Christians in Jewish Houses: The Testimony of the Inquisition in the Duchy of Modena in the Seventeenth Century

Abstract

This article concentrates on Modenese inquisitorial processi that investigated interactions between Jews and Christians that took place in their domestic premises, especially the more spacious dwellings in country towns and villages where there were no ghettoes. These investigations confirm that inquisitorial vetoes on socializing were blithely ignored, and that Jews and Christians often seemed to have no antipathy for or suspicion of each other. As will be shown, Christians went into Jews’ houses, but Jews seldom appeared to enter those of Christians. The reasons for this are suggested below.

1. Introduction

The Jews’ ability to adjust to the ways of their host societies contributed significantly to their survival as a minority.1 When they could, Jews of early modern Italy integrated themselves into the cultural and social spheres of Christian life, and on many occasions their relationships with Christians were free of suspicion or animosity. Robert Bonfil and Kenneth Stow have argued that the communal strategies that Jews developed for economic, social and intellectual development mirrored Christian mores (Robert Bonfil 1994 and Kenneth R. Stow 2001). Bonfil believes that contact with Christian society was indispensable to the development of Jewish society, even after Jews were enclosed in ghettos; they absorbed something of Christian manners and customs without destroying their own identity. Kenneth Stow has described Christian/Jewish interaction as a tense intimacy: “Carousing in pubs, gambling, sex with members of the other religion, and plain sociability were always present.”2 Similarly, Stow portrays Roman ghetto Jews as maintaining a type of role-play established even before the walls’ construction, and this continued as the foundation of stability for at least the first 150 years of the ghetto’s existence (Stow 2001).

The Holy Office in Modena, which served the Duchy (as did its neighboring Holy Office in Reggio, both set up in 1598) contains details of at least 393 processi which involved Jews: 8 per cent of the total number of cases in Modena from the establishment of the post-Tridentine Inquisition until its demise in 1785 (see Katherine Aron-Beller 2011, p. 2). Jews were accused of a number of offences, which included employing Christian servants and wetnurses, irreverently cursing, dissuading other Jews from being baptized, desecrating Christian images, disturbing Christian prayer, fraternizing with Christians, possessing prohibited books, proselytizing, obstructing the work of the Holy Office, building synagogues without licenses, sexual intercourse with Christians which included sodomy, abusing the Christian sacraments and threatening neophytes, maleficio, astrology and divination.3 Most of these offences, the Inquisition argued, had been committed by Jews during their daily contact with Christians. These cases show that to some extent inquisitorial vetoes on socializing were being blithely ignored and that Jews and Christians often seemed to have no antipathy for or suspicion of each other (despite churchmen’s attempts to portray Jews as the absolute enemies of Christians). This does not confirm that there were parts of northern Italy where Jews and Christians did keep apart, as the friars, inquisitors and bishops wanted them to. The trouble with the Inquisition is that it only moved in when the law was being broken and seldom provided evidence about the law being properly observed.

Evidence drawn from inquisitorial trials is in the most part reliable even though denouncers or witnesses might have been tempted to lay false information before the Inquisition in order to work off personal grudges against people they disliked. Inquisitors had a good sense of how to discover truth. Delators were expected to provide a genuine denunciation with exact times and places where they had witnessed the offence and the names of two witnesses (which in processi against Jews were usually Christians but occasionally Jews), to establish the authenticity of the delation. None of the evidence here was obtained by torture. Nor were any of the Jews involved in the trials by the Inquisition in Modena put to death, with the sentence in most cases being a monetary fine (which was paid either by the individual or by a collection among the Jewish community). As a result, readers discover traces of behavior that emanate from various levels of society and are viewed from multiple perspectives.

This article will concentrate, not on taverns, casinos or brothels, and not on business premises, but on domestic spaces in which Jews and Christians met, and especially on the homes of relatively prosperous Jews. Christian entry to the homes of Jews was a concern of the Roman Inquisition in the Duchy of Modena, which assembled much evidence about it. Similar to some other Italian princes and magistrates, the dukes of Modena were prepared to accommodate Jews at least partly for economic reasons, which meant that Jews had to be allowed to transact business with Christians. Business relations might at any time develop into personal friendships and a readiness to meet at social gatherings and festivals. Inquisitors, together with the more zealous friars and conscientious bishops, took the view that Christians and Jews should never associate as equals and that Jews should never exercise authority over Christians as employers; however, for practical reasons, certain compromises might have to be allowed, so long as the arrangements were strictly scrutinized and subjected to licensing. Jews might be allowed to employ Christians as Sabbath Gentiles or wetnurses, provided they did not eat or sleep in Jewish houses. Christians must not attend Jewish festivals or celebrations, thereby showing respect for or interest in Jewish law. Above all, they must not be tempted into violating the Christian Lent. Over the course of time, inquisitors discovered evidence that their rules were being ignored, especially in country towns and villages where no ghettoes had been introduced.

