The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe Mil

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The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe: Milan

15651597
Flora Cassen
AJS Review / Volume 38 / Issue 01 / April 2014, pp 59 - 88
DOI: 10.1017/S0364009414000038, Published online: 02 May 2014
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0364009414000038

How to cite this article:
Flora Cassen (2014). The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe: Milan 15651597 .
AJS Review, 38, pp 59-88 doi:10.1017/S0364009414000038
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Association for Jewish Studies 2014
doi:10.1017/S0364009414000038
T HE L AST S PANISH E XPULSION IN E UROPE :

M ILAN 15651597
Flora Cassen
Abstract: In 1597 King Philip II of Spain expelled the Jews from Milan
at the end of a thirty-year power struggle between secular and religious
Italian authorities and Spanish imperial powers. These conflicts reveal
that the expulsion followed less from Philip IIs personal feelings about
the Jews than from his approach to governing and the necessity to preserve and increase his power in Italy. They also expose the fluctuating
boundaries of imperial powers in distant territories resistant to accepting them, highlighting both the extent and the limits of Spanish rule in
Italy. Examined in detail and in its larger historical context, the case of
Milan elucidates the mechanisms of an expulsion, foregrounding the
intricate political, financial, and religious issues that led up to the
last Spanish expulsion in Europe.
Empires often ground their rising dominance in ideology, religion, or both.

Thus the Spanish Empire of the sixteenth century conceived of itself as the ultimate bastion of Christianity; its destiny was to bring the word of Jesus to the
world as well as to defend Europe against Protestants and other heretics from
within and against Ottomans from outside its borders.1 In theory, the Jews were
not a concern because they had been expelled in 1492. However, the small
Jewish community of Milan would prove to be a thorny challenge that forced
King Philip II of Spain to balance a mighty religious ideology with compelling
political and economic concerns.
Philip II became the Duke of Milan in 1544 but did not raise the specter of
expulsion until 1566, decreed it only in 1590, and carried it out in 1597a year
before his death, at the end of a protracted power struggle between local Italian
authorities and Spanish imperial powers. Although the king may have favored
expulsion all along, it was a divisive issue: the two most important towns of the
state, Pavia and Cremona, tirelessly pushed for the Jews to leave, whereas
the Milanese senate and the Spanish governor protected the Jews. Moreover,
everyone along the chain of command that extended from small town councils
in the Italian countryside to the highest spheres of power in Madrid weighed in
An early version of this article was presented at a seminar organized by the Carolina Center for
Jewish Studies in September 2012. I would like to thank the organizers and participants for their comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank Robert Chazan for reading successive versions of the
article and offering helpful suggestions. Finally I am grateful to the anonymous readers whose comments helped me improve and sharpen the argument.
1. Anthony Pagden, Lords of All the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France
c.1500c.1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 2962; Anthony Pagden, Peoples and
Empires (New York: The Modern Library, 2003), 3946, 5972; Henry Kamen, Empire: How Spain
Became a World Power 14921763 (New York: Harper Collins, 2003), 348.
59
Flora Cassen
at some point during the process. Philips need to adjudicate between competing
claims among groups of elites both constrained and constituted what we call
Philips policy. The story of the Jews of Milan, therefore, provides an important
perspective on the fluctuating boundaries of imperial powers in distant territories
resistant to accepting them.
That Philip II found himself in a position to decide the Milanese Jews fate
in the first place was a result of the tangled legacy of early modern state formation.
A casualty of the Franco-German wars of the sixteenth century, the duchy of Milan
became part of the Habsburg Empire of Charles V in 1535. When Philip II succeeded his father, Charles V, in 1556, the duchy was integrated into the Spanish
Empire. A governor was appointed to represent the king, while Milans interests
were conveyed at the royal court in Madrid by the Council of Italy.2 Thus
Philip II of Spain, one of the most powerful rulers of his time and a fervent
Catholic, accidentally became the lord of a small community of Jews and for
the first time, perhaps, since 1492, an Iberian monarch needed to decide
whether to devise a Spanish Jewish policy.
Historians investigating the 1597 expulsion have looked to Philip II himself
for an explanation; in particular they have examined his own anti-Jewish feelings,
his desire to appease local anti-Jewish sentiments, or both. For instance, in his biography of Philip II, Geoffrey Parker argued that Philip had always been antiSemitic The king heartily approved of his fathers action in expelling the
Jews from Naples (in 1544) and desired to follow his example with the nine
hundred or so Jews living in Lombardy.3 Taking a more balanced approach,
Renata Segre and Shlomo Simonsohn argued that a combination of local animosity against the Jews in Italy and Philips own anti-Judaism motivated the expulsion.4 But these arguments do not provide a satisfying explanation for Philips
complex Jewish policies. After all, he accepted Jewish communities in Spanish
North Africa and expelled Milans Jews only at the very end of his long reign,
after several decades during which he, along with Spanish and Italian officials
and the Jews themselves, paid regular attention to the issue.5
2. Federico Chabod, Storia di Milano nellepoca di Carlo V (Torino: G. Einaudi, 1971), 5;

