The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (58 page)

4
. Lazzaro Padoa,
Le comunità ebraiche di Scandiano e di Reggio Emilia
(1986).

5
. On the history of the duchy of Modena’s legislation regarding Jews in this period, see Guido Fubini,
La condizione giuridica dell’ebraismo italiano
(1974); and Gino Badini, “L’archivio Bassani dell’ Università Israelitica,”
Ricerche storiche
27, no. 73 (1993): 27–80. More generally on the history of Jews in the duchy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see Andrea Balletti,
Gli ebrei e gli Estensi
(1930).

6
. See Giacomo Blustein,
Storia degli ebrei in Roma
(1921), p. 215.

7
. Mario Caravale and Alberto Caracciolo, eds.,
Lo stato pontificio da Martino V a Pio IX
(1978), p. 526.

8
. Ermanno Loevinson, “Gli ebrei dello Stato della Chiesa,” part 2,
Rassegna mensile di Israel
9 (1934): 164; Augusto Pierantoni,
I carbonari dello Stato Pontificio,
vol. 2 (1910), pp. 21, 99, 117.

9
. Umberto Marcelli, “Le vicende politiche dalla Restaurazione alle annessioni,” in Aldo Berselli, ed.,
Storia della Emilia Romagna
(1980), p. 72.

10
. The Austrians left Bologna again in July of 1831, leading to a period of chaos. They returned in January 1832. For details, see Steven C. Hughes,
Crime, Disorder and the Risorgimento: The Politics of Policing in Bologna
(1994), pp. 114–35.

11
. For an excellent discussion of Church theology regarding the Jews, and the changes introduced in the sixteenth century, see Kenneth R. Stow,
Catholic Thought and Papal Jewry Policy, 1555–1593
(1977).

12
. The quote is from Giovanni Vicini,
Causa di simultanea successione di cristiani e di ebrei
 … (1827), p. 154.

13
. Vincenzo Berni degli Antonj,
Osservazioni al voto consultivo
 … (1827), p. 70.

14
. In addition to Gioacchino Vicini,
Giovanni Vicini
(1897), see discussion in Gadi Luzzato Voghera,
L’emancipazione degli ebrei in Italia
(1994), pp. 83–85.

15
. Bottrigari,
Cronaca,
vol. 2, pp. 36–7.

16
. Luigi Carlo Farini,
Lo stato romano dall’anno 1815 all’anno 1850,
vol. 4 (1853), P-139.

CHAPTER 3

1
. Francesco Fantoni,
Della vita del Cardinale Viale Prelà
(1861).

2
. Bottrigari,
Cronaca,
vol. 2, p. 362.

3
. On Viale-Prelà’s family relations, see Paul-Michel Villa,
La maison des Viale
(1985).

4
. The struggle between the conservative wing of the Church in Bologna and that more open to reform was influenced by the parallel battle taking place in France at the time. See Aldo Berselli, “Le relazioni fra i cattolici francesi ed i cattolici conservatori bolognesi dal 1858 al 1866,”
Rassegna storica del Risorgimento
41 (1954): 269–81. Also see Rodolfo Fantini, “Sacerdoti bolognesi liberali dal 1848 all’unita’ nazionale,”
Bollettino del Museo del Risorgimento di Bologna
5 (1960): 451–84; and Fantini, “Un arcivescovo bolognese nelle ultime vicende dello stato pontificio: il Card. Michele Viale Prelà,”
Pio IX
2 (1973): 210–44.

5
. Alfredo Testoni,
Bologna che scompare
(1905), p. 119; Oreste F. Tencajoli, “Cardinali corsi: Michele Viale Prelà,”
Corsica antica e moderna
4–5 (1935): 148.

6
. Bottrigari,
Cronaca,
vol. 2, p. 363.

7
. The two documents by Viale-Prelà, dated 1858, are “Lettera pastorale al clero e popolo della città e diocesi di Bologna,” published by the Tipi Arcivescovili of Bologna, and “Circolare ai RR. Parrochi di Città, e Diocesi. Intorno alla S. Infanzia,” both found in AAB-N. There is some irony in the Cardinal’s description of the heathen practice of infant abandonment, for the practice was common in Italy as well at the time. See David I. Kertzer,
Sacrificed for Honor
(1993).

8
. Fantoni,
Della vita,
p. 125, AAB-AC, b. 151, protocollo n. 231, 1859.

9
. “L’ebreo di Bologna,”
L’osservatore bolognese,
October 1, 1858, p. 2.

10
. Enrico Bottrigari, quoted in Tencajoli, “Cardinali corsi,” p. 148.

