A network of Jewish families in the early modern period : the road toward ghettoization -- Jewish leaders, their circles, and their books before the Inquisition : a parallel story -- The Jewish household : family networks, social control, and gendered spaces -- The ""invisible"" wealth of silver : the journey of the Formigginis from the ghetto to the ducal court -- Jewish female agency in the ghetto mercantile elite -- The Jewish urban geography of the ghetto and beyond -- Mois̀ˆ Formiggini before Napoleon : two steps toward emancipation and one step back
Summary:
"In Invisible Enlighteners. Federica Francesconi writes the history of the Jewish merchants who lived and prospered in the northern Italian city of Modena, capital city of the Este Duchy, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Her protagonists are men and women who stood out within their communities but who, despite their cultural and economic prominence, were ghettoized after 1638. Their sociocultural transformation and eventual legal and political integration evolved through a complex dialogue between their Italian and Jewish identities, and without the traumatic ruptures or dramatic divides that led to the assimilation and conversion of many Jews elsewhere in Europe"-- Back cover and "This book is a case study of the important Jewish community of the Italian city of Modena. It covers the seventeenth and long eighteenth centuries"-- Provided by publisher