Before ghettoization in 1638, the Jews’ living spaces in Modena varied according to their socio-economic position. Prominent and wealthy Jewish moneylenders, similar to Christian patricians and nobles, often lived with numerous family members either in palazzi in Italian cities or in castelli in small towns or villages. These domestic premises were often extensive. Built around a central courtyard, they might house reception rooms, living rooms, a kitchen, a library, balconies, banking facilities, a warehouse and sometimes a private synagogue. Then as now, Jewish mezuzahs were, as the Hebrew Bible dictates, fastened “on the doorposts of your house and upon your gates”, designating the inner space as Jewish.4 The most luxurious premises provided separate apartments for sleeping, in a remote area that usually provided complete privacy (Peter Thornton 1991, p. 300). Beds had always been the most substantial pieces of furniture in these homes, but it was not until the seventeenth century that “bedrooms” as a dedicated sleeping chamber became popular. In Modena, it seems that wealthy married Jews shared a bedroom with their wives, although their Christian counterparts had separate chambers (Federica Francesconi 2021, pp. 108–9).

The Jews’ businesses were situated within their domestic spaces. Christian clients came to pledge or redeem items in their banks, or to make purchases or sales in their second-hand shops. In other parts of their premises, the bankers and their family members received and entertained their visitors and friends, both Christians and Jews (Raffaella Sarti 2002, p. 132). There must have been more than one entrance into these premises, and their use clearly depended on whether Christians were being admitted as clients, friends or servants. The Jews’ homes then were not quiet private spaces for the occupancy of one family, but active working premises where daily interactions, conversations, meals and comings and goings took place (Thornton 1991, p. 285 and Debra Kaplan 2019, p. 316). The way in which rooms (camere) were used by wealthy Jews would vary as sun or shade was required and furniture—beds, trestles or folding tables on which they normally ate and benches (rarely chairs)—would be moved accordingly (Bill Bryson 2010, p. 72). This probably explains why during their interrogations, Christian witnesses did not usually name the rooms in which they had interacted or spoken with the Jews.

On a much lower socio-economic level were the homes of poor Jews who were often lodgers or tenants, living in small, cramped houses with one or two rooms (Sarti 2002, pp. 12–13, 75, 120). Information on the interaction between Jews and Christians in these types of homes is less available. Obviously, when the Jews entered ghettos in northern Italy (the first ghetto being in Venice in 1516), their domestic situation changed dramatically. Here, they usually lived in single rooms. Most Jewish families were limited to two rooms possibly with a workshop.5

As will be shown, many of the seventeenth-century processi in the inquisitorial archive of Modena recorded the Jews’ lives in the country towns and villages of the Modenese Duchy—Carpi, Castelfranco, Finale Emilia, Formigine, Maranello, San Felice, Sassuolo, Soliera, Spilamberto and Vignola—even after the Jews of the capital had been ghettoized in 1638 (see Katherine Aron-Beller 2013a, p. 1). The devolution of Ferrara in 1598 had reduced the Estense territory to almost half its size: from 8172 square kilometers and 434,000 inhabitants to only 4672 kilometers with 275,000 residents (Gabriele Fabbrici 1999, p. 52). The large-scale relocation of Jews in the Modenese state was a response to particular economic strategies of the dukes which allowed professing Jews to live in smaller settlements as long as they contributed to the development of the small town and to rural economies.

Jewish bankers, engaged in small- or medium-sized businesses, provided loans to central and local governments as well as advancing money, usually against pledges but sometimes against promissory notes, to individuals in need of ready cash.6 Businessmen in country towns and villages were not forced to sell their banks in 1631, as were Jews in Modena and Reggio (Francesconi 2021, p. 46). Jewish banking families lived side-by-side with Christians so that their pawnbroking facilities were interspersed randomly throughout the towns. Here, Jewish relations with Christians often reflected clear economic inequality: the Jews were invariably employing the Christians who worked and sometimes stayed overnight in their premises. In the seventeenth century, most inquisitorial proceedings took place in settlements such as Carpi, Finale Emilia and Vignola where the Jews set up synagogues in their homes to organize themselves into religious communities for worship and communal life.7 As the processi reveal, these Jews seem to have used their domestic spaces to cultivate, entertain and ensure cordial daily relationships with neighboring Christians. Away from the watchful eyes of Christian churchmen and state officials, Jews in these small towns and villages did not feel obliged to hold themselves apart: it was normal for Christians and Jews to mingle and converse freely.

