July 31 1571 – 9 Av 5331
Florence
Cosimo de’ Medici, de facto ruler of Florence, established a Jewish ghetto in Florence and insisted on distinctive Jewish dress. Though he’d encouraged Italian Jewish refugees to settle in the region and was long considered their patron – perhaps influenced by his wife’s early association with Jewish philanthropist and businesswomen Benvenita Abravanel – the ever-pragmatic Cosimo reversed his position after he was widowed. To curry favor with Spain and the Papal States, he shut down the Jewish banks in 1570 and created a ghetto in Siena as well.
Cosimo presumably didn’t realize he’d established the Florence ghetto on the anniversary of the destruction of the First and Second Temples.
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