Domenico Sella and Carlo Capra, Il ducato di Milano dal 1535 al 1796 (Torino: UTET, 1984), 3;
Aurelio Musi, LItalia nel sistema imperiale spagnolo, in Nel sistema imperiale: lItalia spagnola,
ed. Aurelio Musi (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1994), 947; and Aurelio Musi, LItalia dei
vicer: integrazione e resistenza nel sistema imperiale spagnolo (Cava de Tirreni [Salerno]: Avagliano, 2000).
3. Geoffrey Parker, Philip II, The Library of World Biography (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978),
193.
4. Renata Segre, Gli ebrei lombardi nellet spagnola, Memorie dellacademia delle scienze
di Torino 4, 1973, 80127; Shlomo Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan: A Documentary
History of the Jews of Italy (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1982), 1:
xxviiixxxvii.
5. For more on the Jews of Spanish North Africa and their eventual expulsion in 1669, see
Jonathan Israel, The Jews of Spanish North Africa, 16001699, Transactions of the Jewish Historical
Society of England, 26 (1979): 7186; Jonathan Israel, The Jewish Community of Spanish Oran and
Their Expulsion, Mediterranean Historical Review 9, no. 2 (1994): 23555; Juan Antonio Sanchez
60
The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

Indeed, the kings notes and letters show that the Jews of Milan commanded
the Spanish monarchs attention to a surprising degree. He ruled an empire that
extended from the Americas to the Philippines, but took the time to weigh in on
the fate of a small, marginal population (census numbers reveal that in all of
Milans territory there were never more than a thousand Jews). Local issues
were regularly discussed by the senators in Milan, but only the most important
ones reached Philip II in Madrid. The situation of Milans Jews, for reasons
beyond the Jews control, raised fundamental questions about the hierarchy of
principles that governed Spanish rule in conquered lands. Italians, in compliance
with papal doctrine, generally tolerated Jews, whereas Spanish law mandated their
expulsion; the empires religious ideology collided with economic arguments in
support of the Jews presence; and the king needed to decide when and how to
intervene in far-flung power struggles. Furthermore, the status of the Jews in
Europe was in flux at the time and debated in many a European capital. Based
on the mercantilist argument that the Jews expertise in commerce and finance
would benefit their economies, some countries that had previously expelled the
Jews readmitted them. Jonathan Israel has noted the simultaneous re-entry of
Jews into the Czech lands, Italy, Germany, France, and the Netherlands.6
Despite its distinct features, the Spanish debate on Milans Jews occurred
during a time of broader discussions on the status of the Jews across Europe.
For older expulsions (including the one from Spain in 1492) historians have
little direct documentation other than the edicts of expulsion themselves.7 In
Milans case, however, everyone who had a stake in the fate of the Jews wrote
to the king of Spain, demanding expulsion or arguing against it. Thirty years of
discussion between Philip and his advisors in Spain and Italy left an extensive
paper trail that sheds light on the motives and factors that spurred the expulsion.
Archives in Italy and Spain contain much of this material, which includes reports
Belen, La expulsion de los judios dOran en 1669, in Espacio, tiempo y forma. Serie IV historia
moderna, 6, 1993, 15598; and Jean-Frederic Schaub, Les Juifs du roi dEspagne (Paris: Hachette Litteratures, 1999), 14, 2944.
6. Israel, European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism 15501750, 29.
7. For the texts of the expulsion edicts, see Robert Chazan, Church, State, and Jew in the Middle
Ages (New York: Behrman House, 1980), 30919. For more on different medieval expulsions of Jews,
see Robin R. Mundill, Englands Jewish Solution: Experiment and Expulsion, 12621290 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002); Robert Chazan, Medieval Jewry in Northern France: A Political
and Social History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973); William Chester Jordan, The
French Monarchy and the Jews: From Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1989); Jane S. Gerber, Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience
(New York: Free Press, 1994); Haim Beinart, Order of the Expulsion from Spain: Antecedents,
