¹ This processo is found in the Archivio di Stato in Modena, Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum 244, folio 18. Here Michele Sanguinetti reports “sei mesi prima essendo andato insieme ad Abramo Saunguine, fu Calmo e a Giuseppe Pontasso da Simon Sanguineti ad impegnare ‘uno sparviero’ di Abramo, vide che Simon ruppe una Croce con un Christo, al quale era stato attacato ‘un boletino’ per ‘sprezzativo,’ cioè per manifestare disprezzo. Il crocifisso cadde a terra a da esso uscirono delle reliquie: Simon le raccolse e le gettò dalla finestra.” The idea of relics somehow falling out of a crucifix sounds odd. It suggests a false denunciation clumsily concocted by somebody who was not very familiar with the ritual objects of Catholicism. A crucifix by definition consists of a cross with the body of Christ nailed to it and is not generally used as a container for anything else. Relics are not usually kept inside crucifixes but stored in vessels called reliquaries. On the shapes of reliquaries, see Bynum, Caroline Walker, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York, Columbia University Press, 1995), 202ffGoogle Scholar.

² Biondi, Albano, Bussi, Rolando, Giovannini, Carlo, eds., Giovan Battista Spaccini, Cronaca di Modena, Vol. IV, 1617-1620 (Modena: F. C. Panini, 1993), 342Google Scholar.

³ See Muir, Edward, “The Virgin on the Street Corner: The Place of the Sacred in Italian Cities,” in Religion and Culture in the Renaissance and Reformation, ed. Ozment, Steven (Kirksville, Mo., Sixteenth Century Studies Publishers, 1989), 25–40, 28Google Scholar. Muir was influenced by Victor Turner's groundbreaking anthropological study on the rituals of the Ndembu in Zambia where he developed the concept of communitas. See Turner, VictorThe Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977)Google Scholar. Here Turner proves how the analysis of ritual behavior and symbolism may be used as a key to understanding social structure and processes.

⁴ See the Papal Bull of Gregory XIII, Antiqua iudeaorum improbitas of 1st July, 1583 in Bullarium Diplomatum et Privilegiorum Sanctorum Romanorum Pontificum, eds. Sebastiani Franco and Henrico Dalmazzo (Augustae Taurinorum, 1857–1872), VIII:378–79. For commentary and a summary of the bull, see Stow, Kenneth R., Catholic Thought and Papal Jewry Policy 1555–1593 (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1977), 33–34Google Scholar.

⁵ For more information on other Inquisitorial proceedings against professing Jews in Modena, see Aron-Beller, Katherine, Jews on Trial: The Papal Inquisition in Modena 1598-1638 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

⁶ Regarding Christian reliance on particular saints and their images to protect them from harm, see Hertz, Robert, “Saint Besse. Étude d'un Culte Alpestre,” Mélanges de sociologie religieuse et folklore (Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan, 1928), 131–191Google Scholar; and Carroll, Michael P., Veiled Threats: The Logic of Popular Catholicism in Italy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

⁷ Parkes, James, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue (London: The Soncino Press, 1934), 291Google Scholar and Ocker, Christopher, “Ritual Murder and the Subjectivity of Christ: A Choice in Medieval Christianity,” Harvard Theological Review 91, no. 2 (April 1998): 153–92, 177Google Scholar.

⁸ See Starr, Joshua, “An Iconodulic Legend and Its Historical Basis,” Speculum 8, no. 4 (October 1933): 500–503, 501CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Zafran, Eric M., “An Alleged Case of Image Desecration by the Jews and its Representations in Art: The Virgin of Cambron,” Journal of Jewish Art 2 (1974): 62–71, 62Google Scholar.

⁹ See Horowitz, Elliott who in Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007)Google Scholar, chapter 6 “The Fascination of the Abomination: Jews (and Jewish Historians) Confront the Cross,” presents an enticing and provocative thesis by arguing that Jews have in the past demonstrated a strong attraction or “illicit desire” for crucifixes. Drawing upon examples from the eleventh century onwards, a time when crucifix imagery became prominent in Western Christian piety, he suggests a collective and standardized Jewish reaction and subtext to the crucifix in diverse historical periods and geographical settings rather than an entire spectrum of reactions ranging from abhorrence to tolerant bemusement.