2. Inside Jewish Domestic Premises

Wealthy Modenese Jews from any part of the Duchy regularly hosted special events: lively dancing parties to celebrate milestone events such as circumcisions and weddings, and feste on the Jewish holidays of Purim and Simchat Torah. It was these occasions that brought a large number of Christians into the Jews’ homes. The local Christians enjoyed the opportunity to attend the Jews’ festivities, cheerfully making themselves at home in Jewish surroundings. Jewish weddings were the most elaborate celebrations with parties the Saturday night before the ceremony and afterwards. The Jews’ intentions here were to exhibit the family’s honor and wealth as well as to please the bride and groom as much as possible. The bride would be escorted on horseback by a procession to the groom’s home, where expensive hospitality would be provided and family treasures, valuables, wedding presents and the ketubah (the document recording the marriage contract) would all be exhibited on tables.8 Sometimes, wealthy Jews would host parties to celebrate the weddings of poorer Jews.

These sumptuous events suspended all prohibitions and encouraged full participation in carnivalesque licentiousness and recklessness (Roni Weinstein 2004, pp. 440–41). Christians not only danced at these banquets, but sang, ate, drank wine and gambled.9 Mixed dancing was required and rules of modesty that normally forbade such contact between men and women were completely suspended, even allowing unmarried Jewish women to dance with unmarried or married Christian men.10 From the fourteenth century in Italy, dancing was associated with sophistication and cultural refinement, as it was elsewhere in Europe. Mixed dancing had become one of the main activities at celebrations, with new dances being created particularly at princely courts. Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews who settled in Italy also had their own dancing traditions derived from dance soirees held in their previous communities.11 Jewish children (boys and girls) were taught dance by professional teachers from a young age, and boys sometimes attended classes at Christian dance schools.12 These events seem to have been kept secret from inquisitorial officials, who would not have permitted such celebrations. Licenses were acquired from the local Podestà or governatore, who as secular officials were more tolerant of such festivities. On most occasions, inquisitors only uncovered these events well after they had occurred.

Nor was it always the Jews’ own musical fraternities that provided the Italian baroque music for these wedding banquets. Sometimes, local Christian musicians were hired and would bring their instruments with them.13 In 1625, Christian violinists were found in David Diena’s house at the wedding of his daughter on the festival of Santa Maria Maddalena.14 In his interrogation, Diena argued that he had a license from the Podestà, which even allowed these musicians to sleep in his home after the performance. At the Carpi wedding of Lelio Ravà’s son Moisè Aron to Signora Elisabetta Sforni of Rome, Francesco Maria Guaitoli, canon of the Cathedral and a music teacher, borrowed a clavichord and madrigal guitar (from Friar Giacinto). He was accompanied by nine other musicians and singers for the occasion (bass and tenors). These musicians had entered through the side door of the house, to sing, dance and play music upon a tavolino: a platform of some kind “where there were also sugared almonds (confetti).”15 One Christian witness testified that a special table had been prepared for Christians to eat goose salami (carne, sallarmi quali credo fossero d’occha).16 The invitation letter (which incorporates a romantic but probably standardized verse—a template that was personalized by the inclusion of the names of the bride and groom in the sixth line—to describe the young couple’s love for one another) was presented as proof that the Christians had been invited (Figure 1). Written in Italian, it was probably used to invite the non-Jewish guests rather than Jewish ones. Although the note confirms the license, the actual date of the wedding was not mentioned here.

When the nineteen-year-old Giuseppe Melli was prosecuted by the inquisitors in 1623 for holding a double wedding of poor Jews in his father Emilio’s house in Finale Emilia in 1620, he admitted to allowing Christians to take part in the singing and dancing.17 The inquisitorial vicar Don Baldassarre Passerini interrogated over twenty Christians, who were reprimanded for socializing and dancing with Jewish women.18 When Giuseppe was asked whether it was normal practice for Christians and Jews of the town to mingle together, he replied in the affirmative.19 When he listed some of the Christians who participated, the inquisitorial vicar Giovanni Vincenzo Reghezza was shocked that his list included some of the most prominent local Christian noblemen.20 In fact, certain Christian witnesses testified that the whole of the town had come, many out of curiosity so that they might enter the home of a prominent Jew.21 Others noted that they had attended because the Jews were their friends.22