Causes and Textual Analysis, in Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World, ed. Benjamin R.
Gampel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 7799; Haim Beinart, The Expulsion of the
Jews from Spain, new ed. (Oxford and Portland, Ore.: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization,
2005); Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, A Jewish Classic in the Portuguese Language, in Consolao s
tribulaes de Israel (Lisbon: Fundao Calouste Gulbenkian, 1989); Henry Kamen, The Mediterranean and the Expulsion of Spanish Jews in 1492, Past and Present, no. 119 (May 1988): 3055.
61
Flora Cassen
to the king from the Milanese senate and governor, the kings replies (sometimes
penned in his own hand), letters and memos from Italian and Spanish officials at
all levels, and letters from leaders of Jewish communities.
In addition to the archival material, there are two Hebrew narrations of the
events. Both are found in the same book: Sefer emek ha-bakha (The Vale of Tears)
by Joseph ha-Kohen, a historian and doctor of Sephardic origin living in the
Republic of Genoa, whose parents had been expelled from Spain in 1492.
Joseph ha-Kohen had close links to Milanese Jewry and knew its leadership personally. He concluded his chronicle, Emek ha-bakha, in 1575, around the time he
died, whereupon an anonymous author, who called himself the Corrector, took
over and told the story of Milanese Jews up to their expulsion.8 In contrast to
Joseph ha-Kohen, the Corrector was an Ashkenazic Jew born in Lodi in the
duchy of Milan, where he resided until the expulsion of 1597, whereupon he
moved to Vercelli and finally Monferrato. Monferrato is also where Joseph
ha-Kohen lived in 15756, the last year of his life. Based on biographical information provided by the Corrector, it appears that he revised the Emek around
1600. But because the Corrector backtracked and started his narration in 1566,
there are two Hebrew accounts in the chronicle that relate the early events that
led to the expulsion.
The surviving material, thus, offers a multifaceted picture of the Jews
expulsion from Milan that balances Philip IIs personal influence and motivations
against the impact of multilayered conflicts between and across Jewish and Christian societies in Italy and Spain. The kings administrative style was cryptic: he
asked many questions and ordered newer and deeper investigation from an evergrowing group of advisors, but rarely divulged his own thinking. Philip IIs empire
was a typical example of what John Elliott has called composite monarchies, a
patchwork of adjoined territories with their own traditions and ruling elites rather
than a fully integrated empire.9 As king, he governed it with the help of an enormous bureaucracy, superimposed on local administrations that predated Spanish
rule.10 Even though all Spanish officials eventually reported to the monarch,
their individual power varied considerablyas did the degrees of cooperation
or resistance of the territories ruling elites. Thus the government of the Spanish
8. Harry S. May argued that the Corrector was Samuel D. Luzzato, but Almbladh strongly disagreed. Joseph ha-Kohen, The Vale of Tears, trans. Harry S. May (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971), xxi;
Joseph ha-Kohen, Sefer emek ha-bakha, ed. Katherine Almbladh (Uppsala: Uppsala University,
1981), 31. The Hebrew emek is variously translated as vale or valley.
9. John H. Elliott, A Europe of Composite Monarchies, Past & Present 137, no. 1 (November
1, 1992): 4871.
10. John Elliott illustrates the massiveness of Spains administration by its growing use of paper.
At the end of Philip IIs reign, a report on the viceroy of Peru took more than thirteen years and 49,555
sheets of paper to complete. By contrast, a generation earlier Charles V is said to have asked for pen and
paper, but none was to be found in the palace! John H. Elliott, Spain and Its Empire in the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries, in Spain and Its World, 15001700 (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1989), 15. The proliferation of universities and students in training for government service was necessary to support this growing administration; see Richard L. Kagan, Students and Society in Early
Modern Spain (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974).
62