¹⁰ See Edgerton, Samuel Y. Jr., Pictures and Punishment: Art and Criminal Prosecution during the Florentine Renaissance (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985), 14Google Scholar. Camille, Michael, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art, Cambridge Studies in New Art History and Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 47Google Scholar notes that at this time there was a rise in the number of professional painters and sculptors who worked outside monastic patronage by forming guilds of similar workers.

¹¹ See Derbes, Ann, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy: Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideologies and the Levant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 161Google Scholar.

¹² Jacob Burckhardt has argued that this was a particularly Italian trait, since Catholics here had an advanced sense of aestheticism. See The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (London: Penguin Classics, 1990), 299Google Scholar.

¹³ See Schöner, Petra, “Visual Representations of Jews and Judaism in Sixteenth-Century Germany,” in Jews, Judaism and the Reformation in 16th Century Germany, ed. Bell, Dean Philip and Burnett, Stephen G. (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2006), 357–391, 379Google Scholar who takes this argument further and connects host desecration and image desecration charges to ritual murder.

¹⁴ Aronius, J., “Ein Wunder in Köln und die Juden,” in Zeitschrift für die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland II (Braunschweig: C. A. Schwetschke und Sohn, 1888), 76–81Google Scholar. I would like to thank Evelyne Schiff for helping with a translation of this passage.

¹⁵ On the wide range of visual images depicting the Jews' desecration of Christian images, see Eric M. Zafran, “The Iconography of Antisemitism: A Study of the Representation of the Jews in the Visual Arts of Europe, 1400–1600,” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1973), 195–216. For another interesting example in Germany, see Weber, Annette “New Attitudes towards the Jews in the Era of Reformation and Counter-Reformation: The Patronage of Bishop Echter von Mespelbrunn,” in Beyond the Yellow Badge: Anti-Judaism and Antisemitism in Medieval and Early Modern Visual Culture, ed. Merback, Mitchell B. (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2008), 347–69, 358Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 78Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Merback, Mitchell B., “Fount of Mercy, City of Blood: Cultic Anti-Judaism and the Pulkau Passion Altarpiece,” Art Bulletin LXXXVII, no. 4 (December 2005): 589–641CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸ Ibid., 625.

¹⁹ Katz, Dana, The Jew in the Art of the Italian Renaissance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 142Google Scholar. I thank Dana Katz for bringing these examples to my attention.

²⁰ On ecclesiastical prohibitions against Jews receiving church vessels as pawns, see Simonsohn, Shlomo, The Apostolic See and the Jews, 7 vols., (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, c1988–c1991), docs. 6, 210, 538, 3132Google Scholar and History 185. Jews urinating in church vessels that were pawned by Christians is a subject of discussion in the sermons of Bernardino of Siena; see Mormando, FrancoThe Preacher's Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 176–77Google Scholar. On the discouragement of rabbinical authorities, see Jewish Texts on the Visual Arts, edited with commentary by Mann, Vivian B. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), in particular 11–12, 17, 32 and 42Google Scholar. In the twelfth century Eliezer of Metz (c. 1115–1198) prohibited Jews from using Church vessels, even when they were received as pledges for loans. The thirteenth-century German Rabbi and poet Meir of Rothenburg prohibited the Jews from using Christian ceremonial items for their own ritual purposes.

²¹ See Marcus, Ivan G., “A Jewish-Christian Symbiosis: The Early Culture of Ashkenaz,” in Cultures of the Jews: A New History, ed. Biale, David (Schocken Books, 2002) 449–516, 479Google Scholar.

²² See Christian, William A. Jr.Moving Crucifixes in Modern Spain (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ Ignacio, JuanSerrano, Pulido, Injurias a Cristo: religión, política y antijudaísmo en el siglo XVII (análisis de las corrientes antijudías durante la Edad Moderna) (Instituto Internacional de Estudios Sefardés y Andalusíes: Universidad de Alcalá, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2002), 124–153Google Scholar.

²⁴ Yerushalmi, Yosef, Isaac Cardoso: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Marranism and Apologetics: Columbia University Studies in Jewish History, Culture and Institutions, No. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), 454–55Google Scholar.

²⁵ See Camerarius, Censius, Le liber Censuum de l'eglise Romaine I, ed. Fabre, P. and Duchesne, L. (Paris, 1910), 290–316Google Scholar; Twyman, S., Papal Ceremonial at Rome in the Twelfth Century; Henry Bradshaw Society, Subsidia 4 (London, 2002), 115–39Google Scholar; and Linder, Amnon “The Jews too were not absent . . . carrying Moses's Law on their Shoulders,” Jewish Quarterly Review 99, no. 3 (Summer 2009): 323–95, 350–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁶ See Prosperi, Adriano in “Incontri rituali: il papa e gli ebrei,” Storia d'Italia XI (1996) 495–520, 497–98Google Scholar.

