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The Jews in Fifteenth-Century Florence and Savonarola's Establishment of a Mons Pietatis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

F. R. Salter
F. R. Salter
Affiliation:
Fellow of Magdalene College
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Extract

No aspect of fifteenth-century Florence can be completely without interest, although a bare minimum may seem to attach to a study of the Jews during this period and of their connexion with the city finances on the one hand and the establishment of a Mons Pietatis on the other. Yet the economic foundation on which the magnificent artistic and literary superstructure rested is clearly important, and that not only for the fortunes of the Medici and other ruling, or rival, families, Strozzi, Pazzi, Tornabuoni and the like, but also where it affects the daily lives of the popolo minuto, tailors, potters and fishermen, or those craftsmen who by their labours built the church of San Spirito and the Ospedale degli Innocenti. Nor can we disregard a chapter of history which closes with some of the most direct and the most practically effective of the sermons of Savonarola.

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Articles
Information
Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , 1936 , pp. 193 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1936

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References

1 Not, as usually stated, Orvieto, 1463.

2 Inferno, XVII, 58. Davidsohn, Gesch(ichte) v(on) Flor(enz), IV, 139.

3 Arch[ivio] Stor[ico] It[aliano], 7th ser. IV.

4 Sapori, , I Libri di Commercio dei Peruzzi (1934), Introd. p. xlviiGoogle Scholar; Davidsohn, Gesch. v. Flor. IV, 133, 134.

5 Cambridge Medieval History, VI, 486.

6 Davidsohn, Gesch. v. Flor. IV, 288, 380–2.

7 There had been Jews in Florence before this, but moneylending had been forbidden them, except for a few for a short time in 1396, more particularly by legislation of 1404 and 1405. A congress of Jews at Florence in 1428 had expressly forbidden money-lending at interest by one Jew to another.

8 To Prato is meant, where small credit facilities were always available, but at a high rate.

9 The licence is printed in full in Ciardini, Banchieri Ebrei[in Firenze nel secolo XV], Appendix I.

10 By 1472 the number had fallen to thirty-three, but the decrease implied a concentration of banking activity rather than a diminution of the amount of business transacted. Sieveking, [Die] Handl[ungsbücher] der Med[ici], p. 64.

11 He resided in Florence in 1434 (reaching Tuscan soil on the very day that Brunelleschi's dome of the cathedral was completed) and again in 1439.

12 Usually the banks of la Vacca, il Borghese, Vechietti and “the Four Pigeons”.

13 Although the total Jewish population of Florence never exceeded 300. Cassuto, [Gli] Ebrei a Firenze [nell’ età del Rinascimento], p. 212.

14 The fiorini di sigillo and the fiorini d'oro largo were imaginary ideal florins, to which the silver currency was rated at a discount which varied with the depreciation of the silver coins; in the fifteenth century the fiorini di sigillo were in their turn rated lower than the fiorini larghi. There was also an imaginary lira (or libra) of small money; by the middle of the fifteenth century one fiorini d’oro largo was rated at rather more than 5 lire di piccoli.

15 Cassuto, Ebrei a Firenze, p. 193.

16 Ciardini, Banchieri Ebrei, p. 16.

17 Temporary friction in 1470–1 is mentioned below (p. 202). A friar of the Visconti family who preached provocative anti-Semitic sermons in 1458 was silenced by the archbishop and subsequently expelled by the priors.

18 Ebrei a Firenze, pp. 160 seq. The moneylenders' operations are described in detail, pp. 119 seq.

19 Ciardini, Banchieri Ebrei, p. 59.

20 As had been alleged in 1437.

21 I cannot see that Ciardini produces any evidence for his statement that this 6000 florins was an annual tax.

22 Meaning more usurious than was allowed by the capitoli. Elaborate arrangements (quoted by Cassuto, Ebrei a Firenze, App. XLIV) were made for realizing his assets, including the very miscellaneous currencies found in his possession. A valuable Codex of Hebrew prayers, now in the British Museum, records that it was sold in 1461 to Israel ben Izehak for 100 fl. larghi by Vittale, “because of his need”, Vittale being “come un uomo rovinato”. (The Codex was printed in Hebrew, by Margoliouth, , Jewish Quarterly Review, XVI, 1903–1904Google Scholar; Cassuto, Ebrei a Firenze, pp. 139, 140.)

23 One a converted Jew, the other an old-clothes man.

24 They all had a great reputation for excellence, especially Bonaventura of Prato, who got in 1460 a licence to practise in and round Florence, both among Jews and among Christians. If the Jewish doctor, Lazzaro da Pavia, sent by Lodovico il Moro, had been fetched to Lorenzo de' Medici's bedside earlier, he might have cured him in his fatal illness (Cassuto, Ebrei a Firenze, p. 182).

