Roman ghetto

Roman ghetto on a watercolor of the artist of the XIX century.

The Roman ghetto was once the district of Rome where Roman Jews were obliged to reside. In antiquity, this area was called the Flaminius Circus ^[1] . Jews began to settle here before the spread of Christianity.

The Jewish city occupied the territory between the Capitol , the island of Tiberin and Largo Argentina , it was surrounded by high walls with three gates. The legal status of the ghetto was formalized in 1555, when Pope Paul IV issued the bull Cum nimis absurdum . During the rise of water in the Tiber, the quarter suffered greatly from floods ^[1] , and its overpopulation led to terrible losses from epidemics (for example, every fifth out of 4,000 residents of the ghetto during the plague of 1656).

At the beginning of the XIX century, the Roman ghetto was inhabited by about 10 thousand inhabitants. After the capture of Rome by Italian troops, papal law obliging Jews to settle within the ghetto ceased to be valid. The walls of the ghetto were demolished in 1888, after which its entire territory was rebuilt. Among the new buildings in this area stands the Great Synagogue .