The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, page 44
8. Ermanno Loevinson, “Gli ebrei dello Stato della Chiesa,” part 2, Rassegna mensile di Israel 9 (1934): 164; Augusto Pierantoni, I carbonari dello Stato Pontificio, vol. 2 (1910), pp. 21, 99, 117.
9. Umberto Marcelli, “Le vicende politiche dalla Restaurazione alle annessioni,” in Aldo Berselli, ed., Storia della Emilia Romagna (1980), p. 72.
10. The Austrians left Bologna again in July of 1831, leading to a period of chaos. They returned in January 1832. For details, see Steven C. Hughes, Crime, Disorder and the Risorgimento: The Politics of Policing in Bologna (1994), pp. 114–35.
11. For an excellent discussion of Church theology regarding the Jews, and the changes introduced in the sixteenth century, see Kenneth R. Stow, Catholic Thought and Papal Jewry Policy, 1555–1593 (1977).
12. The quote is from Giovanni Vicini, Causa di simultanea successione di cristiani e di ebrei … (1827), p. 154.
13. Vincenzo Berni degli Antonj, Osservazioni al voto consultivo … (1827), p. 70.
14. In addition to Gioacchino Vicini, Giovanni Vicini (1897), see discussion in Gadi Luzzato Voghera, L’emancipazione degli ebrei in Italia (1994), pp. 83–85.
15. Bottrigari, Cronaca, vol. 2, pp. 36–7.
16. Luigi Carlo Farini, Lo stato romano dall’anno 1815 all’anno 1850, vol. 4 (1853), P-139.
CHAPTER 3
1. Francesco Fantoni, Della vita del Cardinale Viale Prelà (1861).
2. Bottrigari, Cronaca, vol. 2, p. 362.
3. On Viale-Prelà’s family relations, see Paul-Michel Villa, La maison des Viale (1985).
4. The struggle between the conservative wing of the Church in Bologna and that more open to reform was influenced by the parallel battle taking place in France at the time. See Aldo Berselli, “Le relazioni fra i cattolici francesi ed i cattolici conservatori bolognesi dal 1858 al 1866,” Rassegna storica del Risorgimento 41 (1954): 269–81. Also see Rodolfo Fantini, “Sacerdoti bolognesi liberali dal 1848 all’unita’ nazionale,” Bollettino del Museo del Risorgimento di Bologna 5 (1960): 451–84; and Fantini, “Un arcivescovo bolognese nelle ultime vicende dello stato pontificio: il Card. Michele Viale Prelà,” Pio IX 2 (1973): 210–44.
5. Alfredo Testoni, Bologna che scompare (1905), p. 119; Oreste F. Tencajoli, “Cardinali corsi: Michele Viale Prelà,” Corsica antica e moderna 4–5 (1935): 148.
6. Bottrigari, Cronaca, vol. 2, p. 363.
7. The two documents by Viale-Prelà, dated 1858, are “Lettera pastorale al clero e popolo della città e diocesi di Bologna,” published by the Tipi Arcivescovili of Bologna, and “Circolare ai RR. Parrochi di Città, e Diocesi. Intorno alla S. Infanzia,” both found in AAB-N. There is some irony in the Cardinal’s description of the heathen practice of infant abandonment, for the practice was common in Italy as well at the time. See David I. Kertzer, Sacrificed for Honor (1993).
8. Fantoni, Della vita, p. 125, AAB-AC, b. 151, protocollo n. 231, 1859.
9. “L’ebreo di Bologna,” L’osservatore bolognese, October 1, 1858, p. 2.
10. Enrico Bottrigari, quoted in Tencajoli, “Cardinali corsi,” p. 148.
11. Marcelli, “Le vicende politiche.”
12. Clifford Geertz, “Centers, Kings, and Charisma,” in J. B. Davis and T. N. Clark, eds., Culture and Its Creators (1977), p. 162.
