Blood Passover

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and its territories for four years, in addition to the payment of a fine of two hundred gold ducats, to be paid partly to the Hospital of Piety [123] .

But Salamoncino was back at work as early as one year later, in 1489, managing his network of banks, at Piove di Sacco and Padua [124]. In 1495, the municipality of Padua petitioned the Republic of Venice to revoke the chapters of the loan granted to Salamoncino as well as all related privileges [125]. But Venice refused. As mentioned by Marin Sanudo in his Diaries, in 1499, "Salamonsin de Piove de Sacho" was one of the Jewish bankers engaged in negotiations with Venice for the concession of the huge sum of fifteen thousand ducats, to be pledged by the Republic "in the Turkish matters", i.e., the war effort against the Sublime Porte [126]. Salamoncino -- who had intended to remain at Piove di Sacco at least until 1504, according to Sanudo -- was definitively expelled from the city of Venice one year later, allowing the city to breathe one last sigh of relief. Salamoncino’s memory, ambiguous and disturbing, was then lost in the mists of the lagoons of Venice.

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CHAPTER THREE

ASHER, THE BEARDED JEW (1475)

Master Tobias da Magdeburg, the physician from Trent, who reached Venice in February 1469 during Friedrich III’s visit, had other information to be supplied to the judges investigating the death of little Simon. His news was disturbing, linking the German Jews, reaching Venice in the Emperor’s train, with the personage of the Candian merchant, David Mavrogonato, and his mysterious dealings.

It seems that Mavrogonato, for the occasion of the imperial visit, had brought with him, perhaps from Cyprus, a large consignment of sugar and blood to be peddled on the Venetian piazza. These were expensive ingredients, indispensable to the preparation of medications and unguents considered of certain effectiveness and of great advantage by the pharmacopoeia of the time, and it is not to be marveled at that the shrewd merchant from Candia intended to offer them for sale at Venice, where all the Jewish physicians, surgeons, herb alchemists, and specialists, both Christians and Jews, had agreed to meet on that occasion, attracted by the prospect of a flattering and profitable imperial recognition. But, according to Maestro Tobias, those German Jews who turned to Mavrogonato in great numbers -- known by them as the "Jew with the sugar" -- to acquire the precious goods he had for sale, were, in fact, seeking to purchase Christian blood, and, in particular, the blood of Christian children, for use, not only in the preparation of costly and miraculous medications, but in obscure magical and religious rites as well [127]. David Mavrogonato had no intention of dirtying his hands directly in negotiations of this kind, but used, as a go-between, an unscrupulous local charlatan, a certain Hossar (or Osser, which rendered in the Ashkenazi pronunciation the name Asher, corresponding to the Italian Anselmo). This Jew, from Cologne, was known all over Venice as "the Jew with the beard" [128].

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The name of this Hossar, dedicated to shady dealings between Venice and the cities of the mainland and linked twofold to Mavrogonato, appears in the depositions of another important personality in the Trent trials. Israel, son of Mayer (Meir) of Brandenburg in Saxony, was a young man twenty three years old, itinerant artist by profession, earned his money as a miniaturist, and, in the case in question, a binder of manuscripts and Hebraic and Latin codes. He, too, was arrested in 1475 in Trent under the accusation of complicity in the killing of little Simon. He was to prove a bold and shrewd double-dealer, agreeing in appearance to convert to Christianity and assume the new name of Wolfgang, not just to save himself from a certain and cruel condemnation to death, but above all, camouflaged by conversion, to assist the Jewish women accused and arrested for the crime, obtaining their release or facilitating their escape [129]. Once discovered and unmasked, he was publicly executed in January of 1476. His body, broken on the wheel, was to be left at the place of execution, a spectacle for public mockery and a feast for animals.

Israel Wolfgang had informed the judges at Trent that he had been Salamone da Piove di Sacco’s guest in the spring of 1471, for the Passover dinner, with the participation of the banker’s sons, David Mavrogonato’s business associates, and their respective families. The patron of the house was said to have made use of dried and pulverized blood for ritual purposes, as was the custom among German Jews, dissolving it in the wine and kneading into the unleavened bread. Under these circumstances, Salomon's son, Salamoncino, in the presence of the brother Marcuccio, is said to have informed young Israel that the blood, probably extracted from the veins of a Christian child, had been supplied "by a Jewish merchant, who had brought it from overseas, perhaps from the island of Cyprus", alluding, by means of this periphrasis [circumlocution], to Mavrogonato [130]. What is more, Salamoncino confirmed that the go-between in those sales was, as usual, Hossar, or Asher, whose business it was to sell blood from Venice to the other centers of the Republic in which there were active Jewish communities.

The famous money lender Salomone di Lazzaro "from Germany", active at Crema and Cremona, was also an assiduous client of this itinerant wanderer [131].