Empire was an intricate quadrille: the king needed great political know-how if
he wanted to accomplish anything other than by brute force, and local aristocracies
walked a fine line between maintaining their independence and cultivating good
relations with their powerful, feared Spanish overlords.11
J EWISH L IFE
IN
S PANISH M ILAN
The duchy of Milanthe peninsulas largest inland statewas home to a

predominantly Ashkenazic Jewish population.12 Jews lived in towns and cities
across the duchy, but did not receive permission to settle in the city of Milan
itself. Although agriculture in the fertile Po Valley formed the base of Milans
economy, the Jews primary means of sustenance was moneylending. Nearly all
of the Jews early residency permits (called condotte) were granted for the
purpose of establishing banks; in 1533, Francesco Sforza invoked moneylending
to justify the Jews presence in his duchy.13 The major centers of Jewish life in
Milan were Cremona, Pavia, Lodi, Alessandria, and Novara. Cremona counted
approximately ten Jewish banks. In Pavia, a Jew named Jacob Levita had operated
a large bank since 1527. In 1548, he successfully petitioned Charles V for exclusive lending privileges, but these were ignored by other Jewsso much so that by
the late 1550s, the city counted at least seven Jewish banks. Lodi had four or five
Jewish banks, while Alessandria and Novara were each dominated by one large
Jewish family that ran a bank as its main business (one such family, the Sacerdotis
of Alessandria, also traded in arms and grain).
Under Spanish authority, lending remained the mainstay of Milans Jewish
economy; in fact, the Spanish administration encouraged the Jews to engage in
11. John H. Elliott, A Provincial Aristocracy: The Catalan Ruling Class in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries, in Spain and Its World, 15001700 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989),
72. Recently, Cardim, Herzog, Ibanez, and Sabatini have referred to Spains and Portugals global
empires as polycentric monarchies using a model of political relations that rejects the view of
radial bilateral relations between center and periphery in favor of the notion of many different interlinked centers that interacted with the central monarchy but also among themselves in the active construction of the imperial polity. See Pedro Cardim et al., eds., Polycentric Monarchies: How Did Early
Modern Spain and Portugal Achieve and Maintain a Global Hegemony? (Eastbourne, UK and Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2012), 311. For more on the specifics of Spanish government in
Italy, see Antonio Alvarez-Ossorio Alvario, Milan y el legado de Felipe II: Gobernadores y corte provincial en la Lombardia de los Austrias (Madrid: Sociedad estatal para la conmemoracion de los centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 2001); Antonio Alvarez-Ossorio Alvario, The State of Milan and the
Spanish Monarchy, in Spain in Italy: Politics, Society, and Religion 15001700, ed. Thomas James
Dandelet and John A. Marino (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 99135; and Claudio Donati, The Profession
of Arms and the Nobility in Spanish Italy, in Spain in Italy: Politics, Society, and Religion 1500
1700, ed. Thomas James Dandelet and John A. Marino (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 299325.
12. Ariel Toaff, Gli insediamenti ashkenaziti nellItalia settentrionale, in Gli ebrei in Italia,
ed. Corrado Vivanti, vol. 11, Storia dItalia (Turin: Einaudi, 1996), 15571.
13. Segre, Gli ebrei lombardi nellet spagnola, 310: [I]n order to protect Christians from the
occasion of sin, in the form of usurious depravity, as well as to provide assistance to their poor and
needful subjects. Francesco Sforza, cited by Roberto Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 2935.
63
Flora Cassen
what Segre has called a credit of sustenance that was intended to give relief and
breathing room to the poorest segments of the population.14 After the start of the
Dutch rebellion in the late 1560s, Jewish banks would also provide welcome relief
to the stream of exhausted Spanish soldiers incessantly passing through the
duchy.15
The Duchy of Milan was not home to a unified Jewish community. No governing central body presided over its scattered groups. Cremona and Pavia had
larger Jewish populations but most settlements were small, sometimes consisting
of a family or two, or even a single Jew.16 Only Cremonas community had a
rabbi.17 Inasmuch as the expulsion eventually united Milans Jews, their
common fate derived from external politics; they now lived on Philip IIs lands
and were subject to his laws and the control of his administrators.
Although Milans Jewry was atypical and small, its encounter with Spain,
the most powerful empire of its time, is a particularly compelling case through
which to study Spanish imperial policies. In contrast to the Sephardic Jews who
had flocked to the large port cities of Italy, often after fleeing the Iberian Peninsula
and a life of hidden Judaism, the Jews of Milan were the only openly Jewish community living under Spanish rule in Europe. Numerous Jews lived in Spains
North African possessions, most notably in Oran, but to the extent that there
were Jews in Spains European (or, for that matter, American) dominions,
they were conversos or crypto-JewsJewish converts to Christianity and their
descendants, who allegedly continued to practice Judaism in secret.18 Although
the powerful apparatus of the Inquisition, which Philip supported, was in charge
14. Segre, Gli ebrei lombardi nellet spagnola, 1828.

15. Indeed, Lombardy became the heart of Spains logistical support system. Jews and
non-Jews alike helped to supply Spanish soldiers, a process that intensified as demands for arms
kept increasingespecially after Spains 1575 bankruptcy when it banned Genoese bankers. See
Geoffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 15671659 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1972) and Giuseppe De Luca, Trading Money and Empire Building in Spanish
Milan (15701640), in Polycentric Monarchies, 10825.
16. For estimates on the numbers of Jews and their distribution from 1488 to 1686, see the table
in Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, 1:xlix. Florence was another example of a Jewish community with many scattered settlements and little central organization; Siegmund argues that the term
constellation may be more appropriate than community. Stefanie B. Siegmund, The Medici State
and the Ghetto of Florence: The Construction of an Early Modern Jewish Community (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2006), 13570.
17. Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, 1:xxviiixlix; Giovanni B. Magnoli, Il gran
disordine de giudei: Storia di una communita sotto assedio, in Gli ebrei a Cremona. Storia di una communita fra Medioevo e Rinascimento (Firenze: Giuntina, 2000), 5492; and Giovanni B. Magnoli, Gli
ebrei a Cremona: Storia di una communit fra Medioevo e Rinascimento (Firenze: Giuntina, 2002).
18. Israel, The Jews of Spanish North Africa, 16001699, 7186; Israel, The Jewish Community of Spanish Oran and Their Expulsion, 23555; Schaub, Les Juifs du roi dEspagne; Sanchez
Belen, La Expulsion de los judios dOran en 1669, 15598; David M. Gitlitz, Secrecy and Deceit:
The Religion of the Crypto-Jews (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002); and
Miriam Bodian, Dying in the Law of Moses: Crypto-Jewish Martyrdom in the Iberian World
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007).
64

