Jews and the Medici Family of Florence: Netflix Series and History Itself

Nadene Goldfoot                                               

                                                                       

Bank of Venice

With a newly downloaded Netflix on my new Smart TV, I've been watching Medici, a historical drama about the Medici family in Florence Italy who were bankers of the Pope during the Renaissance, starting in 1429 when Giovanni de'Medici, the main origin of this family was dying, played by Dustin Hoffman.    In 1428, the small Jewish community in Florence lent funds to Pope Martin V in exchange for his protection for the local Jews. The Jewish community in Florence was formally founded in 1437.

 His son, Cosimo de Medici succeeds him as head of the family bank, the richest bank of Europe at that time, and has to fight to preserve his power in Florence.  
                                              

A statue of the real Lorenzo de Medici

The story goes on 20 years later when Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo de Medici, comes into the TV story.                                                                                               

Richard Madden-Cosimo the Elder

Cosimo de Medici

It's known that the only source of income Jews were allowed in the Middle Ages was moneylending, and so  a few Jewish residents - doctors, merchants, and moneylenders - are mentioned in the 14th and the beginning of the 15th centuries. In 1396 the commune of Florence permitted Jews to practice banking. An assembly of the Jews of Italy met in Florence in 1428 and gathered funds to give to Pope Martin V in return for his protection. 

City authorities requested Jewish bankers in 1430 because they believed that they would be easier to control than their Christian contemporaries. From that time members of the most important Jewish banking families - the da Pisa, da Rieti and da Tivoli families - opened loan banks in the city. The Jewish community was officially established in 1437.    
                                             

Dustin Hoffman and Richard Madden,
a Scottish actor also in Game of Thrones, isCosimo The Elder, son of Giovanni de’ Medici portrayed by Dustin Hoffman. 

The story of banking is the story of a partnership between the Italian grain merchants and the Jews in the Maritime Republics.  After some evolution under Machiavelli’s Medici family starting in the 1400’s, and then under the Protestant revolution and the East India Companies in Britain and the Netherlands, these interest charging “banks” evolved into our modern day banking system. Meanwhile, the other financial products became our whole finance industry from insurance, to stock markets, to central banks, and more. 
I wonder if this TV series will bring this fact out.                

Jewish Community of Florence

The fate of the Jewish community was tied to the fate of the Medici family in Florence. Lorenzo il Magnifico, who appears in the TV's 2nd season,  defended the Jewish community from expulsion and from the aftermath of the vicious sermons against the Jews given by the Franciscan priest Bernardino da Feltra, starting in 1405 and continuing for the next forty years. A Catholic theocracy was installed in the 1490s under the Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola, who ordered both the Jews and the Medici family to be expelled from Florence. A loan from the Jewish community to the Republic postponed the expulsion for a short period but both were expelled from Florence in 1494 when a Christian Monte di Pieta loan house was established.

The Medicis returned to power in 1512 and the boycott on Jews was lifted, until the next Medici expulsion in 1527. Alessandro de Medici regained influence as Duke in 1531 and abolished anti-Jewish activities.                                                   

Florence in early Renaissance Days

Giovanni di Medici 

In the time of Lorenzo di Medici (1449-1492), Jewish scholars and humanists were invited to his court, among them Jochannan Alemanno, Abraham Ferissol, and Elia Del Medigo who was Pico Della Mirandola's (the Renaissance philosopher and humanist) Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic teacher. Del Medigo also translated Judaic manuscripts into Latin for Pico.  (Note that the year 1492 was the year that Columbus, an Italian,  who now was thought to have been a secret Jew or marrano,  sailed 3 ships with a loan from the Spanish king and queen Isabelle.  That was also the time when the Spanish Inquisition was in full swing and Jews had to leave Spain in order to remain Jewish.  Otherwise they had to convert and if not, they were killed.    A lot of other secret Jews were created by this decree.                                                         

Medici FamilyThe Medicis produced four popes (Leo X, Clement VII, Pius IV and Leo XI), and their genes have been mixed into many of Europe’s royal families. The last Medici ruler died without a male heir in 1737, ending the family dynasty after almost three centuries.

A Catholic theocracy was installed in the 1490s under the Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola, who ordered both the Jews and the Medici family to be expelled from Florence. A loan from the Jewish community to the Republic postponed the expulsion for a short period but both were expelled from Florence in 1494 when a Christian Monte di Pieta loan house was established.