It is clear that these were social events and merry occasions not to be missed by Christians looking for entertainment. In 1618, five musicians played in the home of Moisè Diena of Sassuolo during the festival of Purim.23 In 1624, Inquisitor General Reghezza and his vicar in Soliera, Hercoli Reggio, were reprimanded by the Cardinal Secretary for not realizing that a group of Jewish bankers of Soliera had gone to Sassuolo to take part in a masked ball at which Jewish men danced with Christian women and vice versa.24 Such events were not confined to Modena or to areas of northern Italy that were not ghettoized. When the Christian, Giorgio Moreto, was brought before the Venetian Inquisition in 1589 for Judaizing, he described his regular attendance at Jewish festivities, as well as his eating and dancing inside the Jews’ homes in the ghetto:

I have been at many Jewish festivities and do not remember any in particular, but there was one in the house of the Jew Scocco, another in that of Abraham Boaf, and various others which were held at night, and I went to their banquets and ate with them, … and danced unmasked at their balls upon several occasions, and I danced with the Jewish women…I danced with the Jewish women both the wives and the maids, and they took me for partner and I them.25

It seems that smaller more intimate social gatherings between Jews and Christians also occurred frequently. When David of Maranello was prosecuted for hiring Christian servants in 1619, he openly admitted that he and his wife were visited weekly by local Christians on Jewish Sabbaths.26 Such intimacy even occurred in the Modenese capital. In 1636, Mattio Donato, a producer of aquavita, went to Fra Michaelangelo de Modena, the vicar general of the Holy Office in Modena, to confess his own “crimes” of hiring Christian workers, he even admitted that he played backgammon three or four times a week with Christians in his home.27 Giorgio Moreto also admitted to habitually eating with individual Jews in the Venetian ghetto:

I could not tell you how many times I ate in the ghetto, but it might have been thirty, forty or a hundred – I do not remember.

(Pullan 2003, pp. 167, 172)

In 1680, the situation was even more scandalous when it appeared that fraternization between Jews and Christians included members of the clergy. The inquisitorial vicar in Finale Emilia, Fra Girolamo Moretti, was denounced to the Holy Office by Father Provincial of the Conventual Franciscans of Bologna, for participating in social gatherings with Jews and even for eating unleavened bread during the Jewish festival of Passover.28 One Jewish witness, Elia Benedetto Castelfranco, was able to confirm that the vicar had sat with him a few years earlier in his sukkah: the temporary abode (booth) which Jews build as an attachment to their home during the festival of Tabernacles.29 These gatherings of Christians in the homes of Jews seem to have nurtured knowledge of Jewish practices and also personal friendships and genuine trust.

3. Escape and Conversion

During Purim of 1625, when the wealthy da Modena family of Modena were sitting in their homes distributing alms traditionally lavished on poorer Jews of the community, two Christian guards entered and demanded that they be given tips (Aron-Beller 2011, pp. 219–38). Disappointed that they were unable to benefit from the Jews’ generosity, they falsely denounced Moisè de Modena to the Inquisition for proselytizing, testifying that the Jew had told them in the reception room where he was receiving his guests that they would have to become Jews in order to receive the highly symbolic gift.

Sometimes, young Jewish women in these households appealed to visiting Christians to help them escape and convert to Christianity. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, wealthy Jewish women spent most of their time in their parents’ house before marriage or their husband’s (or parents-in-law’s) afterwards. These respectable young women had no reason for spending time in the local piazze or markets. If unmarried, they were expected to help their mothers with the running of the household, take lessons in music and participate in important religious ceremonies such as lighting the Shabbat candles in the home (Kaplan 2019, p. 318). However, a Jewess might use the balcony of her house for courtship with a Christian.30 When the wealthy Jewish banker Viviano Sanguinetti was accused of dissuading his daughter from being baptized in 1602 (even though Miriana Sanguinetti had already been married for seven and a half months by this time), the investigation revealed a romantic relationship that had flowered between Miriana and Ludovico Mirandola (whose profession and means remain unknown), mostly while Miriana stood at her window balcony. From here, she was able to have eye contact with Ludovico and to hold conversations as he stood below in the street (Aron-Beller 2011, pp. 163–90). Moreover, Ludovico indicated that he had gone into Miriana’s house and on one occasion had met her at the side of her house. At least four Christians were involved. Two were tradespeople: Alberto de Bassio, a tailor, and Giovanna de Alexandri, Miriana’s hairdresser. Dr. Paulo Emiliio was a secular priest who taught Miriana the clavichord. Faustina was a wetnurse who served in the Sanguinetti household. These Christians intervened to help the relationship along at the instigation of either Miriana or Ludovico. Alberto de Bassio told the inquisitor that Miriana had spoken of her love for Ludovico in the house many times. Dr. Paulo Emilio told the inquisitor that he had taught Miriana once a week, every Thursday for eighteen months prior to her wedding, and, knowing of Miriana’s relationship with Ludovico, had held various conversations while he was teaching her the clavichord.31 However, Giovanna de Alexandri reported that Miriana did not trust Ludovico to marry her. Faustina had openly discussed Christianity in the Jewish house with Miriana. Faustina probably had more contact with Miriana than the other witnesses because she was a daily visitor in the Sanguinetti household, nursing Miriana’s baby brother. Whether Miriana truly relied upon these Christians is difficult to ascertain, but her need and ability to confide in them must be noticed. They all had good opportunities for visiting and lingering in the Jews’ home and were capable of encouraging and supporting the young, unhappy and vulnerable Jewish woman if she wished to convert.

