The Boycott of Ancona
Jewish Collective Action in the 16th Century
The city of Ancona lies on the Adriatic coast of Italy, 180 miles north east of Rome and 200 miles south of Venice. Its port is one of Italy's busiest and in centuries past the city's economy relied on maritime trade with the Ottoman Empire through the port of Ragusa, modern day Dubrovnik in Croatia.
Until 1535, life for the Jews of Ancona was little different from any other Italian city. They were restricted in the work they could do, were obliged to wear distinctive clothing marking them out as Jews, were shunned by the majority population and subjected from time to time to punitive taxes and persecutions. Their lives improved in 1535, the indirect result of the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1496.
When Spain and Portugal expelled their Jewish populations they permitted those who converted to Christianity to stay. For many families, conversion seemed to be an easy way out. It turned out they were wrong. The Spanish population disliked them; they did not believe that their conversions were sincere and they resented the fact that they enjoyed the same freedom as Christians. They frequently reported them to the Inquisition for living secret Jewish lives and called them Marranos, meaning pigs. More politely, they were called New Christians.
It is true that many of the New Christians did try to preserve their ancestral customs, but the Inquisition persecuted them all indiscriminately, holding autos-da-fe (public trials) of those accused of observing Jewish practices, or encouraging others to do so. The trials invariably ended with mass executions, with dozens of New Christians put to death by fire. The converts soon realised that their lives were no better than if they had been expelled with their Jewish friends and family. Although forbidden to leave Spain, many did escape, heading wherever they could. Some settled in Ancona where a few returned to Judaism while the majority carried on much as before, keeping themselves to themselves, uncertain whether the Inquisition in Italy would turn out to be as brutal as that in Spain.
Scattered across Europe and North Africa, with contacts in the major ports and cities, the business people among the New Christians found their opportunities for trade greatly enhanced. Ancona, which had always been energetic in encouraging merchants to settle in the city, had recently come under papal rule. In 1535, the Pope realising the economic potential of the city, invited “all merchants of whatever nation, faith or sect, whether Turk, Jew or infidel" to Ancona, even if they were "of Jewish origin, called New Christians”. To facilitate his new policy, the Pope removed all restrictions from the Jews in the city and the New Christians were finally free to return to their former life as Jews. They believed that they were finally free of the cold hand of the Inquisition. They couldn’t have been more wrong.
The Church’s liberal attitude towards the Jews continued for 20 years, with Paul III’s successor Julius III reaffirming the policy. Then, in 1555 a new Pope, Paul IV was elected. Authoritarian and uncompromising, one of his first acts as Pope was to issue a bull, Cum Nimis Absurdum, strictly limiting the rights of Jews in the Papal States. For the New Christians of Ancona, the good days were over. In fact they were about to get much worse.
Those New Christians in Ancona who had returned to Judaism believed they were now free of the authority of the Church. Their conversion had been as the result of intolerable pressure, it was over and they had resumed their former lives. The Pope did not agree. They had been baptised and were forever Christians. Their return to Judaism was heresy.
The first sign that life was about to become immeasurably worse for the New Christians in Ancona was when the Pope ordered those who owed money to a certain individual to hand it over, on pain of death. Shortly afterwards, a decree was issued confiscating all the property belonging to the New Christians. Finally, the Pope ordered the prosecution of all suspected New Christians who had shaken off their conversion and were living as Jews. A sham trial was held, one person committed suicide and 24 were sentenced to death by burning. 27 others were condemned to row as oarsmen at the galleys, a form of forced labour akin to slavery. Those New Christians who had not yet been arrested fled the city. Some made it to the nearby port of Pesaro, several were captured by pirates in the Adriatic as they attempted to reach Ottoman shores.
The Jewish world was outraged by the massacre in Ancona. It was well known that this sort of thing happened in Spain and Portugal, the Inquisition there was forever seeking out converts who they suspected of having relapsed. But in Ancona, where Jews had lived freely for 20 years, the murders and persecutions were wholly unexpected. The Jewish merchants in Constantinople, who lived free from the oppression of the Church, were particularly disconcerted; many of them traded with Ancona, they had contacts, perhaps even family in the city. They were determined to take action.
The fabulously wealthy and hugely influential Doña Gracia Mendes was living in Constantinople at the time. She had been born into a New Christian family, her late husband had been the driving force behind an underground network smuggling forced converts out of Portugal, bringing them to Turkey by way of Antwerp and Venice. She was a powerful woman. She went with her equally powerful nephew João, the future Duke of Naxos, to see the Sultan. He was as angry as they were, the breaking apart of the New Christian community in Ancona had cost him a fortune. He wrote to the Pope in no uncertain terms, ending with a not-too-subtle threat:
Certain subjects and tributaries of ours have gone to . . . Ancona, their goods and property have been seized at your command. This seizure has resulted in the loss by our Treasury of the amount of 400,000 ducats, over and above the damage caused to our subjects, who have been ruined and cannot meet their obligations to our said Treasury. . . We therefore request Your Holiness, that . . . you will be pleased to set free our above-mentioned . . . subjects . .. . By doing so you will give occasion to us to treat in friendly fashion your subjects.
Paul IV did not become the most feared Pope of the age by giving in to threats. He ignored the Sultan.
Meanwhile the Jews had been taking action of their own. Some of the New Christians who had escaped to Pesaro offered a deal to its ruler. In return for the right to settle freely in his city they promised that Jewish merchants sailing to and from Turkey, would divert all their boats from Ancona to Pesaro. Henceforth there would be a Jewish boycott of Ancona, operating exclusively to Pesaro’s benefit. The Duke of Pesaro weighed up the risks of falling out with the Pope against the benefit of substantially more trade and agreed to the deal.
All that was needed now was to put the boycott into action. If the New Christians in Pesaro could pull it off it would become the first example of successful Jewish collective action since the Romans had invaded their homeland in the 1st century. All that was needed was for the Jewish merchants in Turkey to agree to sail in and out of Pesaro instead of Ancona.
Unlike a sovereign nation, Jews do not have a parliament or ruler to make decisions on their behalf. They have rabbis, but rabbis rarely agree among themselves any more than individual Jews do. So it is not surprising that many Jews did not agree with the boycott. Those remaining in Ancona did not want to see trade diverted to Pesaro; it meant that they would sustain a huge financial loss. They wrote to the Turkish merchants reminding them that not so long ago, the Duke of Pesaro had been accused of desecrating a synagogue and a Torah scroll. If any place should be put under a boycott it should be his city, not Ancona.
The supporters of the boycott responded by reminding the Turkish merchants of the great personal courage the Duke of Pesaro had shown by supporting them against the Pope. The Pope had already lashed out at him, dismissing him from his post as captain-general of the papal armies, a position which had brought him a significant income. The Duke had shown that he placed justice above personal gain, and therefore it was only right and fair that his city should benefit from a boycott of Ancona.
Of course, once arguments such as these break out they rarely end. The disagreements carried on for too long and the boycott never happened. The Duke of Pesaro did not receive the benefit of Ancona’s trade and the possibility of a successful Jewish collective action faded away. The Jews of Ancona, and eventually Pesaro too, were shunted into ghettoes and the privileges they had briefly enjoyed were soon forgotten.