13. Pio Nono ed i suoi popoli nel 1857 (1860), pp. 430, 440. Another example of this genre of report is provided by Albo a memoria dell’ augusta presenza di Nostro Signore Pio IX in Bologna (Bologna, 1858).
14. Bottrigari, Cronaca, vol. 2, pp. 377–8.
15. Caravale and Caracciolo, Lo stato pontificio, p. 700.
16. Giacomo Martina, Pio IX, 1851–66 (1986), p. 28.
17. Protection of this sacred treasure had not been easy, for a parade of potentates had, over the centuries, sought the divine blessings that the holy relics offered. In the late seventeenth century, the monks had turned down the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III de’Medici, when he requested a slice of the sacred skull. Going over their heads to get a piece of Saint Dominic’s, the Grand Duke enlisted the aid of his brother, a cardinal, who ultimately persuaded Pope Innocent XII to make the monks give the Grand Duke what he wanted. The result was that, on a January night in 1699, in the presence of a delegation from the Bologna senate, a professor of anatomy and two surgeons opened the holy reliquary in San Domenico. Bending the papal order a bit, they decided not to chip away at the holy skull itself but, to the relief of the Dominican brothers, extracted a back right molar instead. Nor was this the last assault on Saint Dominic’s bones. In 1787, despite the anguish and protests of the Dominican brothers, they were forced to cut off a piece of skull for the spiritual benefit of the Duke of Parma. See Alfonso D’Amato, I domenicani a Bologna, vol. 2 (1988), pp. 630–5, 798–801, 951–2. On the Pope’s visit to San Domenico, see, in addition, Abele Redigonda, “Lo studio domenicano di Bologna,” Sacra dottrina, 2 (1957): 134–5.
18. Martina, Pio IX, pp. 27–8. Pasolini’s reference to the troops as German betrayed a common popular perception in Bologna at the time, equating the Austrians with Germans. The matter is even more complicated, because few of the troops were either Austrian or German, in the national or ethnic sense. While the officer corps of the Austrian forces consisted primarily of Austrians, the bulk of the troops came from the various outposts of the Austrian Empire: Croatians, Hungarians, etc.
CHAPTER 4
1. ASCIR, dated 24 giugno 1858.
2. See the entry by Giuseppe Rambaldi et al. on “Battesimo,” in the Enciclopedia Cattolica (1949), vol. 2, pp. 1003–46. That article also notes that “the children of non-Catholics, if they are in danger of dying … before reaching the age of reason, can be baptized licitly, even against the wishes of their parents” (p. 1031).
That the position adopted by Pope Pius IX in the Mortara case was fully in accord with existing Church policy is evident by a glance at the compendium of Church doctrine published fifteen years earlier, in Gaetano Moroni Romano’s Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastico (1843). Under the entry “Ebrei,” on the Jews, in vol. 21 (p. 21), the section on the baptism of Jewish children lists five basic points:
“1. That without parental consent, the Church was never in the habit of baptizing them.
2. That without such consent, one can make two cases for baptism: when the child’s life is in extreme danger, and when children have been abandoned by their parents.
3. That baptism given in situations where it is not licit to give it remains, nonetheless, valid.
4. That in such cases the baptized children should not be returned to their Jewish parents, but raised by Christians in the Catholic faith.
5. That for proof that they were truly baptized, a single witness is enough.”
3. A series of handwritten documents on the Pamela Maroni case, including a number of letters from Abram Maroni, are found in ASRE-AN, b. 25.
4. These documents are found in the ASRE-AN, b. 25.
5. ASRE-FB, Cancello II.
6. A handwritten copy of Deputy Bottaro’s remarks, reproduced from the Foglio di Piemonte—Supplemento—Camera de’ Deputati (9 giugno 1858), is found in ASRE-AN, b. 8.
7. Copies of all three letters are found in ASCIR.
8. Carlo Cattaneo, Ricerche economiche sulle interdizioni imposte dalla legge civile agli Israeliti (1836), p. 22.
9. Original copies of the “Editto sopra gli Ebrei” from both the Inquisitor and the Archbishop of Bologna are found in the AdAB, miscellanea B, 1894.
