6 Even more of them arrived following the destruction of the city of Castro in 1649 by Pope Innocent X. The first important exile to reach Pitigliano had been David De’ Pomis, a rabbi-doctor originating from Spoleto who arrived from Rome in 1555 and became the official doctor of Count Orsini. Later, after it was annexed to the Grand Duchy, it became the center of an autonomous Jewish Community.

The restrictions against Jews imposed by the Papal State and by the Grand Duchy of Tuscany between 15 5 pushed Jews to concentrate in the semi-independent border areas, the most important of which was Pitigliano, seat of the Orsini counts. There had been a migration of moneylenders from Rome to small towns in northern Lazio and southern Tuscany. Jews had also been present at that time in various towns around Pitigliano since the 1300s and 1400s. Jews had settled in Pitigliano in late medieval times, encouraged by the Orsini counts, who allowed them to carry on various activities related to agriculture, medicine, and trade. Following the Napoleonic invasion, during the Counter-Revolution of 1799, when the “Viva Maria” movement was born, some soldiers from Orvieto attacked the Jewish community, but the entire population of Pitigliano rose up to defend the Jews and the invaders were beaten off. Source: Jacques Roumaniīoth under the counts of Orsini (who often had Jewish doctors), under the Grand Duchy of the Medici, and when Italy was united, the Jewish community’s relations with the Catholic population were based on mutual respect and collaboration. 2: The authors of the article visit the former ghetto of Pitigliano, October 2011.

La Piccola Gerusalemme is also responsible for upkeep and preservation of the local Jewish cemetery, which is still in use, and is a national monument because of the uniqueness of the site on which it is located and the characteristics of the tombs.įig. Pitigliano was called La Piccola Gerusalemme because of its large proportion of Jews, and today, though very few Jews remain, this name has been given to a cultural association that provides continuity for cultural traditions of the area and manages one of the major Jewish museums of Tuscany. Since it was not possible to extend the ghetto at ground level, rooms were tunneled inside the tufo rock, as recent excavations around the synagogue have shown, where a wine cellar and a tannery have been identified. The Jews lived in the ghetto, near the present-day Via Zuccarelli, between the passageway under the main church and the Church of San Pietro. The percentage of Jews in relation to Catholics was greater than in the other towns and was similar to percentages of Jews in Eastern Europe: about 20% of the population. The Jews living in Pitigliano were shopkeepers, merchants, property owners, and businessmen. The number of Jews registered was lower only than the communities of Livorno and Florence, and was comparable to those of Pisa and Siena. 3ĭuring the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, Pitigliano was one of the five most important Jewish communities in Tuscany. This county had some fame around Italy: it had ambassadors all over Europe and when the Italians defeated Charles VIII at the battle of Fornovo in 1495, it was to shouts of “Pitigliano, Pitigliano,” that they reversed the outcome of a battle that they seemed to have lost. Only one branch of the Paggi family is Jewish, and it originates from Pitigliano, today a small town in Tuscany but until the 1600s the capital of the important County of the Orsini, straddling the border between the Papal States and the Grand Duchy of the Medici. History has turned several sharp corners since his life’s work, in directions that he never would have wished to imagine, but Giannetto Paggi’s efforts are worth remembering as an example of his optimistic times, when new opportunities were opening up for Italian Jews for the first time. 1) is an important example of the contribution that Italian Jews, and thus the Jews of Pitigliano, have made to the development of Italy.

Perfino surname origin