VICENZA

VICENZA, city in N. Italy. In the second half of the 14th century the commune of Vicenza invited a group of Jews to establish a loan-bank there. They were followed by other Jewish bankers, among them the Musetto family (1425), forming a small Jewish settlement whose members engaged in commerce in addition to moneylending. In 1453 there was an unsuccessful attempt to expel the Jews. The rumor that the Jews of bassano had in 1485 murdered a child for ritual purposes (see blood libel ) and the public sermons of the fanatical bernardino da feltre (who also initiated the establishment of a monte di pieta at Vicenza) provided the climate for a ducal decree, issued in April 1486 and implemented in June, expelling the Jews from the city and its environs. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Milano, Bibliotheca, nos. 253 m, 1418s; Milano, Italia, 140, 209; Roth, Italy, 162, 169, 173; D. Carpi, in: Archivio Veneto, 68 (1961), 17ff.; idem, in: I. Klausner et al. (eds.) Sefer ha-Yovel… N.M. Gelber (1963), 199–203; G. Volli, in: RMI, 34 (1968), 513–26, 564–9. (Alfredo Mordechai Rabello)