of dealing with the conversos, it had no jurisdiction over Milans Jews, whose
management fell to Spains regular governmental administration.19
Moreover, unlike Sephardic Jews in Ferrara, Venice, Ancona, and Tuscany,
who had been invited to take up residence so that they could develop Mediterranean and long-distance trade, Milans Ashkenazic Jews predated the Habsburg
rule and did not play a significant role in Ottoman trade. Because Philip was
openly at war with the Turks, Lombardy Jews lack of meaningful participation
in Levantine trade may have worked in their favor. Still, while it is true that Mediterranean commerce represented one of the Jews principal economic activities at
the time, the mercantilist logic was not limited to trade: it applied to all activities
that benefited the economy of a region.20 As small-town moneylenders and pawnshop owners, the Jews of Milan occupied a useful niche in the local economy
one that grew in importance as Spanish soldiers started borrowing from Jews to
supplement an unreliable pay schedule.21
Initially, Philip seemed rather indifferent to the presence of openly Jewish
communities in his lands. Not only did he agree to let Jews live in Milan, in
1557 his governor even granted them a twelve-year condotta.22 By contrast, the
condotte of Philips predecessors, Francesco Sforza and Charles V, had covered
shorter terms of eight to ten years. Philips condotta also reinstated the favorable
conditions that the Jews had enjoyed since the time of Francesco Sforza II in the
1520s and 1530s, authorizing them to live in the duchy, practice their religion,
19. Henry Kamen, Inquisition and Society in Spain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985); Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical
Revision (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999); Geoffrey Parker, Some Recent Work on the
Inquisition in Spain and Italy, The Journal of Modern History 54, no. 3 (September 1982): 51932;
and Michael Alpert, Crypto-Judaism and the Spanish Inquisition (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave,
2001).
20. Jonathan Israel defines mercantilism not only as the wide-ranging trade networks established by Sephardic refugees and their descendants but also as all instances in which Jews were perceived to provide economic benefits. On p. 2: Mercantilism as used here signifies the deliberate
pursuit of the economic interest of the state, irrespective of the claims of existing law, privilege, and
tradition, as well as of religion. See Jonathan I. Israel, Diasporas within a Diaspora: Jews, CryptoJews, and the World of Maritime Empires 15401740 (Boston: Brill, 2002), 239.
21. Moreover, De Luca has shown that Philip II considered Milanese financiers essential to the
states economy and also that they helped support long-distance tradenot to the Mediterranean, but to
Poland and Portugal. De Luca, Trading Money and Empire Building in Spanish Milan (15701640),
109119.
22. Joseph ha-Kohen, the famous Jewish historian and writer who lived in neighboring Genoa,
ascribed this condotta to astute and timely financial intervention by the Jews that had helped repel a
French attack: The Lombards, hearing of the arrival of the French, began to panic because the
French excelled in cruel deeds. But since there was no money available in the entire country, the senators in Milan sent for the Jews to negotiate with them a loan and for equipment for the army. After they
had handed over ten thousand ducats, they were given permission, in the name of the emperor, to
remain in the country over a period of another twelve years. It was initialed with the imperial insignia.
The cardinal and the senators acted as mediators between the emperor and the Jews. ha-Kohen, The
Vale of Tears, 69. (The translations of the text are based on Mays, which I amended when necessary
using Almbladhs Hebrew edition.)
65
Flora Cassen
enjoy communal autonomy, and engage in moneylending and trade, and freeing
them from the obligation to wear a yellow badge or hat.23 In 1565, however,
the town of Pavia asked Philip to expel the Jews from the area, a request that
launched a sequence of struggles and negotiations not only between Jews and
Christians but also among segments of the Christian leadershipall of which culminated in the expulsion of 1597. Simonsohn, one of the few modern historians to
have written about these events, described the decades that followed Pavias
request as hopeless ones for the Jews:
Almost the entire second half of the sixteenth century was taken up with the
struggle over the expulsion of the Jews from the Duchy. On one side were the
forces of the Church, aided by the mighty Cardinal Borromeo, those of King
Philip of Spain and his governors, and some of the communes and towns in
which Jews lived, spearheaded by Cremona and Pavia. On the other side
were a few hundred Jewsmen, women, and childrenwho somehow
managed to resist for half a century the combined efforts of their enemies
to expel them.24
In fact, the Jews had both enemies and allies. Of the cities and towns under Milanese authority, Cremona and Paviawith the largest Jewish populations in the
duchywere the strongest proponents of their expulsion. Cremona, a center of
Hebrew printing, had been the scene of a large-scale Talmud burning in 1559
from which the Jewish community did not fully recover. In Pavia, home of one
of the oldest universities in Europe, the Jews served, among others, a large and
rambunctious student population with which they often clashed. In both towns,
innumerable allegations against the Jews over the years combined grievances
about excessive interest rates with contentions that the presence of Jews was
immoral, a danger to Christian society, and displeasing to God.25 Yet the Jews
also had powerful protectors in the senate of Milan and the Spanish governor of
the state.
And, as the Emek ha-bakha reveals, the Jews themselves were not passive
actors in their own expulsion drama. Joseph ha-Kohens narrative begins with a
grave accusation that puts Pavias town councils request to expel the Jews in a
wholly different light. The chronicle charges that a German Jew was responsible
for setting in motion the events that would eventually lead to the expulsion.
King Philip II wrote to his governor in Milan in those days [1566] that he
wished to send the Jews away from the entire territory of Milan. When the
Jews heard this, they became very frightened. But all this was caused by
23. Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, 1:xxviiixlix. Francesco II Sforza first issued
his charter of privileges in 1523 and reconfirmed it in 1533. See Archivio di Stato. Milan (hereafter
ASM), Registri Ducali 69, ff. 126123, Mf bob 49, Fondo Culto 2159; and ASM, Albinaggio 3.
24. Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, 1:xxviiixxix.
25. Segre, Gli ebrei lombardi nellet spagnola, 1845; Magnoli, Il gran disordine de giudei.
Storia di una communita sotto assedio, 5492.
66