Viviano was evidently slow to notice what was happening within his own household. Miriana had been conversing with Ludovico for several months before her father realized that they were probably courting. If Miriana had really wanted to escape, she could have arranged it with the aid of her Christian helpers, without her father knowing, although it seems that her sense of duty to her parents and respect for their choice of husband was too strong to allow her to challenge their authority. Her withdrawal from her “courtship” with Ludovico was on her own initiative, a combination of her own hesitancy and inability to trust Ludovico and her fear of being a neophyta without support (financial or otherwise).

Two other Jewish women who tried to use Christian visitors to their homes to help them plan escapes were Sarza Levi and Laura de Norsa. In 1630, Sarza, a young Jewess, became enamored of her clavichord and Spanish guitar teacher, Francesco Grappi, who taught her in her home. Francesco had been persuaded to “court” Sarza by two clergymen who had heard a rumor that she was contemplating conversion. Francesco, although willing to assist her—or so he told the inquisitor—did not hold reciprocal feelings for Sarza. In this case, her father Benedetto was quicker than Viviano to uncover his daughter’s intentions. He led her to a boat at night and sent her off to Sermide, removing her both from Francesco and the longer arms of the Modenese Inquisition.32

In 1618, Laura de Norsa did not cultivate a romantic relationship with a Christian, but used her Christian neighbors, in particular Ursolina Bonzaga and Zantes de Tolgheri (who regularly entered her home), to help her plan an escape.33 The wealthy Jewess lived with her married brother Cesare in a castello in Soliera, where her brother was one of the massari (lay leaders) of the Jewish community. Laura had confided in Ursolina that Cesare’s wife, Smiralda, had shouted at and beaten her on several occasions and she was worried that Cesare would do the same.34 Zantes de Tolgheri testified that he too had had a similar conversation with Laura in her home:

I know that this girl Laura who lives in Soliera, wanted to become a Christian…One time, I talked with her in the kitchen of her house. She asked me not to say anything to Cesare, her brother, because she did not want him to know. She told me that she had decided to leave his house because her sister-in-law was such bad company.35

These testimonies again show how young Jewesses might have cultivated friendships with Christians and used them to help them escape from unhappy situations.36 Laura, however, did not get away from her relatives or abandon her faith. Similar to Sarza, she was also sent away to family members settled elsewhere to escape interrogation by the Inquisition and pressure to convert.37 In Venice in 1589, Giorgio Moretto indicated that the actions of his Jewish lover’s family were directed against him rather than her:

If the said Rachel had been willing to come with me as she promised, I would have had her baptized and taken her to wife, and I would have done so willingly… And because her relatives became aware of this they stopped up the doors and balconies and hatched a thousand plots and wanted to injure me.

(Pullan 2003, p. 173)

4. Christian Servants in Jewish Households

Christians also entered the Jews’ domestic spaces as servants. From the establishment of the Inquisition in Modena in 1598, a system of inquisitorial licenses tried to regulate this and ensure that only men and women over the age of forty-five were permitted to serve Jews, and even then, only to light their fires on the Sabbath. In reality, the Inquisition, which was chronically short on staff and funding both in the Duchy’s capital and in the smaller towns and villages, failed to monitor this practice competently. Here, Jews employed a whole array of Christian domestics in their households, and these Christians slept, ate and worked there on a daily basis.38 The testimonies indicate that the servants shared with their masters an understanding that if they served the Jews continually and competently, they would be paid accordingly and treated well. It is clear that some of these female servants had worked for the Jews for long periods, which implies that they had found favorable terms of employment and reasonable masters. Lucia Righi, who served Gabriele Carpi in Modena, admitted to the inquisitor in 1620 that she had already worked for him for three years, and in 1621, Santa Schedoni testified that she had worked for David de Arezzio for five years.39 One Christian servant, Saneta the daughter of Bartholomeo de Tassoni, told the inquisitor in 1622 that she served her master, the Jewish banker Giuseppe Soliani, at his table.40 In 1627, Simon Sanguinetti, a banker and the owner of the synagogue in Modena, was accused of allowing Julia Lotti, his 60-year-old Christian servant, to enter the house of prayer to bring him his small children (aged five and two). The synagogue was situated in the roof space of Simon’s house, so the servant carried the children upstairs from their apartment below.41