10. Franco Della Peruta, “Le ‘interdizioni’ israelitiche e l’emancipazione degli ebrei nel Risorgimento,” Società e storia 6 (1983): 78m.
11. ASG-SA, 1850–60.
12. Cecil Roth, “Forced Baptisms in Italy,” New Jewish Quarterly Review 27 (1936): 129; Gemma Volli, Breve storia degli ebrei d’Italia (1961), pp. 62–3.
CHAPTER 5
1. This point could be made more generally about the Jews of Europe before Jewish emancipation, as discussed by Jacob Katz, Out of the Ghetto (1973).
2. On the attitudes of Italian Jews toward their emancipation in the nineteenth century, see the articles by Andrew M. Canepa, “L’attegiamento degli ebrei italiani devanti alla loro seconda emancipazione: Premesse e analisi, Rassegna mensile di Israel 43 (1977): 419–36; and “Emancipation and Jewish Response in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Italy,” European History Quarterly, no. 16 (1986): 403–39.
3. This and, unless otherwise noted, all letters to and from the Jewish community of Rome cited in this book are found in ASCIR.
4. Cecil Roth, “The Forced Baptisms of 1783 at Rome and the Community of London,” Jewish Quarterly Review 16 (1925–26): 105–10.
5. Abraham Berliner, Storia degli ebrei di Roma (1992; German orig., 1893), p. 302.
6. Emilio Castelar, Ricordi d’Italia (1873), P. 96.
7. Andrée Dufaut, Vie anecdotique de Pie IX (1869), p. 129.
8. L’osservatore bolognese, 29 ottobre 1858, p. 3.
9. “Notizia sulle disposizioni d’animo del fanciullo Mortara nella sera 23 giugno p.°p.°e nei seguenti giorni,” ASV-Pio IX.
CHAPTER 6
1. G. Bareille, “Catéchuménat,” Dictionnaire de Thíologie Catholique (1905), 2:2: 1968–70; Milano, Storia degli ebrei, p. 590. For Turin, see Luciano Allegra, “L’Ospizio dei catecumeni di Torino,” Bollettino storico-bibliografico subalpino 88 (1990): 513–73.
2. The history of Jewish baptisms in Rome’s Houses of the Catechumens can be found in the three-article series (1986–88) written by Wipertus Rudt de Collenberg in the Archivium Historiae Pontificiae. See also C. Ruch, “Baptème des infidèles,” Dictionnaire de Thíologie Catholique 2:2:341–55 (1905).
3. Serena Bellettini, La communità ebraica di Modena (1965–66), pp. 212–27.
4. A good example is provided by Giacomo Forti, “Lettera di un ebreo convertito,” Annali delle scienze religiose 18, fasc. 53 (1844): 345–54.
5. Civiltà Cattolica, ser. 2, vol. 2 (1853), p. 197.
6. Ibid., ser. 3, vol. 3 (1856), p. 691.
7. Ibid., pp. 441–2.
8. This view of Jewish converts to Catholicism is also reflected in the Jewish historiography on the Italian Houses of the Catechumens. Cecil Roth (“Forced Baptisms in Italy,” p. 120.) writes of the converts: “a disproportionate number were in fact arrant scoundrels.”
9. The 1641 constitution of the Bologna House of the Catechumens, for example, states that the institution “will not receive infidels of any kind before first obtaining sufficient information on their life and behavior, and of the sincerity, seriousness, and true desire to receive the most holy Baptism.” AdAB-COL.
10. Roth, “Forced Baptisms in Italy,” p. 120.
11. Renata Martano, “La missione inutile: La predicazione obbligatoria agli ebrei di Roma nella seconda metà del Cinquecento” (pp. 93–110), and Fiamma Satta, “Predicatori agli ebrei, catecumeni e neofiti a Roma nella prima metà del Seicento” (pp. 113–27), both in M. Caffiero, A. Foa, and A. Morisi Guerra, eds., Itinerari Ebraico-Cristiani: Società cultura mito (1987).
