Invisible enlighteners : the Jewish merchants of Modena, from the Renaissance to the emancipation
Federica Francesconi (Author)
"In Invisible Enlighteners. Federica Francesconi writes the history of the Jewish merchants who lived and prospered in the northern Italian city of Modena, capital city of the Este Duchy, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Her protagonists are men and women who stood out within their communities but who, despite their cultural and economic prominence, were ghettoized after 1638. Their sociocultural transformation and eventual legal and political integration evolved through a complex dialogue between their Italian and Jewish identities, and without the traumatic ruptures or dramatic divides that led to the assimilation and conversion of many Jews elsewhere in Europe"-- Back cover
Print Book, English, 2021
University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2021
History
355 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.
9780812253146, 0812253140
1199328556
ContentsNote on Spelling, Translations, and CurrencyIntroductionChapter 1. A Network of Jewish Families in the Early Modern Period: The Road Toward GhettoizationChapter 2. Jewish Leaders, Their Circles, and Their Books Before the Inquisition: A Parallel StoryChapter 3. The Jewish Household: Family Networks, Social Control, and Gendered SpacesChapter 4. The "Invisible" Wealth of Silver: The Journey of the Formigginis from the Ghetto to the Ducal CourtChapter 5. Jewish Female Agency in the Ghetto Mercantile EliteChapter 6. The Jewish Urban Geography of the Ghetto and BeyondChapter 7. Moisè Formiggini Before Napoleon: Two Steps Toward Emancipation and One Step BackList of AbbreviationsNotesBibliographyIndexAcknowledgments