It was outside the capital that Jews more readily used Christian peasants, both men and women, to aid them in their daily routines and chores. In Formigine in 1628, Caterina Bianchi told the inquisitor that she had served the Jew Josef Arezzio for a period of ten years.42 The distribution of Christian servants varied in each household and the number of servants was closely linked to the wealth or social status of the master of the house. The work of female servants revolved around the household: keeping the house and its furnishings clean and caring for the children (see Dennis Romano 1996, p. 171). Inside the Jewish household, these servants’ duties included cooking—which included making bread, which was baked in a bread oven next to the open fire in the kitchen—preparing the meals, for example, by pressing meat to make salami (a pistare la carne per i salami) and making wine. Although these Christian servants would eat the same food as that they helped prepare for the Jews—bread, soup, meat and wine—they usually ate separately in the basement or kitchen, and they slept in rooms (men in one and women in the other) usually on the lower ground floor.43

Other household duties included washing dishes (bowls and plates—scodelle et piatti), glasses, sweeping the house, emptying the chamber pots, cleaning the brass and copper utensils, making the beds and warming them at night. Servants would sweep and clear the courtyard of any dung. They would also carry the groceries from the market to the house.44 In 1630, in Formigine, some of Benedetto Levi’s servants admitted to having eaten in the Jews’ home and then taken some food back to their own families.45

In Simon de Sanguinetti’s wealthy household in Spilamberto, Christian women, particularly those from the mountainous regions, who specialized in doing laundry (bugata in Modenese dialect) used to stay for a few nights each month.46 Household laundry was a strenuous, laborious and repetitive task that could not be accomplished by one person, but required at least two or three women who worked together and moved around to different houses at different times of the month (Sarti 2002, p. 121). These Christians reported sleeping in a shared room in the Jews’ homes. The fifty-year-old wife of Ludovico Bianchini admitted that she had done the laundry in the home of Benedetto Levi of Formigine after the festival of All Saints in 1630. She had finished this with another woman, Violante the wife of Bartolomeo Pichioni, and then moved to a different Jewish home to work.47

Christians also served Jews as wetnurses, since Jewish wetnurses were in high demand and short supply. Between 1400 and 1800, wet-nursing was widely practiced in Italy and was an important source of income for poorer families (see Sarah F. Matthews Grieco 1991). Common opinion, culture and social and economic factors combined to reduce maternal breastfeeding even among some working-class people. The wealthy banker Jacobo Donato admitted in his testimony in 1636 that his wife Stella had elected not to nurse her children.48 This seems to have been the practice of many, though not all, wealthy Jewish mothers at this time. Parenthood thus began for many with the task of carefully choosing an alternative provider of breast milk for a newborn infant. If Jewish wetnurses were not available, Christian ones were hired. The positions of Christian wetnurses in Jewish households varied and different ages as well as different economic circumstances created diverse relationships between master and servant. In October 1600, Isaaco de Modena, a Jewish banker living in Vignola, was accused of employing and allowing to stay overnight a twenty-four-year-old Christian wetnurse, Giovanna, who had nursed Sabbadia, his grandson (the son of his son Benjamin).49 Giovanna had been nursing the child for a year and had during this period slept in the Jew’s house, particularly when the infant or his parents had been unwell.

Those Jews living in the capital also employed Christian wetnurses. In a case of 1636, the two Christian wetnurses involved Margherita de Pavarotti, and Juliana de Cristiani, had visited the households of their employers on many occasions, holding prolonged conversations with the Jews and sometimes eating in their houses.. At the same time, the Christian wetnurses fully complied with the demands of their Jewish employers and showed a loyalty to their employers which perhaps reflected the generous wages paid to them, on which they could count at least for a short time. Calman de Sanguinetti had employed the Christian Antonia who lived in his household in 1602.50 How much direct contact he actually had with his wetnurse is not clear and cannot be satisfactorily deduced. His household was large, consisting of at least sixteen or seventeen people, including, as Calman testified, “housemaids, stewards, teachers, maids, wetnurses and servants.”51 What should be noticed is that none of the Christian wetnurses spoke ill of their Jewish employers before the Inquisition. Furthermore, when Jewish mothers were interrogated, they showed that they had striven to maintain close contact with these Christian women, consistently offering them food and alms, trying to supervise their own infants’ nursing routine and discussing their progress with the nurses.