12. The image of the predica coatta as a ritual reversal was suggested by Anna Foa, “Il gioco del proselitismo: Politica delle conversioni e controllo della violenza nella Roma del Cinquecento,” in Michele Luzzati, Michele Olivari, and Alessandra Veronese, eds., Ebrei e Cristiani nell’Italia medievale e moderna (1988), p. 156. An earlier predica coatta for the Jews had been tried out in the thirteenth century. On the early history of this practice, see Milano, Storia degli ebrei; Volli, Breve storia.
13. Gemma Volli, “Papa Benedetto XIV e gli ebrei,” Rassegna mensile di Israel 22 (1956):215.
14. Roberto G. Salvadori, Gli ebrei toscani nell’età della Restaurazione (1993), pp. 107, 146n29.
15. Ratto della Signora Anna del Monte trattenuta a’ Catecumeni tredici giorni dalli 6 fino alli 19 maggio anno 1749, edited and with an introduction by Giuseppe Sermoneta (Rome, 1989).
CHAPTER 7
1. Raffaele De Cesare, Roma e lo stato del papa (1975; orig., 1906), p. 227.
2. “Un homme très-honněte, mais pas trop à son aise.” Letter from Joseph Pavia, Bologna, 13 novembre 1859, Archives Israélites, décembre 1859, p. 708.
3. See ch. 5 note 2 for sources on Italian Jewish attitudes toward emancipation.
4. “Edgardo Mortara,” Il Cattolico, November 8, 1858.
5. Giuseppe Pelczar, Pio IX e il suo pontificato, vol. 2 (1910), p. 196.
6. I thank Pier Cesare Bori for pointing out this New Testament parallel.
7. L’Univers, 11 novembre 1858, reproduced in l’abbé Delacouture, Le droit canon et le droit naturel dans l’affaire Mortara (1858), p. 43.
8. “Edgardo Mortara.”
9. “Notizie del giovenetto cristiano Mortara,” L’armonia, 16 October 1858.
10. Dom Jacobus, Les vols d’enfants (1859), pp. 34–36.
11. “Il piccolo neofito, Edgardo Mortara,” Civiltà Cattolica, ser. 3, vol. 12 (1858), pp. 389–90.
12. “Edgardo Mortara.”
13. The unsigned letter from the Università Israelitica di Roma to the Baron de Rothschild in Paris, dated September 8, 1858, is found in ASCIR.
14. Letter addressed via Sig. Jacob Vita Alatri, pel Sr. M. Mortara, Roma, 12. settembre 1858, ASCIR.
CHAPTER 8
1. Roger Aubert, Il pontificato di Pio IX, Storia della Chiesa, vol. 22/1 (1990), P. 449.
2. Roth, “Forced Baptisms in Italy,” p. 130.
3. The Pope also did away with the Carnival tribute, on which see Berliner, Storia degli ebrei, p. 300; on the papal commission, see Bruno Di Porto, “Gli ebrei di Roma dai papi all’Italia,” in Elio Toaff et al., eds., La breccia del ghetto (1971), pp. 35–6.
4. Aldo Berselli, “Movimenti politici a Bologna dal 1815 al 1859,” Bollettino del Museo del Risorgimento 5 (1960):225.
5. Giovanni Miccoli, Fra mito della cristianità e secolarizzazione (1985), p. 49.
6. P. R. Perez, “Alcune difficoltà emerse nella discussione ‘super virtutibus’ del servo di Dio Pio Papa IX,” in Carlo Snider, ed., Pio IX nella luce dei processi canonici (1992), p. 237.
7. Fubini, La condizione giuridica, p. 10.
8. Aubert, Il pontificato, pp. 70–2.
9. Martina, Pio IX, p. 40; Roger Aubert, “Antonelli, Giacomo,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 3 (1961), p. 485. For an English-language biography of Antonelli, see Frank J. Coppa, Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli and Papal Politics in European Affairs (1990).