25 L. Leonij, Arch. Stor. Ital. 3rd ser. XXII 182 seq.

26 The Abraham di Dattilo to whom the Florentine licence of 1437 was given was the son of the Jew who started the bank at San Miniato.

27 See below, p. 203.

28 The lowest grade paid 4 per cent in 1443 and 8 per cent in 1447: for the highest grade the rates were 33½ and 50 per cent: on the other hand, the capitation tax was not graduated in 1447.

29 Dispiacente nuovo, sesto nuovo dispiacente, dispiacente sgravato.

30 Even the temporary cessation of Jewish moneylending had hit the poorer citizens hard, as is recognized by the terms of the 1448 agreement.

31 Armstrong, Lorenzo the Magnificent, p. 34. The Medicean taxation system is described, pp. 253–70.

32 Printed by Ciardini, Banchieri Ebrei, App. XVI.

33 Sieveking, Handl. der Med. p. 43.

34 Reproduced in G. Canestrini, La scienza e l' arte di Stato, pp. 229–30.

35 In 1487 the assessments were scaled down, but the frequency of the levyings was increased.

36 A list of sixty-seven Franciscan promoters is given in Holzapfel, P. H., [Die Anfänge der] Montes Pietatis, 1462–1515, p. 137 (Munich, 1903Google Scholar; Italian translation, 1905). Eighty-eight Montes Pietatis were founded before 1509, all in Italy except Nürnberg (1498). Neither Rome, Venice nor Naples had one up to that date.

37 “se bene per altro ferocissimi.”

38 Or 2000 or even 3000 according to Tribaldo de' Mossi; Cassuto, Ebrei a Firenze, p. 58.

39 Guslino, Vita di Bernadino, 1523, Cap. IX.

40 A small town in Umbria.

41 Consilium Collegii Perusini: of its 3000 florins capital 1200 were, with papal consent, lent by the Jews.

42 The foundation of this is described in some detail by Wadding, Annales, XIII, 456, who also explains that his death in 1496 was a matter of general grief (XV, 124).

43 Cassuto, Ebrei a Firenze, App. XIX.

44 Holzapfel, Montes Pietatis, p. 113.

45 Cassuto, Ebrei a Firenze, App. XVIII.

46 Ciardini, Banchieri Ebrei, App. XXXII.

47 Cocchi, Le Chiese di Firenze, I, 343.

48 Messer Paolo is an interesting man (born Middelburg in Walcheren, 1446, died Rome, 1534, whither he had come for the cardinal's hat which he had been offered but which he did not live to receive). He was Professor of Astrology at Padua c. 1479, and his mathematical attainments qualified him to preside, although it is not certain that he did preside, over the Calendar Reform Commission of the Lateran Council. Many of his prognostications became famous, especially that of 1523, when a terrible world flood was anticipated and Clement VII greatly dreaded the submergence of all Rome; Paul reassured him, and in point of fact 1524 turned out an unusually dry year. He was a friend of Ficino and Copernicus; his best known book is the Paulina de recta Paschae Celebratione, 1513; in his De numero atomorum of 1518 be vigorously defended the Montes Pietatis, concerning which there had not been absolute unanimity at the Lateran Council in spite of the official declaration in their favour. Marzi, La Questione della Riforma del Calendario nel Quinto Concilio Lateranense, 1512–1517.

49 Actually (according to Cassuto, Ebrei a Firenze, p. 71) their net profit was probably not more than 1000 florins per annum for each of the four Banks.

50 Lorenzo Violi, Prediche [del Savonarola, 1544] (Predica XXI, 215).

51 Violi, Prediche, XXIV, 263.

52 Violi, Prediche, XXXIII, 344.

53 Violi, Prediche, XXXV, 373.

54 Violi, Prediche, XXXVIII, 393.

55 Violi, Prediche, XL, 405; XLV, 478.

56 One who did leave Florence (Dattilo da Camerino), found himself a ruined man, but though he wrote letters in which he lamented his exile from Florence he never showed any rancour against the Mons (Cassuto, Ebrei a Firenze, p. 74). What the Jews as a whole wanted (and got) was the revocation of the order for their expulsion from the city.

57 The foundation of the Pisa Mons is chronicled by Giovanni Portoveneri, Arch. Stor. Ital. VI, part II, p. 305.

58 The original idea had been to get the Jews to put up two-thirds of the necessary capital but Pius II reduced the amount so raised from 2000 to 1200 fl.

59 Cassuto, Ebrei a Firenze, p. 151.

60 Roth, C., Gli Ebrei a Firenze sotto l' ultima Reppublica (Article in Israel, 1934).Google Scholar