Gli ebrei in costa d’Amalfi al tempo di Ferdinando I d’Aragona: il caso di Maiori

Abstract

The Jews on the Coast of Amalfi in the Days of Ferdinand I of Aragon: The Case of Maiori

 In May of 1494 the coastal village of Maiori in the Duchy of Amalfi was struck by a huge number of death cases, that brought on the suspension of customs’ activities and tohe postponement of one of the most important fairs of the Middle Ages in Southern Italy: the Salerno fair. A few months later the Jews Moyse de Gannectao and Gabriele de Salomone left Maiori to continue their activity as money-lenders in some safer place in the Kingdom of Naples. Discussing known and less known documents, the paper shows how the case of Maiori can be regarded as a microcosm which allows one to discover the importance of the presence of Jewish lenders in the Kingdom, and moreover to comprehend the social, economic and political conditions at the court of Ferdinand I of Aragon at the end of the 15^th century. The article presents also two interesting documents from the Archivio Capitolare in the church Collegiata di Santa Maria a Mare of Maiori; the first one reports a royal order for the requisition of the registers of all loans and of all the pawns left as collateral to the Jewish bankers and lenders of the Duchy of Amalfi; the second document identifies the exact place where the Jewish community of Maiori used to meet: a room in the front part of the church of Madonna della Libera, still in the heart of the town.