10. Carlo Falconi, Il cardinale Antonelli (1983), pp. 302–3.
11. Odo Russell letter to Lord J.R., no. 7, Rome, January 7, 1806. In Noel Blakiston, The Roman Question (1962), pp. 79–80.
12. Jan Derek Holmes, The Triumph of the Holy See (1978), p. 130.
13. Aubert, Il pontificato, p. 143n47. Also see Piero Pirri, “Il card. Antonelli tra il mito e la storia,” Rivista di storia della chiesa italiana 12 (1958): 81–120.
14. Holmes, Triumph, p. 135.
15. Giuseppe Leti, Roma e lo stato pontificio dal 1849 al 1870 (1911), vol. 1, pp. 11, 16n.
16. Perez, “Alcune difficoltà,” p. 34.
17. Aubert, Il pontificato, pp. 449–52.
18. August Hasler, How the Pope Became Infallible (1993), pp. 105–10. On the Catholic belief in supernatural punishment for earthly sins in the time of Pius IX, see P. G. Camaiani, “Castighi di Dio e trionfo della Chiesa: Mentalità e polemiche dei cattolici temporalisti nell’età di Pio IX,” Rivista storica italiana 88 (1976): 708–44.
19. Frank J. Coppa, “Cardinal Antonelli, the Papal States, and the Counter-Risorgimento,” Journal of Church and State, 16 (1974), p. 469.
20. Martina, Pio IX, p. vii.
21. De Cesare, Roma e lo stato del papa, p. 243.
22. Ibid., p. 67.
CHAPTER 9
1. ASV-Pio IX; found in Sharon Mullen Stahl, The Mortara Affair, 1858, doctoral diss., Saint Louis University (1987), p. 34.
2. Unfortunately, the central archives of the Inquisition, at the Vatican, are not generally open to researchers.
3. Camillo Cavour, Il carteggio Cavour-Nigra dal 1858 al 1861, vol. 1 (1926), p. 206, letter 143.
4. Giacomo Martina, a Jesuit historian and the foremost contemporary biographer of Pius IX, is of a similar opinion, judging Villamarina’s remarks as off the mark. Martina, Pio IX, p. 33n50.
5. From the Pio IX archive in ASV, cited by Martina, Pio IX, p. 33n50.
6. In Italy in the Restoration period, however, there was an important body of non-Jewish opinion expressing concern about the Jews’ lack of civil rights. In addition to Cattaneo’s Ricerche economiche, see Massimo D’Azeglio, Dell’emancipazione civile degl’Israeliti (1848).
7. Quoted in Gemma Volli, “Il caso Mortara nell’opinione pubblica e nella politica del tempo,” Bollettino del Museo del Risorgimento 5 (1960), p. 1090.
8. The text is reproduced in Isidore Cahen, “L’affaire Mortara de Bologne,” Archives Israélites 19 (October 1858): 555–6.
9. Aubert, Il pontificato, pp. 145–6.
10. In France in particular, a great deal of emphasis was placed on the paternal-rights argument. See, for example, Jules Assezat, Affaire Mortara: Le droit du père (1858).
11. Draft of letter from Momolo Mortara, addressed to Son Excellence Mons. le Duc de Grammont, Ambassadeur de France près le S. Siège, no date (probably September 8, 1858), ASCIR.
12. Giuseppe Laras, “Ansie e speranze degli ebrei a Roma durante il pontificato di Pio IX,” Rassegna mensile di Israel 39 (1973): 515–17; Giacomo Martina, Pio IX e Leopoldo II (1967), pp. 200–1.
13. Falconi, Il cardinale Antonelli, pp. 239–40.
14. ASV-SS, fasc. 3, n. 167.
15. Ibid., n. 171.
16. Ibid., n. 220. Letter from Antonelli to Lionel de Rothschild, London, 13 September 1858. This is a draft of a letter and may not have actually been sent. In the margins a note is added: “Non ebbe corso” (not sent).