11
. Marcelli, “Le vicende politiche.”

12
. Clifford Geertz, “Centers, Kings, and Charisma,” in J. B. Davis and T. N. Clark, eds.,
Culture and Its Creators
(1977), p. 162.

13
.
Pio Nono ed i suoi popoli nel 1857
(1860), pp. 430, 440. Another example of this genre of report is provided by
Albo a memoria dell’ augusta presenza di Nostro Signore Pio IX in Bologna
(Bologna, 1858).

14
. Bottrigari,
Cronaca,
vol. 2, pp. 377–8.

15
. Caravale and Caracciolo,
Lo stato pontificio,
p. 700.

16
. Giacomo Martina,
Pio IX, 1851–66
(1986), p. 28.

17
. Protection of this sacred treasure had not been easy, for a parade of potentates had, over the centuries, sought the divine blessings that the holy relics offered. In the late seventeenth century, the monks had turned down the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III de’Medici, when he requested a slice of the sacred skull. Going over their heads to get a piece of Saint Dominic’s, the Grand Duke enlisted the aid of his brother, a cardinal, who ultimately persuaded Pope Innocent XII to make the monks give the Grand Duke what he wanted. The result was that, on a January night in 1699, in the presence of a delegation from the Bologna senate, a professor of anatomy and two surgeons opened the holy reliquary in San Domenico. Bending the papal order a bit, they decided not to chip away at the holy skull itself but, to the relief of the Dominican brothers, extracted a back right molar instead. Nor was this the last assault on Saint Dominic’s bones. In 1787, despite the anguish and protests of the Dominican brothers, they were forced to cut off a piece of skull for the spiritual benefit of the Duke of Parma. See Alfonso D’Amato,
I domenicani a Bologna,
vol. 2 (1988), pp. 630–5, 798–801, 951–2. On the Pope’s visit to San Domenico, see, in addition, Abele Redigonda, “Lo studio domenicano di Bologna,”
Sacra dottrina,
2 (1957): 134–5.

18
. Martina,
Pio IX,
pp. 27–8. Pasolini’s reference to the troops as German betrayed a common popular perception in Bologna at the time, equating the Austrians with Germans. The matter is even more complicated, because few of the troops were either Austrian or German, in the national or ethnic sense. While the officer corps of the Austrian forces consisted primarily of Austrians, the bulk of the troops came from the various outposts of the Austrian Empire: Croatians, Hungarians, etc.

CHAPTER 4

1
. ASCIR, dated 24 giugno 1858.

2
. See the entry by Giuseppe Rambaldi et al. on “Battesimo,” in the
Enciclopedia Cattolica
(1949), vol. 2, pp. 1003–46. That article also notes that “the children of non-Catholics, if they are in danger of dying … before reaching the age of reason, can be baptized licitly, even against the wishes of their parents” (p. 1031).

That the position adopted by Pope Pius IX in the Mortara case was fully in accord with existing Church policy is evident by a glance at the compendium of Church doctrine published fifteen years earlier, in Gaetano Moroni Romano’s
Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastico
(1843). Under the entry “Ebrei,” on the Jews, in vol. 21 (p. 21), the section on the baptism of Jewish children lists five basic points:

“1. That without parental consent, the Church was never in the habit of baptizing them.

2. That without such consent, one can make two cases for baptism: when the child’s life is in extreme danger, and when children have been abandoned by their parents.

3. That baptism given in situations where it is not licit to give it remains, nonetheless, valid.

4. That in such cases the baptized children should not be returned to their Jewish parents, but raised by Christians in the Catholic faith.

5. That for proof that they were truly baptized, a single witness is enough.”

3
. A series of handwritten documents on the Pamela Maroni case, including a number of letters from Abram Maroni, are found in ASRE-AN, b. 25.

4
. These documents are found in the ASRE-AN, b. 25.

5
. ASRE-FB, Cancello II.

6
. A handwritten copy of Deputy Bottaro’s remarks, reproduced from the
Foglio di Piemonte—Supplemento—Camera de’ Deputati
(9 giugno 1858), is found in ASRE-AN, b. 8.

7
. Copies of all three letters are found in ASCIR.

8
. Carlo Cattaneo,
Ricerche economiche sulle interdizioni imposte dalla legge civile agli Israeliti
(1836), p. 22.

9
. Original copies of the “Editto sopra gli Ebrei” from both the Inquisitor and the Archbishop of Bologna are found in the AdAB, miscellanea B, 1894.

