History of the Jews in Ancona

However, Pope Martin V was forced to embrace the Jewish community in his pursuit to build up Ancona as a center of commerce, due to religious prohibitions on Christians charging interest that did not apply to Jews.

[3] In 1427, a religious cleric named James of the marcher unsuccessfully tried to force town Jews to wear a Jewish badge and restrict them into one street,[1] though opinions are not unanimous regarding this unsuccessful attempt, claiming Jews were forced to carry a Jewish badge and live in restricted areas.

[2] After the city had fallen into the Papal state in 1429, Pope Martin V tried to develop Ancona as an Italian center of commerce.

In order to achieve that goal, the town Jews got permission to open banks and loan money by interest.

[1] In 1529, the Jewish false messiah Shlomo Molkho visited Ancona and provoked and stimulated a messianic enthusiasm among the town Jews.

[2] As Ancona was declared a free port in around 1532 by Pope Paul III, the city was joined by even more Spanish and Portuguese Jews who found it to be an ideal base for commerce with the Levant.

During his rule, between the years 1555 and 1559, the town Jews were deprived of valuable franchises, enclosed within a ghetto, limited in their commerce and heavily taxed, as ordered in The Papal Bull of 1555.

[3] These are the names of the martyrs who died due to their refusal to convert to Christianity upon Pope Paul IV's Bull of 1555:[4] The hanging of the 23 Jews that refused to convert in 1555 shocked the Jewish communities around Europe and inspired elegies which are still recited locally on Tisha B'Av.

As a result of the persecution, Dona Gracia Mendes Nasi initiated a meeting of some Jewish religious leaders in Istanbul, and decided to boycott any merchant that sent his merchandise to the Ancona port.

[2] Jewish Merchants were ordered to send their merchandise to the nearby Pesaro port, a thing that was of the Pesaro leader interest - and after he accepted some of the Ancona Jewish fugitives in order to develop the town port and economics.

In 1814, after Napoleon's defeat and the return of the city to papal dominion, some restrictions were put once again upon the Jewish community by Pope Leo XIII.

[2] In 1843, an old decree[6] was revived by Fra Vincenzo Soliva, Inquisitor of Ancona, forbidding Jews to reside or own a business outside the ghetto and imposing other restrictions, but public opinion had already turned in Europe by then and the edict was cancelled shortly after until the revolution of 1848 emancipated the Jews once again.