The Jews of Florence: a short history

Benjamin of Tudela recorded a Jewish community in Florence when he visited in 1159. The history really begins, though, with Italian Jews migrating north from the south into Florence and the Tuscan region by the start of the 14th century.

In the 1430s the Medici family officially invited Jews to the city to act as moneylenders. Jews settled opposite the city centre, across the Arno. Life under the Medici was relatively stable: Lorenzo il Magnifico defended the community both from expulsion and from the violent sermons of Bernardino da Feltre.

That changed in 1545, at the height of the Catholic Reformation, when the Council of Trent exiled Protestants and Jews alike. In 1555 Pope Paul IV ordered all Jews to be segregated in ghettos, and in 1570 Cosimo I de’ Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, created the ghettos of Florence and Siena.

Religious, social and cultural life continued to flourish inside the walls, and two synagogues were built there. In 1593 Ferdinando I, Cosimo’s successor, went further and actively attracted Portuguese Marrano Jews to Tuscany with protection from the Inquisition and economic incentives.

Conditions eased after 1737 under the House of Lorraine. Following an interruption during French rule, the ghetto gates were dismantled for good in 1848, and Jewish emancipation was recognised by the Parliament of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.

The Great Synagogue of Florence

The Tempio Maggiore is the centrepiece of any visit. Built between 1874 and 1882, it is one of the finest examples of Moorish Revival architecture in Europe: a green copper dome visible across the rooftops, and an interior of wood and bronze carving, marble floors, mosaics and tall stained-glass windows.

During the Second World War the Nazis used the Temple as a garage for military vehicles, and mined it on their retreat in 1944. Members of the Italian resistance defused most of the charges. The damage to the columns is still visible, and has deliberately never been repaired.

The 1966 flood of the Arno reached the synagogue too, destroying part of the archive and many ritual objects.

The Jewish Museum

Annexed to the Synagogue is a small but meticulously arranged Jewish Museum, spread over two floors. Its collection includes ritual silver, embroidered textiles and Torah mantles, and ketubot – illuminated marriage contracts – some dating to the 17th century. The upper floor documents the community under Fascism and the deportations.

Where was the Florence ghetto?

This is the question visitors ask most, and the answer is a difficult one. The ghetto of Florence no longer exists.

It stood on what is now Piazza della Repubblica, between the old Mercato Vecchio and via Roma. In the late 19th century, when Florence briefly became capital of the newly unified Italy, an urban renewal plan demolished the entire quarter and replaced it with the arcaded blocks that stand there today.

So visitors will not find surviving buildings or vestiges. What they can do is identify the ground on which it stood, and read what remains: one inscription on the entrance door to the bathhouse read, “The Jews were separated from the union with Christians but not turned out.”

Understanding that absence – a ghetto erased by progress rather than by persecution – is one of the more affecting parts of a visit to Jewish Florence.

Beyond Florence

Tuscany rewards anyone travelling with a Jewish itinerary in mind. Siena has its own ghetto, created by the same 1570 decree, and a fine 18th-century synagogue. Pitigliano, in the Maremma, was known as “Little Jerusalem” and preserves a synagogue, a mikveh, a bakery for unleavened bread and a rock-cut cemetery. Livorno is the exception that proves the rule: it never had a ghetto, thanks to the Leggi Livornine, and became one of the most important Sephardic ports in the Mediterranean. It is also the easiest place in Tuscany to eat and sleep kosher.

Planning your visit

The Synagogue and Museum are closed on Saturdays and Jewish holidays, and security screening is in place at the entrance. Shoulders and knees should be covered. Photography inside is restricted.

A guided visit typically runs three hours and covers the Synagogue, the Museum and the site of the former ghetto. Florence also works well as a day trip from Rome by high-speed train, roughly an hour and a half each way.

Ask me how to:

• Find the right accommodation – hotel, apartment or B&B
• Arrange Shabbat in Florence
• Eat kosher in Florence and Livorno
• Visit the Synagogue and Museum with a guide
• Add a kosher wine and food tasting

And to combine Jewish Florence with the classic city: the Uffizi Gallery, the Accademia and Michelangelo’s David, the Duomo complex, or a day in Pisa and Livorno.