Male servants in Jewish households were expected to perform the most strenuous tasks, such as carrying timber and water, bringing firewood, washing window screens with a bucket, feeding the geese and tending to horses in their stables. Testimonies suggest that masters and men respected each other, and that Jews relied heavily on their Christian manservants. In Formigine in 1630–1, Alfonso Molino, who was serving the established banker as an official steward (fattore di campana) had already done so for two years.52 These male servants acted as intermediaries between the Jewish tenant or estate owner and a workforce of Christian laborers, thereby protecting the laborers from the need to take orders directly from a Jew. This position was never mentioned in inquisitorial proceedings against Jews in the ducal capital, implying that it was particular to these small towns and villages alone. Standing before Inquisitor Giovanni Vincenzo Reghezza in 1620, Leone Ravenna of Carpi sang the praises of his fattore Antonio Barbiano (aged 54), whose practical intelligence had enabled him to settle all the credit payments of his late father, Salomone Ravenna, within one month of his death.53 Antonio Barbiano declared his own loyalty to and dependence on the Ravenna family whom he had personally served for nineteen years.54 Christian witnesses testified that Antonio had escorted his Jewish master around the cities of Modena and Carpi, and had himself slept, worked and written, eaten and drunk in the Jew’s household.55 Antonio claimed that when he had eaten food in the Jewish household, he had taken the bread, cheese and wine from the Jews’ own table and eaten in the lowest level of the house or in the courtyard with the other servants.56 In Alleluia of Carpi’s interrogation, the Jew described his servant as “managing” his entire household, confirming an integral relationship and frequent contact.57

In 1639, the Vicar of Finale Emilia, Fra Giacomo Ricci, revealed that in that town, Christians could walk from their own homes into the domestic spaces of their Jewish masters through internal connecting doors, or what Vincenzo Scamozzi, the late sixteenth-century architect called side doors (porte ascessorie) (Jütte 2015, p. 53). In an attempt to prevent such ready access to Jewish spaces, Ricci ordered Alessandro Formigine and Simone Donati to reconstruct the entrances to their homes (Balboni 2005, p. 48). Only when the Jews were threatened with a fine of 100 scudi did they heed inquisitorial demands and bar these entrances, which probably meant that servants would have to use the front doors when they entered the Jews’ premises.

Outside the city, away from the watchful eyes of city dwellers and inquisitorial spies, the more daring among the Jews repeatedly ignored the strict regulations set by the Inquisition regarding the hiring of Christian servants. The Jews often pleaded ignorance of the restrictions and the requirement for inquisitorial licenses, arguing that they were unaware of these regulations or had been granted ducal ones. It is clear from these processi, that when it came to prosecuting Jews, the issues at stake were not necessarily related to questions of faith, but to the enforcement of canon law, with the question of the presence of Christians in the Jewish household being one of the most obvious violations.

5. Inside Christian Domestic Spaces

There is no evidence of Jews entering Christian households to attend Christian banquets or to play backgammon, nor of Jews being hired as domestic servants. However, there were two cases in which Jews were suspected of entering Christian homes in pursuit of sexual relations, which were forbidden by canon and civil law. Both cases led to the assumption that illicit sexual relations had been the reason for Jews passing through these thresholds into Christian premises.

The first investigation was in 1628 against the Jew Leone Usilio for having had sexual relations with Margherita Bescheni, a Christian prostitute in Carpi. Christian neighbors had seen the fifteen-year-old Jew enter the home which she shared with her mother, Julia. These prying witnesses had assumed that the boy had entered the home to have sex with the prostitute.58 At the time of the investigation, Leone had escaped from Modena to avoid prosecution, but it became clear, through numerous interrogations of neighboring Christians who had seen him, that most of them held petty grievances against the Christian women and wanted to cause her trouble.59 One, Hippolita Cavana, reported that Julia had even threatened to kill her, when she had discovered that Hippolita had denounced her to the Inquisition.60 Eventually, the inquisitors uncovered the real reason for the young Jew entering the Christians’ home. Leone had gone, not to have sex with Margharita, but to read the two illiterate women letters that he had delivered from a banished man, Giovanni Battista Masatori, the brother-in-law of another of Julia’s daughters.61 It was revealed that other Christians in the vicinity had also used Leone for messenger services. Would a Jew be less likely to be suspected of carrying letters from an exiled Christian to his family? As Julia testified on 3rd August 1628, regarding her son-in-law:

not wanting to entrust his affairs to just anyone, he [Giovanni Battista] said that he would send his letters in the hand of a young Jew called Leone de Florentini…He [the Jew] came around three times to my house on different occasions, and the Jew brought me letters.62

She testified that the young Jew had never been alone in the house with Margherita and that there had been no sexual contact:

The Jew was never in my house unless I was there, and not for any other reason except because of my son-in law, as I have already said.63

When Gio Battista was eventually brought before the Inquisition on 7th August 1628, he openly described Leone as his friend, whom he particularly trusted to deliver his letters.64 The investigation confirms the friendship between the two and shows that the Jew was really responsible for enabling the family to keep in touch.