²⁷ See Cassuto, Umberto, Gli Ebrei a Firenze nell'età del Rinascimento (Firenze: Tipografia Gallettie Cocci, 1918), 64–65Google Scholar and Dana Katz's salient discussion of this offense in The Jew in the Art of the Italian Renaissance, 107–17.

²⁸ See Jedin, Hubert, “Genesi e portata del decreto tridentino sulla venerazione delle imagini,” in his book, Chiesa della fede, Chiesa della storia: saggi scelti (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1972), 368Google Scholar.

²⁹ See Koerner, Joseph LeoThe Reformation of the Image (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 27Google Scholar.

³⁰ Carroll, Michael P., Veiled Threats: The Logic of Popular Catholicism in Italy, 30–31, 57Google Scholar.

³¹ Ibid., 60.

³² Dana Katz, The Jew in the Art of the Italian Renaissance.

³³ Luzzati, Michele, “Ebrei, Chiesa locale, ‘principe’ e popolo: due episodi di distruzione di immagini sacre alla fine del Quattrocento,” Quaderni storici 54 (1983): 847–77Google Scholar and Katz, The Jew in the Art of the Italian Renaissance, 44–68.

³⁴ Michele Luzzati, “Ebrei, Chiesa locale, ‘principe’ e popolo,” 220.

³⁵ Archivio di Stato, Modena, Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum busta 256 f. 17, 24v.

³⁶ See Dall'Olio, Guido, “Ebrei, papi, vescovi e inquisitori a Bologna alla metà del Cinquecento. Le premesse dell'espulsione del 1569,” Annali dell'Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento XXV (1999), 164–65Google Scholar. The list of images is in Gervasio, Maria, “Il ‘Chiuso degli ebrei,’ Contrade, case e portoni del ghetto” in Verso l'epilogo della convivenza. Gli ebrei a Bologna nel XVI secolo, ed. Muzzarelli, Maria Giuseppina (Firenze: Giuntina, 1996), 177–86Google Scholar.

³⁷ I thank Michele Luzzati for this information.

³⁸ See Eymeric, Nicolau, Directorium Inquisitorum, cum scholiis seu annotationibus eruditissimis d.Francisci Pegnae Hispani, S. Theologiae et Iuris Utriusque Doctoris (Rome, 1578)Google Scholar. See Directorii, 221.

³⁹ See Franceschini's, Chiara entry “Arti figurative: la rappresentazione” in Dizionario storico dell'Inquisizione vol.1, diretto da Adriana Prosperi (Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore, 2010), 102–05Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ See Bethencourt, Francisco, The Inquisition: A Global History, 1478–1834 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009), 208–09Google Scholar.

⁴¹ See, for example, the unique juridical position of Jews in Rome as described by Stow, Kenneth R., The Jews in Rome vol. I, 1536–1551, (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1995), xxxvGoogle Scholar, and the recent work of Caffiero, Marina, Battesimi forzati. Storie di ebrei, cristiani e convertiti nella Roma dei papi (Rome: Viella, 2004), 12–15Google Scholar. Irene Fosi has shown how Roman Jews appealed to the Tribunale criminale del Governatore, which in the sixteenth century had become the main authority in criminal cases for the city and district of Rome. See Fosi, Irene, ‘Criminalità ebraica a Roma fra Cinquecento e Seicento: Autorappresentazione e realtà,’ Quaderni Storici 99 (1998), 553–73Google Scholar.

⁴² Bräcker, Antje Trier's article “‘The Series “Stanza Storica’ of the Sanctum Officium in the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as a Source for the History of the Jews,” in The Roman Inquisition, the Index and the Jews: Contexts, Sources and Perspectives, ed. Wendehorst, Stephan (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2004), 169–76Google Scholar.

⁴³ Feci, Simona, “Guardare e vedere al di là del muro. Immagini sacre e iconoclastia ebraica a Roma in età moderna,” in Le Inquisizioni cristiane e gli ebrei: tavola rotonda nell'ambito della Conferenza annuale di ricerca, Roma, 20–21 December 2001, ed. Galasso, Giuseppe (Rome, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 2003), 407–429Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Ibid., 410ff.