Wolfgang knew Hossar personally, and visited Hossar in prison near the Ponte di Paglia in Venice, where he was detained for attempting to sell "alchemical silver", i.e., counterfeit money. The reasons for this strange visit are not

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clear, nor did Wolfgang bother to explain. Perhaps it would not be too far from the truth to think that he intended to supply himself with powdered gold and silver at advantageous prices from the capable and expert dealer which Hossar was reputed to be, for use in miniatures of any codes which he might be commissioned to paint by rich and influential persons. This might explain the presence of the enterprising artist at Piove di Sacco, in Salamone’s house, whose table would otherwise be inaccessible to a young man of low rank and without resources, like him.

Wolfgang had furthermore come into contact with Hossar before, and knew that that alchemist of dubious reputation lived near the Rialto, in the direction of Mestre, and might be about forty years old, dressed in black and wearing a beard of the same color. At Venice, Hossar was known by boys as "the Jew with the beard". Hossar had a brother, some years older than he, called Big Salamoncino, due to his stature, and perhaps to distinguish him from Salamoncino da Piove, whose presence in the heart of the Jewish community of Venice and at the official ceremonies in the synagogue must have been frequent. According to Wolfgang, who made his depositions before the judges of Trent in November 1475, Hossar-Anselmo, "the Jew with the beard", had died about six months before, perhaps in prison [132].

The information supplied by Israel Wolfgang of Brandenburg in his testimony is exactly, and very many ways, surprisingly, confirmed by the archive documents. Hossar-Asher "with the beard" (Anselmus judeus a barba) was in fact tried at Venice on 3 September 1473 on an accusation of selling two bars of false gold, i.e., silver covered with a foil of gold powder, to an artisan in that city, after having extorted a fraudulent official registration from the essayer of Rialto, responsible for the stamping and weighing of gold [133]. Hossar "with the beard" was sentenced to six months in prison and stricken from the registry of bulk gold and silver dealers at Venice [134]. He was also said to have been compelled to compensate the victim of the swindle for the economic harm done, before serving his term of imprisonment.

123

"[...] quod dictus Salamoncinus, iam prope ea retentus, bene retentus remaneat [...] et quod procedatur contra Salamoncinum quondam Salamonis de Plebisacci iudei, qui fuit mandator et auctor dicte percussionis [...] captum fuit quod ipse Salamoncinus complere debeat menses sex in carceribus clausus, solvat ducatos ducentos auri, quorum centum sint hospitali Pietatis, alii verum centum sint Advocatorum comunis, sit postea bannitus per annos quatuor".

124

In the summer of 1490, Salamoncino invested capital in the Banco dei Finzi at Rovigo (cfr. E. Traniello, Gli ebrei e le piccole città. Economia e società nel Polesine del Quattrocento , Rovigo, 2004, pp. 116-117).

125

Cfr. Jacoby, New Evidence on Jewish Bankers in Venice, cit., pp. 156-157; Carpi, L'individuo e la collettività, cit., p. 58. On 11 February 1495, a legal dispute was recorded between the municipality of Piove di Sacco and "Salamoncinus, hebreus phoenerans in hoc loc Plebiscacci". The document summarizes the clauses of the items for the loan, granted in a timely fashion by the community to Salamoncino, including that of being able to accept any type of pledge as security for loans, with the exception of objects of worship of the Christian religion ("[...] per formam capitulorum concessum est ipsi Salamoncino libere praestari super quocumque pignore indifferenter, exceptis crucibus et calcibus, sive rebus ecclesiasticus sacratis, tamquam phoenerator publicus"). Cfr. P. Plinton, Codice Diplomatico Saccense, Rome, 1894, no. 552.

126

Marin Sanudo, I diarii, by R. Fulin et al., Venice, 1879-1903, II, column 42 (22 May 1499), III, column 803 (1500).

127

"Et inter ipsos Iudeos fuit dictum [...] quod in civitate Venetarium tunc erat quidam magnus mercator Iudeus de insula Candie, qui portavit magnum quantitatem sanguinis pueri Christiani ad vendendum, et etiam portaverat magnam quantitatem zuccari. Et quod dici audivit a quodam Ioseph Forles, qui venerat post Serenissimum Imperatorem Venetias, quod volevat emere de sanquine a dicto mercatore Hebreo. Et similiter dici audivit a quibusdam aliis, de quidibus non recordatur, quod volebant emere de dicto sanguine, licet ipse non emerit. Dicit tamen quod, crede suo, omnes alii Iudei, qui ibi aderant, emerunt de dicto sanguine" (cfr. A. Esposito and D. Quaglioni, Processi contro gli ebrei di Trento,1475-1478: I: I processi del 1475, Padua, 1990, pp. 328-329). The fact that the blood put up for sale, together with the sugar, by Mavrogonato was of "pueri Cristiani" [Christian boys] appears to be an allusion by Tobias da Magdeburg or German Jews having moved to Venice in the retinue of Friedrich III, with whom he had spoken. There is nothing to cause us to believe, however, that the information supplied by Tobias should, on the whole, be considered "exotic details" (cfr. R. Po-Chia Hsia, Trent 1475. A Ritual Murder Trial, New Haven, Conn., 1992, p. 46), just as the description of the Jew from Candia as a "great merchant in the imperial entourage, who sold sugar and blood" (ibidem). On the sugar manufacturies transplanted from Venice to Crete starting at the beginning of the XIV century and on the curative uses of sugar, particularly widespread in the Jewish medieval medical treatises, see, in particular, S.W. Mintz, Sweetness and Power. The Place of Sugar in Modern History , Baltimore (Md.), 1985.

