Nei giorni 12 e 13 settembre 2022 a Roma si terrà il convegno internazionale Uncommon sources and where to find them: Jews in Politics in Long Renaissance Italy (13th-17th century), espressione di un gruppo di ricerca congiunto che vede la partecipazione dell’Università di Roma La Sapienza, dell’Università di Pisa, dell’Ecole Francaise de Rome, dell’Università di Amburgo e del Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies.
Jews in Politics in Long Renaissance Italy
What does the enquiry into unexploited sources reveal about the capacity of Jewish women and men to become active on the political stage? How did they formulate their political thought in Italy during the Renaissance (13th-17th centuries)? The Jewish condition as minority and the need for continuous political and economic negotiations set up specific processes of political participation, detectable in important documentary resources. Yet, this participation and documentation has so far been neglected by historiography. We intend to focus this Jewish political thought and agency to raise the question of the existence of a “Jewish politics” and to describe it in its particularities (pragmatism, pursuit of group interests, recourse to intercession and alliance, own institutional and documentary structuring) and in its interactions with European politics.
Conference Programme
SAPIENZA UNIVERSITÀ DI ROMA, AULA A DI STORIA MEDIEVALE – DIPARTIMENTO DI STORIA ANTROPOLOGIA, RELIGIONI, ARTE, SPETTACOLO, FACOLTÀ DI LETTERE E FILOSOFIA
Arianna Punzi – Preside della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Sapienza Università di Roma
Alessandro Saggioro – Vicedirettore Dipartimento SARAS, Sapienza Università di Roma
Ruth Dureghello – Presidente della Comunità Ebraica di Roma
Greetings
Chair: Fabrizio Lelli – Sapienza Università di Roma
Greetings
Serena Di Nepi – Sapienza Università di Roma, Giuseppe Veltri – Universität Hamburg
On Jews in Politics in Long Renaissance Italy. Introduction to the workshop
Keynote Lecture – Giacomo Todeschini
The political languages of the Jews and the Christian representation of politics. Historiographical and chronological problems
Lab 1. Making Jewish History Political: a question of sources?
Chair: Tamar Herzig – Tel Aviv University
Guido Bartolucci – Università di Bologna
Theory or practice? Jews and politics in the Early Modern period: a historiographical review
Asher Salah – Bezalel Academy – Hebrew University
Lay Leadership and Rabbinical Authority in the Ghetto of Florence: an Alternative Model for the Beginning of Jewish Modernity
Discussion
15:00
Lab 2. Uncommon Sources: images, imagination and self-representation
Chair: Caterina Volpi – Sapienza Università di Roma
Francesco Freddolini – Sapienza Università di Roma
Jews in Cesare Vecellio’s Habiti antichi et moderni : selfrepresentation and imagination
Massimo Moretti – Sapienza Università di Roma
Pesach: representations and self-representations of Jewish identity in Early Modern Age
Transfer to the Jewish Museum of Rome (via Catalana / Largo 16 ottobre 1943): special visit led by Olga Melasecchi (Director of the Jewish Museum of Rome)
9:30
ÉCOLE FRANÇAISE DE ROME, SALA CONFERENZE, PIAZZA NAVONA 62
Brigitte Marin – École française de Rome
Noemi Di Segni – Presidente dell’Unione delle Comunità Ebraiche Italiane
Greetings
Lab 3. Making Responsa Political: new approaches on Jewish History
Chair: David Malkiel – Bar Ilan University
Pinchas Roth – Bar Ilan University
Isaiah ben Mali’s responsa and Jewish political agency in Southern Italy (13th century)
Jeffrey Woolf – Bar Ilan University
Rhetoric and Rabbinic Authority in Italian Responsa
Bernard D. Cooperman – University of Maryland (online)
Are Non-Members Subject to Taxation? A Case Study in the Rise of Modern Jewish Self-Government
14:30
Lab 4. Inside Out: looking for Jewish political agency in External Sources
Chair: Laura Pettinaroli – École française de Rome
Marina Caffiero – Sapienza Università di Roma
La politica dei Memoriali. La retorica della fedeltà e il linguaggio della protesta
Alessandra Veronese – Università di Pisa
Trial as local politics in 15th century Volterra
Germano Maifreda – Università degli Studi di Milano
Enticing the outside, self-governing the inside: papers on “ethnic” conflicts mediated by Christians as sources on Jewish agency
Pierre Savy -Université Gustave-Eiffel
Conclusion
Walk to the Archivio Storico della Comunità Ebraica di Roma “Giancarlo Spizzichino” (Lungotevere Cenci Tempio). Visit led by Claudio Procaccia (Director of the Archive) and Silvia Haia Antonucci (Responsible of the Archive).
Organisation
Guido Bartolucci – Università della Calabria
Serena Di Nepi – Sapienza Università di Roma
Pierre Savy – Université Gustave-Eiffel
Giuseppe Veltri – Universität Hamburg
Alessandra Veronese – Università degli Studi di Pisa