⁴⁵ Ibid., 421ff.

⁴⁶ The efficiency of the Holy Office in Modena was often impaired by the tribunals' unstable relations with the Duke. See Katherine Aron-Beller, Jews on Trial, 32–34.

⁴⁷ Most Jews resided in the San Bartolomeo area of Modena, in the Cervetta quarter which from 1622 was nicknamed the Contrada Sanguinetti, the Via del Sole, Via dei Coltellini and Rua del Muro. Some resided until 1616 in the Contrada de Servi, but had to surrender their homes and shops, as a result of the Jesuits establishing their church and college there. Jewish shops were situated under the porches of the Via Maestra (now Via Emilia) even though at times this disturbed their Christian neighbors.

⁴⁸ See Archivio di Stato, Modena, Fondo dell'Inquisizione in chronological order: Causae Hebreorum 244, folio 8; Processi Busta 29, folio 19; Processi Busta 35, folio 10; Processi Busta 38, folio 16; Causae Hebreorum 244, folio 16; Causae Hebreorum 244, folio 18; Processi Busta 244, folio 23; Processi Busta 244, folio 29; Causae Hebreorum 245, folio 38; Processi Busta 85, folio 11; Causae Hebreorum 245, folio 58; Causae Hebreorum 246, folio 17.

⁴⁹ See, in particular, the works of Grendler, Paul, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press 1540–1605 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Schutte, Anne Jacobson, Aspiring Saints: Pretense of Holiness, Inquisition and Gender in the Republic of Venice, 1618–1750 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001)Google Scholar and Wendehorst, Stephan, ed., The Roman Inquisition, the Index and the Jews: Contexts, Sources and Perspectives (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2004)Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Archivio di Stato, Modena, Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Processi Busta 67, folio 2.

⁵¹ Franco, Sebastiani and Dalmazzo, Henrico, eds., Bullarium Diplomatum et Privilegiorum Sanctorum Romanorum Pontificum, (Augustae Taurinorum 1857–72), VIII:378–79Google Scholar. Clause 10 stated that Jews were to be punished: “If anyone mocks Christians, or makes fun of or holds in disrespect Christ the lord, who was sacrificed on the altar of the cross for our redemption, and specially on the holy day of Good Friday fixes or hangs a lamb or sheep or anything on the cross, or spits on it or does anything else against it.”

⁵² Biondi, Albano, “Gli ebrei e l'Inquisizione negli stati estensi,” in L'Inquisizione e gli ebrei in Italia, ed. Luzzati, Michele (Roma: Laterza, 1994), 265–85, 270Google Scholar. See the transcribed Inquisitorial edict of 21 June 1603, Contra gli abusi del conversare de Christiani con Hebrei. Clause 7): “To Jews, we expressly prohibit and order that they do not sell or hold in their shops, nor take as pawn objects of the church like goblets, plates, bodies, vestments, crosses, figures, images, relics and such things.” Clause 9): “They are not to meet in processions of Christians, and particularly when the most holy sacrament is being brought.” This regulation was first ordered by the Council of Vienna in 1267 which had prohibited Jews from occupying the streets during Eucharistic processions and ordered them to stay behind closed doors and windows when the consecrated host passed in the vicinity of their homes. See Rubin, Miri, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 289Google Scholar. In the fourteenth century, Jews were considered capable of the “most dangerous threats” by the papal court in Avignon, when they did not kneel and mumbled harmful words in Hebrew while it was carried through the streets.

⁵³ See Petra Schöner “Visual Representations of Jews and Judaism in Sixteenth-Century Germany,” 357–391, 372. On broadsheets and their effect during this period, see Scribner, R. W., For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1981)Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell' Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum 244, folio 29.

⁵⁵ Ibid. See also Balboni, Maria Pia, Gli Ebrei del Finale nel Cinquecento e nel Seicento (Firenze: Giuntina, 2005), 55–6Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Processi busta 29, folio 19. We are reminded here of the official removal in August 3, 1492 of the image inside Isacco di Vitale's house in Pisa, scrupulously recorded by the archiepiscopal notary. See Luzzati, “Ebrei, Chiesa locale, “Principe” e popolo: due episodi di distruzione di immagini sacre alla fine del Quattrocento,” 222.

⁵⁷ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell' Inquisizione, Processi busta 85, folio 11.

