that the 3-D recreation in the exhibition was possible.

The newly ghettoised Jews were now a centralised semi-autonomous community, complete with officials, tax collectors and one synagogue. They had to obey a new, often oppressive, set of rules including wearing something yellow that would identify them as Jews. Unsurprisingly, they became, says Mancuso, “culturally quiet”.

But less than a century later there are already several cases of families having moved elsewhere: rent was still paid on the ghetto apartments but people were living outside the ghetto walls.

By the 18th century the ghetto walls were becoming increasingly porous.The gwould be extended (Ghetto Nuovo) in 1705 but more and more families were living ‘out of the walls. It was finally demolished at the end of the 19th century.​

​“Gli Ebrei, I Medici e il Ghetto di Firenze” at Pitti Palace, Florence, until 28 January, 2024