Ariel Toaff - Blood Passover

"Ipsi Iudei portant duos cultellos in una vagina, quorum uno utuntur ad incisionem carnium, altero ad lacticinia" [“This Jew carried two knives in a sheate, one to cut meat, the other to cut dairy products”]. Deposition of Samuele of Nuremberg dated 7 June 1475 (cfr. ibidem, p. 246). "Moris est [...] portare duos coltellos in una vagina, quorum uno utuntur ad lacticinia, altero vero ad carnes". Deposition di Mosè "the Old Man" of Würzburg, dated 4 April 1475 (cfr. ibidem, p. 354).

On the extermination of the five hundred Jews of the community of Vienna in 1421, known in the Hebraic sources such as the Gezerah, i.e., "the persecution", see S. Krauss, Die Wiener Geserah vom Jahre 1421 , Vienna, 1920; O.H. Stowasser, Zur Geschichte der Wiener Geserah, in "Vierteljahresheft fur Sozial - und Wirtschaftsgeschichte" , XVI (1922), pp. 104-118; Sh. Spitzer, Das Wiener Judentum bis zur Vertreibung im Jahre 1421 , in "Kairos", II (1977), pp. 134-145.

On Hinderbach's attitude towards the Jews, before and after the events at Trent, see, in particular, I. Rogger and M. Bellabarbia, Il

principe vescovo Johannes Hinderbach (1465-1486) fra tardo Medioevo e Umanesmo , Atti del Convegno promosso dall Biblioteca Communale di Trento (2-6 October 1989), Bologna, 1992; Po-Chia Hsia, Trent 1475 , cit., pp. 1-13, and above all, Rando, Dai margini la memoria , cit. Pp. 457-491.

"Hiis diebus apud Tergestum Italiae civitatem a Venetis obsessiam alias fuit, in qua milites ultamontanes equos, asinos, canes, gattos, et sorices comederunt [...] quorum tanta fuit constantia fidei ut, priusquam urbem ob inediam deserere aut dedere (vellent), ita apud se statuerunt humanam prius Iudeorum, qui intus erant, [...] carnem vesci" [Approximately: “In those days, Trent, a city in Italy, was besieged by Venice, and the ultramontane defenders ate horses, donkeys, dogs, cats, and mice [...]; such was their constancy in the faith that, that when they were about to have to give up the city, they decided to nourish themselves on flesh of the Jews who lived there”] (cfr. Rando, Dai margini la memoria , cit. pp. 168-169).

Burcardo di Andwil, Bellum Venetum, Bellum ducis Sigismundi contra Venetos (1487), in Carmina varia, by M. Welber, Rovereto, 1987, p. 105.

Cfr. Rando, Dai margini la memoria , cit. pp. 478-491.

Ristretto della vita e martirio di S. Simone fanciullo della città di Trento , Rome Filipp Neri alle Muratte, 1594, p. 4.

Cfr. Rando, Dai margini la memoria , cit., pp. 483-487.

Giacobbe da Colonia was arrested under the accusation of having abducted the child while he was in Treviso, where he had stayed on his way from Piove di Sacco to Portobuffolè. He is almost certainly identical with the Yaakov b. Shimon Levi, who appears in Hebrew documents of the period (cfr. D. Nissim , Famiglie Rapa e Rapaport nell'Italia settentrionale, sec. XV-XVI . With an appendix on the origins of the Miscellanea Rotschild , in A. Piattelli and M. Silvera, authors, Minhat Yehuda. Saggi sul ebraismo italiano in memoria de Yehuda Nello Pavoncello , Rome, 2001, p. 188).

On the ritual murder at Portobuffolè, see, in particular, S.G. Radzik's documented monograph , Portobuffolè , Florence, 1984. In this regard, see the important compendium of texts in [Benedetto Bonelli], Dissertazione apologetica sul martirio del beato Simone da Trento nell'anno MCCCCLXXV dagli ebrei ucciso , Trent, Gianbattista Parone, 1747, pp. 272-282, and furthermore A. Ciscato, Gli ebrei a Padova (1300- 1800) , Padua, 1901, pp. 136-137; B. Pullan, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice , Oxford, 1971, pp. 458-460; A. Esposito and D. Quaglioni, Processi contro gli ebrei di Trento, 1475-1478 . I: I Processi del 1475 ; Padua, 1990, pp. 86-89.