⁵⁸ See del Col, Andrea, L'Inquisizione in Italia dal XII al XXI secolo (Milan: Oscar Mondadori, 2006), 467Google Scholar and Lavenia, Vincenzo, “Gli ebrei e il fisco dell'Inquisizione. Tributi, espropri e multe tra '500 e '600,” in Le Inquisizioni cristiane e gli ebrei: tavola rotonda nell'ambito della Conferenza annuale di ricerca, Roma, 20–21 December 2001, Giuseppe Galasso (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 2003), 323–56Google Scholar. See also Archivio di Stato, Modena Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Libri di Spesa (Libro della fabbrica dell'S. Uffizio di Modena), busta 283. This document, entitled Condennationi e commutationi pecuniarie fatte nel S. Officio di Modena dall'anno 1600, decembre sino al l'anno 1604, maggio, lists the date, offence and the fine the Jews faced, and gives some indication of the sum the Inquisition collected from the Jews. According to Biondi, Albano, “Gli ebrei e l'Inquisizione negli stati Estensi,” in L'Inquisizione e gli ebrei in Italia, ed. Luzzati, Michele (Rome: Laterza, 1994), 265–85, 278Google Scholar, the Jews contributed 4,408 lire out of the 9,200 needed for the building.

⁵⁹ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione Causae Hebreorum 246, folio 17.

⁶⁰ This was true for accused Catholics as well.

⁶¹ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebrerorum 244, folio 8. On the subject of people who incur fines for suspicious behavior even when their offence has not been fully proved, see Pullan, Brian S., The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice 1550–1670, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), 62–63Google Scholar.

⁶² For other examples of Jews being accused of this offense, see Simonsohn, Apostolic See doc. 818; Dana Katz, The Jew in the Art of the Italian Renaissance, 49, 114–16 for the case of Zaccaria d' Isaaco in 1518; Brian Pullan, The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice 1550–1670, 124 for the case of the convert Gian Giacomo de' Fedeli who was accused of living as a Jew since he did not take off his hat when passing street altars and had avoided the sacrament when it was carried through the streets. In Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell' Inquisizione, Processi busta 111, folio 12, Simone Donati and Israel Rubiera of Finale were prosecuted for irreverence towards the Holy Cross, carried by friars of San Nicola while they went to collect a corpse. These Jews had failed to leave the environs of the procession. See also ibid., folio 10 where in May 1639 Davide Salomone Remelenghi was prosecuted for the same offense. See also Prosperi, Adriano, “L'Inquisizione Romana e gli ebrei,” in L'Inquisizione e gli ebrei in Italia, ed. Luzzati, Michele (Roma: Laterza, 1994), 67–120, 101Google Scholar, who records a similar case in Rome, of Mosè di Castro, who in 1677 was denounced to the Inquisition because according to his accuser “he turned his back on a crucifix and the Madonna of Montenero.”

⁶³ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum 247, folio 24, 1v. See the testimony of Father Jacobo de Laudo. On the spatial politics of the window in early modern Italy and England, see Katz, Dana “‘Clamber not you up to the casements’: On ghetto views and viewing,” Jewish History 24 (2010): 127–153CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁴ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum 244, folio 18. It is interesting that the Inquisitor does not ask the Jewish conspirators why they waited five months before bringing the accusation.

⁶⁵ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione Causae Hebreorum 244, folio 18. These conspirators tried hard to convince neighboring Christians of the Jews' infamy.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 6–7v-r. Jaghel mentions a fourth conspirator—Salomon Sacerdote who did not give a delation to the Inquisition. See the correspondence between the Inquisition and the Congregation of the Holy Office on this case. Archivio di Stato, Modena; Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Modena: Lettere della Sacra Congregazione di Roma 1609–1621, busta 252, letters of 7, 14, 29 October 1617, 25 November, 15 December, Januar 1618 and 12 April 1618. There is also an incomplete letter written to Duke Cesare d'Este dated 1618, probably from the ordinary judge about this matter, also discussing what should be the appropriate action for Jews who had falsely delated fellow Jews and tampered with Christian images. See Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem. Files on Modena, A.S.E. archivi per Materie “ebrei” busta 4 Processi 1-LXXXIII 1600–1629 pezzi n. 83, HM 5407 microfilm c, 113–116.

⁶⁷ See Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell' Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum 245, folio 44. In this processo against Leone Usilio and Paris Bellintano in 1628, a doctor was summoned by the Inquisition on 9 August 1628 and testified that Bellintano was too sick to be kept in prison.