10
. Franco Della Peruta, “Le ‘interdizioni’ israelitiche e l’emancipazione degli ebrei nel Risorgimento,”
Società e storia
6 (1983): 78m.

11
. ASG-SA, 1850–60.

12
. Cecil Roth, “Forced Baptisms in Italy,”
New Jewish Quarterly Review 27
(1936): 129; Gemma Volli,
Breve storia degli ebrei d’Italia
(1961), pp. 62–3.

CHAPTER 5

1
. This point could be made more generally about the Jews of Europe before Jewish emancipation, as discussed by Jacob Katz,
Out of the Ghetto
(1973).

2
. On the attitudes of Italian Jews toward their emancipation in the nineteenth century, see the articles by Andrew M. Canepa, “L’attegiamento degli ebrei italiani devanti alla loro seconda emancipazione: Premesse e analisi,
Rassegna mensile di Israel
43 (1977): 419–36; and “Emancipation and Jewish Response in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Italy,”
European History Quarterly,
no. 16 (1986): 403–39.

3
. This and, unless otherwise noted, all letters to and from the Jewish community of Rome cited in this book are found in ASCIR.

4
. Cecil Roth, “The Forced Baptisms of 1783 at Rome and the Community of London,”
Jewish Quarterly Review
16 (1925–26): 105–10.

5
. Abraham Berliner,
Storia degli ebrei di Roma
(1992; German orig., 1893), p. 302.

6
. Emilio Castelar,
Ricordi d’Italia
(1873), P. 96.

7
. Andrée Dufaut,
Vie anecdotique de Pie IX
(1869), p. 129.

8
.
L’osservatore bolognese,
29 ottobre 1858, p. 3.

9
. “Notizia sulle disposizioni d’animo del fanciullo Mortara nella sera 23 giugno p.°p.°e nei seguenti giorni,” ASV-Pio IX.

CHAPTER 6

1
. G. Bareille, “Catéchuménat,”
Dictionnaire de Thíologie Catholique
(1905), 2:2: 1968–70; Milano,
Storia degli ebrei,
p. 590. For Turin, see Luciano Allegra, “L’Ospizio dei catecumeni di Torino,”
Bollettino storico-bibliografico subalpino
88 (1990): 513–73.

2
. The history of Jewish baptisms in Rome’s Houses of the Catechumens can be found in the three-article series (1986–88) written by Wipertus Rudt de Collenberg in the
Archivium Historiae Pontificiae.
See also C. Ruch, “Baptème des infidèles,”
Dictionnaire de Thíologie Catholique
2:2:341–55 (1905).

3
. Serena Bellettini,
La communità ebraica di Modena
(1965–66), pp. 212–27.

4
. A good example is provided by Giacomo Forti, “Lettera di un ebreo convertito,”
Annali delle scienze religiose
18, fasc. 53 (1844): 345–54.

5
.
Civiltà Cattolica,
ser. 2, vol. 2 (1853), p. 197.

6
. Ibid., ser. 3, vol. 3 (1856), p. 691.

7
. Ibid., pp. 441–2.

8
. This view of Jewish converts to Catholicism is also reflected in the Jewish historiography on the Italian Houses of the Catechumens. Cecil Roth (“Forced Baptisms in Italy,” p. 120.) writes of the converts: “a disproportionate number were in fact arrant scoundrels.”

9
. The 1641 constitution of the Bologna House of the Catechumens, for example, states that the institution “will not receive infidels of any kind before first obtaining sufficient information on their life and behavior, and of the sincerity, seriousness, and true desire to receive the most holy Baptism.” AdAB-COL.

10
. Roth, “Forced Baptisms in Italy,” p. 120.

11
. Renata Martano, “La missione inutile: La predicazione obbligatoria agli ebrei di Roma nella seconda metà del Cinquecento” (pp. 93–110), and Fiamma Satta, “Predicatori agli ebrei, catecumeni e neofiti a Roma nella prima metà del Seicento” (pp. 113–27), both in M. Caffiero, A. Foa, and A. Morisi Guerra, eds.,
Itinerari Ebraico-Cristiani: Società cultura mito
(1987).

12
. The image of the
predica coatta
as a ritual reversal was suggested by Anna Foa, “Il gioco del proselitismo: Politica delle conversioni e controllo della violenza nella Roma del Cinquecento,” in Michele Luzzati, Michele Olivari, and Alessandra Veronese, eds.,
Ebrei e Cristiani nell’Italia medievale e moderna
(1988), p. 156. An earlier
predica coatta
for the Jews had been tried out in the thirteenth century. On the early history of this practice, see Milano,
Storia degli ebrei;
Volli,
Breve storia.