Another processo revealed a more intimate relationship between a Jew and Christian within the prominent Cimicelli palazzo in Modena. In 1670, Lazarro Leonicini de Norsa, a twenty-four-year-old Jew who lived in the Modenese ghetto, was working as a tailor for Enrico Cimicelli, a cavagliero, in the main street of the parish of San Giovanni Evangelista, and occasionally sleeping there when he had to work late.65 The Inquisition found out about this unusual situation because Lazarro was wrongfully accused of raping and sodomizing Giovanni, the eleven-year-old son of Cimicelli’s coachman. After three months in prison, Lazarro was released due to the support behind the scenes that Enrico Cimicelli, the master of the household, provided as well as the lack of evidence against him.

Lazarro had been offered a bed in the spacious and grand palazzo when he was tired at the end of a long day dealing with alterations. On other nights, it seems, he would return to the ghetto alone, having been given a torch to illuminate his way through the dark streets, or sometimes accompanied by a Christian servant. Lazarro had shared a bed with Cesare Cimicelli, the oldest son of Enrico, in his personal apartment at the top of the house. In the seventeenth century, the sharing of beds did not necessarily suggest immoral behavior, though it did give opportunities for it. Sleeping in the same bed as Cesare seems to have caused some jealousy, surprise or perhaps even disgust amongst the other servants. It is certainly possible that Cesare’s patronage and relationship with Lazarro was more than just as a masculine friend. There was no reason for Cesare to sleep with Lazarro unless he wanted to. Perhaps the liminal space of the bed allowed both of them to shed their controlled social, economic and religious roles and to move into a redemptive experience of communitas (a shared unstructured community). Sleeping together—at least four or five times as reported—must only have increased their friendship, as beds are also places where people converse. One could speculate that within the closed doors of the apartment in the Cimicelli household, homoerotic feelings between Jews and Christians could be expressed—at least for a while—without interference from hostile servants, church or society. What is certain is that in a society where most people had bedfellows, a Jewish tailor had successfully passed the threshold of a Christian household and been accepted as a loyal and reliable member of that community.

6. Conclusions

In the towns and villages of the Modenese Duchy, the early modern Jewish house was a busy, crowded, complex space, part office and part home, that admitted a wide selection of Christian visitors, including potential lovers, conversionists (those who attempt to convert others) and guests. Within the Jews’ premises, Jews and Christians interacted daily as acquaintances, friends, moneylenders and pledgers, clients and tradespeople, students and music teachers and masters and servants.66

The Jewish casa was often a place of employment for Christians who visited it. The relationship here between Jews and Christians was economically unequal, with the former in the position to employ the latter, so the confidence of the Jews had a clear economic basis. However, in these Jewish spaces, relationships between Jews and Christians seemed to be based on something more than convenience: on the services which one group could render to the other. This was a physical and social proximity whereby the two groups had networks of social and economic relationships and an intimate understanding of each other’s way of life. Here, Christians witnessed, absorbed and participated in the Jews’ own traditions, their devotional practices and their leisure time activities. These spaces then seemed to allow for possibilities of friendship, in varying degrees and modes.

It was the Jews’ own domestic spaces that played a central role in their practices with Christians. Only here were the Jews the masters, able to decide whether Christians should be allowed to cross their thresholds or be excluded from them. In contrast, it is much harder to find cases either in Modena or in the small towns where Jews dared to enter or serve in Christian domestic premises. The Christian casa did not offer the same opportunities for the Jewish minority in early modern Modena. It was probably associated in the Jews’ minds with primal anxieties. Most Jews were held back not only by ecclesiastical prohibitions but by rabbinical rulings that demanded that Jews not interact with Christians in this way.

What was it then that made the Jewish casa different? It is clear that Jews in the small towns perceived such interactions as fundamental to their survival. Embedded in local culture and conscious of their environment, they were confident enough to bind themselves together with their Christian counterparts in calculated ways that were able to deter most forms of conflict and aggression.