⁶⁸ See Prosperi, Adriano, “Il condannato a morte: santo o criminale?” in Il delitto narrato al popolo. Immagini di giustizia e stereotipi di criminalità in età moderna, de Romanis, R., Loretelli, R. (Palermo: Sellerio, 1999), 219–227Google Scholar and Terpstra, Nicholas, The Art of Executing Well: Rituals of Execution in Renaissance Italy, Early Modern Studies 1 (Kirksville, Mo.: Truman State University Press, 2008)Google Scholar. Della morte confraternities were established in Italian cities between 1350 and 1550 to offer prisoners the chance to rid themselves of sins before their execution and therefore enter purgatory.

⁶⁹ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum 245, folio 58. The text states: “Since the said Naphtali had asked to be released from prison because of pressing business which he could not postpone without incurring very serious loss, at the same time protesting that he was innocent of the charges against him: it was without malice but rather through foolishness that he turned his back on the crucifix although it was true that he had been present on the bridge when it crossed over . . . The Lord Inquisitor decided that he should now receive a stern warning that in future he should abstain from such behavior and take pains to absent himself or to hide as Jews ought to do on the approach and appearance of the most holy crucifix, otherwise in future he would be more severely punished all of which he promised to bear in mind.”

⁷⁰ See also Archivio di Stato, Modena; Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum busta 250; and Canosa, Romano, ‘L'Inquisizione e gli Ebrei,’ in Storia dell'Inquisizione in Italia dalla metà del Cinquecento alla fine del Settecento, vol. I, Modena (Rome: Sapere 2000, 1986), 51–52Google Scholar.

⁷¹ Ibid., 3v.

⁷² See the responsa of Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg (1215–1293) no. 125 in Jewish Texts on the Visual Arts, Mann, Vivian B. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 46Google Scholar. Also see the responsa of Rabbi David ibn Abi Zimra (1479–1573). Ibid., 54.

⁷³ Luzzati, Michele, L'insediamento ebraico a Pisa prima del Trecento: conferme e nuove acquisizioni, in Società, istituzioni, spiritualità. (Studi in onore di Cinzio Violante, Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo: Spoleto, 1994), I:509–517Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum busta 245, folio 38, 8r (Dio ci guardi di far mai dispiacere alcuno alla B.a Virgine et ad altri santi.)

⁷⁵ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum busta 245, folio 58, 11r.

⁷⁶ Ibid., 12v.

⁷⁷ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum busta 244, folio 29, 8v.

⁷⁸ Ibid., 9v.

⁷⁹ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum busta 245, folio 38.

⁸⁰ It is interesting that Beatrice shows complete ignorance that the painting depicts the Blessed Virgin.

⁸¹ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum busta 245, folio 38.

⁸² Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum busta 244, folio 8, 18v.

⁸³ Ibid., 7v.

⁸⁴ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione Causae Hebreorum busta 246, folio 17.

⁸⁵ Ibid.

⁸⁶ This processo which spans nine years from 1635 to 1644, is in fact the longest trial proceeding against professing Jews housed in the Papal Inquisitorial archive in Modena. It covers over 400 pages of parchment and holds a collection of different documents, including Inquisitor General Giacomo Tinti di Lodi's personal notes that he wrote in preparation for interrogations, and various correspondence between the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in Rome, local secular courts and the Papal Inquisition in Modena.

⁸⁷ Ioly Zorattini, P. C., “Derekh Teshuvah: La via del ritorno,” in L'Identità dissimulata. Giudaizzanti iberici nell'Europa cristiana dell'età moderna, ed. Ioly Zorattini, P. C. (Firenze: Olschki, 2000), 195–248, 243Google Scholar.

⁸⁸ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum 244, folio 8, 33v.

⁸⁹ Archivio di Stato, Modena. Fondo dell'Inquisizione, Causae Hebreorum busta 245, folio 38, 3v.

⁹⁰ Ibid.

⁹¹ Ibid, 12v.

⁹² See Prosperi, Adriano, “Madonne di città e madonne di campagna. Per un'incheista sull dinamiche del sacro nell'Italia post-tridentina,” in Culto dei santi, istituzioni, e classi sociali in età preindustriale edited by Gajano, Sofia Boesch and Sebastian, Lucia (L'Aquila: Japadre Editore, 1984), 615–47Google Scholar and Gentilcore, David, “Methods and Approaches in the Social History of the Counter-Reformation in Italy,” Social History 17, no.1 (1992): 73–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar. None of these cases involved Jewish desecration.