In 1537 Cosimo de Medici gained power in the Florentine government. He sought the financial advice of Jacob Abravanel, a Sephardic Jewish banker, living in Ferrara. He convinced Cosimo to guarantee the rights and privileges of Spanish and Portuguese Jews and other Levantines (westerners) who settled on his borders as a push to commercial and financial development of Tuscany. This was the start of the growth of the Spanish Jewish community in Florence. Refuge was given to Jews from other Papal States who had left due to Pope Paul IV's anti-Jewish measures, which were not enacted in Florence.

Once Cosimo received the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany, his policy towards the Jews changed for the worse. He forced Jews to wear badges in 1567, closed Tuscan borders to non-resident Jews in 1569, shut down Jewish banks in 1570 and established a ghetto in 1571. The ghetto was located around today's Piazza Republica.

The Jews in Tuscany numbered only 795, according to the official Jewish census of 1570. The census also prepared a report on the Jews of Tuscany, including their business activities and the privileges granted to them since 1547. This information was entitled ‘the Charter of the Jews’ (Dei Capitoli d'Ebrei, Magistrato Supremo 4449).                         

Overlooking Jewish ghetto in Venice

Living in Tuscany in small scattered communities, most of the Jews were involved directly or indirectly in banking and their financial network was essential to the Tuscan economy. Cosimo's decision to ‘ghettoise’ but not expel the Jews was in fact a gesture of pragmatic liberalism in comparison to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal. Many of these Jews tried to go to Portugal, where they met the same fate a few years later.  Those who could not leave but did not want to convert became the Marranos or what is called today the Anusim.  

The Jews were forced into the ghetto as well as Jews in from the surrounding towns of San Mitiano, San Giminiano, Volterra and Monte San Savino. Only a few wealthy families managed to remain outside the ghetto. They continued to live near the Palazzo Pitti, where the Medicis could easily walk to get loans.  So the Venetians say that "the Venetian Republic isolated its Jewish community as a way of placating the Roman Catholic Church, which had already spearheaded the expulsion of Jews from Western Europe."  I don't think my Jewish brethern of that period appreciated being locked up each night or kept from any travel outside of those perimeters at all.  They were forced to feel different now in more than just religion from their neighbors.  They now lost touch with those neighbors.  

The Jews had to adapt.  Jewish religious, social and cultural life continued to flourish inside the ghetto. Two synagogues were built, an Italian one in 1571 and a Spanish/Levantine one at the end of the 16th century. There were also Jewish schools, a butcher, a bakery, a mikve (ritual bathhouse) and other social and philanthropic organizations.

The Jews were allowed to elect their own council and rabbinical courts had jurisdiction, recognized by the state authorities, over all legal matters. Jews had a special status in criminal law; they were not tried by common judges, only by the supreme court of the Republic.

Restrictions were placed on Jewish trade in the ghetto, barring them from selling wool or silk or trading in precious objects.  (You will see Giovanni react to seeing his son's woolen cape, showing luxury worn by a Midici son which he would not allow to happen.  Giovanni grabs it and throws it into the fire).  
                                                              

Ghetto of Florence in the 1882
T. Signorini

A certain level of tolerance existed for the Jewish community, despite being forced to live in the ghetto. During the rule of Cosimo's son, Ferdinand I, Jews were allowed to expand their trade to the east. Some of the Levantine Jews were even permitted to live outside the ghetto; however, the Italian Jews were not allowed to leave the ghetto or join any of the city's guilds and had to work as second-hand dealers. This unequal treatment led to disagreements between the Italian and Levantine Jewish communities, though these were eventually resolved. There was a fountain inside the ghetto and two synagogues – one following the Italian rite and the other the Spanish or Levantine.

Interestingly, before at the end of the 13th century, Jews were persecuted in the kingdom of Naples so badly that it forced many to convert to Christianity.  However, at the same time Jewish loan-bankers began to be invited for the public convenience into the town of central and northern Italy which is how the famous communities of Florence, Venice, and others started.  Jews were expelled from Sicily in 1492 and by 1541 so were the Jews of Naples, and they never did return.  

It was Pope Paul IV who initiated his bull cum nimis aburdum in 1555 who instituted the GHETTO and the concomitant oppression in Rome and the Papal States, which was later imitated all over the country.  This Ghetto period lasted until the end of the 18th century.  Emancipation didn't come until the French brought it in 1796.  

Knowing what the main problem was all about in this series causes me to be far more interested than I was at first.  

It wasn't until 1861 that Florence became part of the Kingdom of Italy and the Jews were recognized as citizens. The ghetto was demolished when the city started a redevelopment program at the end of the 19th century.

Resource:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medici_(TV_series)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Medici

https://dbs.bh.org.il/place/florence

http://factmyth.com/the-birth-of-modern-banking/