the meanness of a German Jew, a wicked man from among those who played a
great role in Pavia. His name was Yehuda ben Yaakov Morello. This man tried
to expel the other Jews living in Pavia, and thus misfortune came about. All of
this I have written down, not according to my judgment, but as it was testified
to me by Hayim Cohen ben Samuel of Alessandria. However, the heads of the
Jewish Community made presentations to the governor and the senators of
Milan, and they were not expelled.26
Modern historians have expressed skepticism about Emek ha-bakhas reliability

as a historical source, yet it appears that in discussing events that occurred geographically close to them and during their lifetimes, both Joseph ha-Kohen and
his Corrector were fairly well informed.27 Much of what they wrote finds
support in the archives.28 Jacob Morello, also called Jacob Levita, was a
wealthy Pavia banker with exclusive lending privileges that his coreligionists
largely ignored. He probably hoped an expulsion would eliminate competition
from other Jewish lenders, but his actions threated all Milanese Jews.29 Joseph
ha-Kohens source, Haim ha-Cohen from Alessandria (or Vitale Sacerdoti, as he
was known in Italian) was one of the most distinguished Jews in sixteenth-century
Milan. A successful banker like Morello, Vitale Sacerdoti distinguished himself by
26. ha-Kohen, Sefer emek ha-bakha, 945.
27. For critical evaluations of Joseph ha-Kohens work, see Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor:
Jewish History and Jewish Memory, The Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1982), 5375; Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Exile and Expulsion in Jewish History, in Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World, 13911648 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1997), 322; Martin Jacobs, Joseph ha-Kohen, Paolo Giovio and
Sixteenth-Century Historiography, in Cultural Intermediaries: Jewish Intellectuals in Early Modern
Italy, ed. David Ruderman and Giuseppe Veltri (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2004), 6785; and Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Jewish Memory between Exile and History, Jewish
Quarterly Review 97, no. 4 (2007): 53043. Some historians see him as the archetype of the
Jewish lachrymose conception of history: see Eleazar Gutwirth, Joseph ha-Cohen, Sefer Emeq
Ha-bakha, Journal of Semitic Studies 1, no. 28 (1983): 17374. Bonfil thinks that Baron, who
coined the expression, may have drawn it from the title of Josephs chronicle, Emek ha-bakha (The
Valley of Tears). Roberto Bonfil, How Golden Was the Age of the Renaissance in Jewish Historiography?, in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, ed. David B. Ruderman (New York: New York University Press, 1992), 284 n. 24; and Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and
Religious History of the Jews, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), 4:18. I do not
deny the validity of their concerns; overall, the Emek is an ideological piece of work. But in the
handful of passages where Joseph or the Corrector describe events that happened in Genoa or Milan
during their lifetimes, the level of accuracy is high.
28. For example, Rossana Urbani has reconstructed much of Joseph ha-Kohens life using archival material from Genoa. Rossana Urbani, Indizi documentari sulla figura di Joseph Ha Cohen e della
sua famiglia nella Genova del XVI secolo, in E andammo dove il vento ci spinse, ed. Guido Nathan
Zazzu (Genoa: Radici, 1992), 5967.
29. For more on the Morello family see Segre, Gli Ebrei lombardi nellet spagnola, 201. The
Morello family was more commonly known by the name of Levita and were the owners of the largest
Jewish bank in Pavia. Jacob Levita was a canny businessman who did not like competition. His bank
was already operating in 1527; in 1548 Emperor Charles V granted him exclusive lending rights. He
had three sons, Donato, Simone, and Leone; the latter is the Italian name for Yehuda.
67
Flora Cassen
his work on behalf of the Jewish community and through his special relationship
with Philip II (for whom he conducted a series of secret missions in Europe and the
Levant).30 As one of the Jews who had appeared before the governor and the
senate to plead against expulsion, he had first-hand access to information and
was a trustworthy source. But unlike Morello, Vitale Sacerdoti and Joseph
ha-Kohen were Sephardic Jews. Because internal rivalries regularly flared
between the various Jewish groups that populated the peninsula, ha-Kohens
comment about Morello, an Ashkenazi, should be read with skepticism.31 Moreover, even if ha-Kohen was right about Morellos actions, they did not, on their
own, cause the expulsion. Above all, ha-Kohens blaming of Morello is instructive
for what it reveals about the Jews mindset. Although fully aware that the balance
of power tilted against them, they did not see themselves as completely powerless
and felt they had a measure of control over the events that affected them. Even
after Philip promulgated and ordered the expulsion, they believed that it was possible to reverse that decision and worked hard, albeit ultimately in vain, to do so.
156590: D ISCUSSING
THE
E XPULSION
Over the course of thirty years, a three-step pattern emerged. In the early
years, Philip did not seem to know what to do with the Jews, but after consulting
with a battery of advisors who all emphasized the Jews quiet behavior and positive economic contributions, he decided to grant them the right to live in Milan. He
then maintained that position for a while, followed by a late-life move toward
expulsion.
In May 1565 Philip II informed Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo, his interim
governor in Milan, that the town of Pavia had asked him to expel the Jews.32 This
statement launched a long discussion on the fate of Jews of Milan that stretched
between and across Jewish and Christian societies in Italy and Spain. Curiously,
the church, as an institution, assumed a rather contingent role in those discussions.
Joseph ha-Kohen did not mention the church, but the Corrector added information
on the anti-Jewish activities of popes Paul IV (r. 15551559), Pius IV (r. 1559
65), and Pius V (r. 156672), and of Archbishop Borromeo, the head of Milans
church from 1564 to 1584.33 One of Paul IVs first acts as pope was to promulgate,
in 1555, the bull Cum Nimis Absurdum that imposed ghettoization along with a
series of severe social and economic restrictions on Jewish lifechiefly the
30. Segre, Gli Ebrei lombardi nellet spagnola, 24. Archivio General Simancas (hereafter
AGS), Papeles de Estado, Milan, 1239 # 12. In 1574 the governor of Milan wrote to Philip II:
Vidal el hebreo es muy intelligente y ha servido ally desde el tiempo del duque de Sessa.
31. For a recent and detailed review on ethnic divisions among Italian Jewry, see Bernard Dov
Cooperman, Ethnicity and Institution Building among Jews in Early Modern Rome, AJS Review 30,
no. 1 (2006): 11945.
32. Governors were usually secular administrators, but Madruzzo served for just two years
(155657) between the tenures of the dukes of Alba and Sessa. Antonio Monti, Filippo II e il card.
Cristoforo Madruzzo, gobernatore di Milano (15561557) (Milan: Dante Alighieri di Albrighi,
Segati & C., 1924).
68

