Severe Excommunication - Verona, Italy, 1761

Severe Excommunication - Verona, Italy, 1761

'Wording of the Severe Excommunication' which was declared in the Verona community [Italy] 1761. Printed leaf, Hebrew and Italian.

"Each one of the honored guests who is required to pay off in the Cassita of the general community as will be explained ... whoever intentionally transgresses in any aspect, by fraud and deception regarding the above agreement will have an awesome and severe excommunication applied to him, as Yehoshua excommunicated Jericho and the awesome excommunication with which Barak excommunicated Maroz. And the curse with which Elisha cursed the youths. All of these curses excommunications and expulsions written in the Torah will apply to him until his destruction ... And his end will be darkness and the shadow of death, his soul will leave panic-stricken ..."

Severe excommunication declared upon those who transgress the guest regulations in the community of Verona, which was mainly made up of Jews from Germany - Northern Italy, was a portion of the various regulations by the Catholic church who limited the trade and freedom of the Jews in Verona.

Until the middle of the 16th century, the situation of the Jews in Verona was reasonable with the exception of the yellow patch which they were forced to wear on their clothes. At the same time, Pope Paul IV began to make restrictions - following the various blood libels, it was decided that the Jews to be confined to the ghetto in order to separate them from the Catholic community in the city. The Jewish ghetto in Verona was established in 1620. The Jewish residents of the ghetto were forced to listen to the preachings of a Catholic priest every two weeks or else pay a heavy fine. The number of Jews in the ghetto was relatively small, numbering some 800 people. The ghetto was destroyed by the French army in 1797 and the Jews were allowed to live in the entire city. The severe regulations before us came as part of the restrictions on the Jewish community which lived under constant threat and was forced to obey the instruction imposed upon them by the heads of the Catholic church. The regulations are in Italian and the wording of the excommunication for those who transgress them is in Hebrew.

Rare. Does not appear in the National Library.

[1] leaf. 50x37 cm. Tears in the lower margin. Fold marks. Fine condition.