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Arezzo, Italy

AREZZO, town in Tuscany, Italy. Jewish loan bankers were established in Arezzo from the close of the 14th century. At the beginning of 1406 their activities were suppressed, but reauthorized later that year. In the mid-15th century the da *Pisa family maintained a branch of their loan bank in Arezzo, as did the *Abrabanel family of Ferrara. Don Jacob Abrabanel lived in Arezzo for a time. When anti-Jewish reaction began in the Papal States, a number of refugees were allowed by Duke Cosimo I to settle in Arezzo in 1557. In 1570 Jewish loan banking in the city was prohibited and the Jews of the grand duchy, including those of Arezzo, were concentrated in the ghetto of *Florence . A small community was again established in Arezzo in the second half of the 18th century. It suffered when the anti-revolutionary Aretine mobs, sweeping through Tuscany in 1799, also attacked the Jews. The community came to an end in the 19th century.


BIBLIOGRAPHY:

U. Cassuto, Gli ebrei a Firenze nell'età del Rinascimento (1918), passim; Margulies, in: RI, 3 (1906), 103–4. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: M.G. Cutini Gheri, Le carte dei Monti Pii dell'Archivio di Stato di Arezzo; il prestito su pegno in città e nelle cortine (1986); R.G. Salvadori and G. Sacchetti, Presenze ebraiche nell'aretino dal XIV al XX secolo (1990); S. Duranti, "Federazioni di provincia; Arezzo, Grosseto, Pisa e Siena," in: E. Collotti (ed.), Razza e fascismo; La persecuzione contro gli ebrei in Toscana (1938–1943), vol. 1 (1999), 325–66; idem, "Gli organi del GUF; Arezzo, Grosseto, Pisa e Siena," ibid., 367–414.

[Cecil Roth /

Manuela Consonni (2nd ed.)]


Source: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2008 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.