obligation to wear a yellow sign (for men, a hat) and a prohibition on lending
money.34 He also launched the trial that led to the burning of twenty-one Marranos
in Ancona in 1555.35
Paul IV was also an enemy of Spain, which he tried to drive away from
Naples with French help. Consequently, Philip put much effort into neutralizing
papal power and influence in Italy.36 Although these efforts may have partly
shielded Milans Jews from the worst papal anti-Jewish activities during those
years, Philips relationship with Rome constituted a delicate balancing act
because he simultaneously claimed the mantle of Christianitys ultimate defender
and actively tried to curtail Romes power.37
In 1564 Pope Pius V appointed his nephew, the fierce reformer Carlo
Borromeo, as archbishop of Milan. Borromeo quickly rose to such a great
position of influence in Milan that he earned the nickname pope of Lombardy.38
Borromeo, no friend of the Jews, became focused on implementing the CounterReformation in Milan.39 He did, on a few occasions, maintain that Jews had to be
ostracized by a distinctive sign or ghettoized, and supported efforts to expel them;
still, he stayed out of the debate on their expulsion. His correspondence reveals
that he believed expulsion was impractical (Jews would merely move to neighboring towns, not leave the peninsula) and also the responsibility of secular powers
(the church had neither the authority nor the capability to enact it).40 Conversion
was the responsibility of the church, as well as something in which Borromeo
strongly believed. However, the results of his conversionary efforts were so
poor that a year before his death, he concluded that they had been an exercise
34. Kenneth Stow, Catholic Thought and Papal Jewry Policy, 15551593 (New York: Jewish
Theological Seminary of America, 1977) and Kenneth Stow, The Papacy and the Jews: Catholic
Reformation and Beyond, in The Frank Talmage Memorial Volume, ed. Frank Talmage and Barry
Walfish, vol. 2 (Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1992), 25775.
35. Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 667.
36. Anthony D. Wright, Relations between Church and State: Catholic Developments in
Spanish-Ruled Italy of the Counter-Reformation, History of European Ideas 9, no. 4 (1988): 385403.
37. Paolo Prodi, The Papal Prince: One Body and Two Souls: The Papal Monarchy in Early
Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Thomas James Dandelet, Spanish
Rome, 15001700 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
38. Wietse de Boer, The Conquest of the Soul: Confession, Discipline, and Public Order in
Counter-Reformation Milan, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought (Leiden: Brill, 2001),
xiv; and Segre, Gli ebrei lombardi nellet spagnola, 49.
39. The Jews opinion of him was overwhelmingly negative. See ha-Kohen, Sefer emek
ha-bakha, 99: Pope Pius IV died in 5326 [1565] and the cardinals elected Pius V As soon as he
began to reign, he promulgated hostile decrees against the Jews, such as the wearing of the yellow
hats on their heads . At that time, Archbishop Borromeo, who was regarded as a holy man in the
eyes of the people, also lived in Milan. He made his appearance as an enemy of the Jews in the territory
of Milan in that he enforced the decrees and bulls which the pope had issued against the Jews most
expeditiously.
40. Renata Segre, Il mondo ebraico nel carteggio di Carlo Borromeo, Michael 1 (1972): 166
67; using Borromeos correspondence, Segre argues that Borromeo became increasingly convinced that
the Jewish problem had no solution. On expulsion he wrote: Scacciarli non ha gran senso perche
significa spostarli semplicemente dalluno allaltro Stato cattolico.
69
Flora Cassen
in futility, for even when Jews converted, they did it cynically in pursuit of
material goals or fraud.41 Despite Borromeos power in the duchy, the expulsion
would eventually be decided by secular forces: King Philip II, the towns of
Cremona and Pavia, the governor, and the senate.42
Pavias 1565 letter demanding the expulsion did not mention Morellothe
Jew Joseph ha-Kohen had faulted for the expulsionbut laid out a series of complaints against the Jews: they were growing in numbers, exposing Christian
Pavians to their erroneous religion and vile customs, and victimizing citizens
with their usurious lending practices.43 The core concern of Philips response
seemed purely legalistic: he asked Cardinal Madruzzo in Milan not whether an
expulsion was advisable, practical, or beneficial to Spanish interests, but
whether it was legal to expel the Jews before the expiration of their condotta.
The focus on the legality of the expulsion reveals the intricacies of the power
dynamic at play. By asking whether a condotta that he himself had agreed to
and signed needed to be upheld, Philip was emphasizing the strength and validity
of his law even as he acknowledged the need to consult with local authorities.
Philips monarchy was absolute but not free of constraints, especially within conquered territories.44 The governor transmitted the kings questions to the Milanese
senate, which replied that it was illegal to expel the Jews before their condottas
expiration.45
The Jews seemed safe, for the time being; nonetheless, the real possibility of
expulsion transformed their situation. Even though condotte were temporary
documents, the Jews of Milan had come to count on more or less automatic
renewal of theirs in return for payment. Now Philip was signaling that this
might no longer be the casethat the day their condotta expired, the Jews
might not enjoy the laws protection but instead be at the mercy of their neighbors
or the kings whims. As it turns out, the Jews condotta would be renewed a few
more times, but always after a long fight that sometimes left the Jews without one
for years on end. During these transitional periods the Jews found themselves
41. Renata Segre, Il mondo ebraico, 166167: Io gli ho poca fede, et son stato ingannato piu
volte da questa sorte di persone... perche sotto pretesto di venire alla nostra fede ho trovato che molti di
loro cercavano et havevano altri fini et intressi temporali, con fraudi et inganni.
42. On the complicated relations between church and state in Milan during Borromeos tenure,
see Agostino Borromeo, Archbishop Carlo Borromeo and the Ecclesiastical Policy of Philip II in the
State of Milan, in San Carlo Borromeo: Catholic Reform Ecclesiastical Politics in the Second Half of
the Sixteenth Century, ed. John B. Tomaro and John M. Headley (Washington, DC: Folger Books,
1988), 85111; Eric W. Cochrane, Counter Reformation or Tridentine Reformation? Italy in the
Age of Carlo Borromeo, in San Carlo Borromeo: Catholic Reform Ecclesiastical Politics, 3146;
and Agostino Borromeo, The Crown and the Church in Spanish Italy in the Reigns of Philip II and
Philip III, in Spain in Italy, 51754.
43. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1200, fols. 206207.
44. For more on concepts of absolutism in the Spanish Empire, see Anthony Pagden, Lords of
All the World, 4445; and John Lynch, Spain Under the Habsburgs, 2nd ed. (New York: New York
University Press, 1981), 267292.
45. ASM, Albinaggio 3: eijici de jure non possunt.
70