128

"Et cum eo (qui vocabatur 'el Judeo dal çuccaro') conversabatur Hossar Iudesu, qui habitat Venetiis et vocatur "el Zudio de la barba", qui est de Colonia et ab omnibus cognoscitur" (cfr. Esposito and Quaglioni, Processi, cit., vol. I, p. 329).

129

The figure of Israel Wolfgang of Brandenburg is interpreted differently by Po-Chia Hsia (Trent 1475, cit., pp. 91-104: "Oscillating between the different roles demanded of him, Israel was alternatively the wandering Jew, the Christian convert, informant of the apostolic commissioner, and the cooperative prisoner”. In my view, a less superficial reading of his depositions permits an understanding of the consistency among the apparent contradictions in his behavior.

130

"Salamon parvus [= Salamoncinus] dixit sibi Wolfgango quadam die in Plebe Sacchi, in Curia Domus praedicti Salomonis (Martuii), quod Salomon, pater ipsius Salamon parvi, habuerunt dictum sanguinem a quodam Judeo, qui illum detulerat de ultra Mari et, ut credit, de insula Cypri" (cfr. [Benedetto Bonelli], Dissertanzione apologetica sul martirio del beato Simone da Trento nell'anno MCCCCLXXV dagli ebrei ucciso , Trento, Gianbattista Parone, 1747, p. 64). The blood referred to was dried and reduced to powder, and it is therefore difficult to believe that it could have been confused with wine, and, in particular, with the Malvasia wine from Candia, in which Mavrogonato seems to have dealt on a large scale. For the hypothesis of the Malvasia wine of Candia exchanged for blood, see D. Nissim, Il legame tra i processi di Trento contro gli ebrei e la tipografia ebraica di Piove di Sacco del 1475 , in "Annali dell'Istituto Storico Italo-Germanico in Trento", XXV (1999), pp. 672-673, promptly follwed by D. Carpi, who presents it as obvious (L’individuo e la collettività. Saggi di storia degli ebri a Padova e nel Veneto nell'eta del Rinascimento , Firenze, 2002, pp. 29, 43).

131

On Salamone di Lazzaro "de Alemannia" and his money lending activity, cfr. C. Bonetti, Gli ebrei a Cremona, Cremona, Cremona, 1917, p. 9; G.A. Mantovani, La communità ebraica di Crema nel secolo XV e le origini del Monte di Pietà, in "Nuova Rivista Storica", LIX (1975), p. 378; Sh. Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, Jerusalem, 1982, vol. I, pp. 36-37, 220-221, 246-247 (nos. 48, 464, 524).

132

Wolfgang's deposition on Hossar-Anselmo "de la barba" is summarized by G. Divina, Storia del beato Simone da Trento, Trent, 1902, vol. II, pp. 18-19.

133

ASV, Avogaria di Comun, Raspe, 3653 (II), cc. 44v-45r (cc. 149v-150r, according to the modern numbering in pencil at the bottom of the page (3 September 1473). "Anselmus, iudeus a Barba, contra quem processum fuit et est per antescriptos dominos advocatores in Consilio Xlta, pro eo quod, ad finem defraudandi mercationis et maiorus sui lucri, ausus est in fundo denariorum fundellorum, ubi sollitum est accipi sagium argenti, fundidit aliquantum limare aurri, ita quod videbatur argentum ipsum tenere aurum [...] Sicque cum ipsis fundelis accessit ad sagiatorum folee auri in Rialto, qui sagium fect et fecti bulletinum ipsi iudeo, prout solitum est fieri, quem postea argentum dictus Anselmus vendidit Joanne Antonio partitori, in eiusdem danno et deceptione". Further along in the same document it states that that the judges had decided to proceed "contra Anselmum iudeum pro istis duobus fundellis argenti fundatis, demonstrantibus tenere aurium et non tenentibus, nisi in locis in quibus solit acceperi sagium per sagiatorem comunis, vinditis Joanni Antonio partitori in euidsem deceptionem et damnum maximum". The victim of the swindle appears with the qualification partitor, i.e., a refiner of precious metals, assigned to the separation of of gold from silver. It should be noted that at Venice, metal assaying was executed by approved assayers in the Zecca. In the Fifteen Century, four officials, two for gold and two for silver, were assigned to their registration and weighing, and an additional three assayers, who were entitled to operate in Zecca, in the "statione comune" at Rialto (the location selected by Hossar for his fraud), or in their own shop. In this regard, see F.C. Lane and R.C. Mueller, Money and Banking in Medieval and Renassance Venice. Coins and Moneys of Account, Baltimore (Md), 1985, index, s.v. Assay office and Gold, assaying of; A. Stahl, The Mint of Venice in the Middle Ages, Baltimore (Md), 2000, index, s.v. Assay and Gold Estimator.

134

"Quod iste Anselmus menses sex in carceribus et perpetuo perivetur possendi exercendi mercaturam auri et argenti grezorum Venetiis".