At Portobuffolè in 1464, Chaim Israel Stein copied one manuscript of a text by Abraham Ibn Ezra (cfr. A. Freimann, Jewish Scribes in Medieval Italy , in M. Marx Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume , New York, 1950, p. 262, no. 129j). See also Nissim's arguments in Famiglia Rape e Rapaport , cit., pp. 178-181.

"In Piazza di San Marco in ognimano / piena di d'innumerabile persone / per veder arder quel ternario insano / che confirmando la sua confessione / brusaron vivi nell'Ebraico errore / del battesimo sprezzando l'oblazione" [“In the Piazza di San Marco, packed with innumerable people, they watched that maddened lunatic being burnt alive in the Jewish error, despising the offertory of baptism”] (Giorgio Sommariva da Verona, Martyrium Sebastiani Novelli trucidati a perfidis Judaeis , Treviso, Bernardinmo Celario de Luere, 12 May 1480, reported in [Bonelli], Dissertazione apologetica , cit., pp. 278); "[...] ligati sunt et circum circa ignis est accensus, quem sentientes, et se circum circa volventes, ab igne coquebantur et adurebantur, se lamentes et ululantes, quorum senior induratus alios socios ad martyrdom exhortabatur, legem suam enarrans" [“they were tied up and wood was piled up all around them. The wood was set light, which they perceived, and looked all around them while the wood cooked them and hardened them, with their laments and screams. The oldest one of them, tougher than his associates in martyrdom, exhorted them by reciting Jewish law”] in the Diarium parmense, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores , vol. XXII Milan, Tipografia della Società Palatina, 1733, p. 345.

Cfr. A. Ottolenghi, Per il IV centenario della Scuola Canton. Notizie storiche sui templi veneziani di rito tedesco e su alcuni e su alcuni templi privati con cenni della vista ebraica nei secoli XVI-XIX , Venice, 1932, pp. 18-19.

In this regard, see F. Cogo, Vita e martirio del Beato Giovannino da Volpedo, Tortona, 1920 ; V. Legè, Il Borgo di Volpedo e il Beato Giovannino Costa , Venice, 1921, and, recently, I. Cammarata U. Rozzo, Il beato Giovannino patrono di Volpedo. Un fanciullo "martyr" alla fine del secolo XV , Volpedo, 1997.

Cfr. Cammarata and Rozzo, Il beato Giovannino patrono di Volpedo , cit., pp. 19-24.

Cfr. Sh. Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan , Jerusalem, 1982, vol. II, p. 873, no. 2103.

Y. Ha-Cohen, Sefer 'Emeq-Bakha (the Vale of Tears), with the Chronicle of the Anonymous Collector , by K. Almbladh, 1981, p. 59 (in Hebrew). It is important to note that, as observed by Isai Sonne, "Yoseph Ha-Cohen generally attributes the deterioration of relations between the Jewish communities in Italy with the surrounding Christian society to the deplorable conduct of the Ashkenazi Jews and their unscrupulousness. The attitude of Italian Jews towards Ashkenazi Jews was exactly similar to that of cultured and refined Italians towards barbarous and uncouth Germans [...]. The events and circumstances in which the responsibility of the Ashkenazi were ascertained and led to the saddest consequences for the entire Jewish community were covered up by Jewish historians in fear of encouraging anti-Semitism. At the most, they could be handed down to a small elect in whom one could trust" (cfr. I. Sonne, Da Paolo IV a Pio V , Jerusalem, 1954, pp. 185-186 [in Hebrew]. These observations had already been published in "Hebrew Union College Annual", XXII (1949), pp. 23-44.