outside of the law, a difficult and frightening place to be: the law guaranteed them
a place as well as a legal statusalbeit an inferior onein Christian society. Some
of these delays were intentional, but others resulted simply from the time that it
took for communication to flow back and forth between Italy and Spain.
After examining the royal letter of 1566, the depositions of the Jews, the
deposition of the town of Pavia, and the governors report, the senators affirmed
that it was illegal to expel the Jews before their condotta expired in 1569, but
added that the king could prohibit usury and compel the Jews to wear the
yellow hat.46 Clearly the Jews had powerful enemies in the cities of Cremona
and Pavia, and possibly in the king himself, but it appears they also had a supporter: the senate of Milan, which represented Milans old noble class and was comprised mostly of legal experts.47 Its status and power rested on its ability to
maintain relevance despite Spanish rule from above and in the face of opposition
from below, especially from Pavia, one of the towns that had most consistently
resisted the senators power. Whether the senates stance against the expulsion
arose out of friendship for the Jews or was part of its efforts to protect its own
power from aggressive Spanish overlords and rebellious local towns is unclear.
Indeed, although the senate rose to the Jews defense it professed no love for
them and, shortly afterward, condemned Jewish moneylending in scathing
terms: It hardens the Jews blood and causes their creditors to be strangulated
little by little.48
As soon as the senate upheld the condotta through 1569, the Jews wrote
directly to Philip II. In their letter to the king, they argued that to prohibit moneylending and enforce the yellow hat were merely indirect methods of expulsion, and
that forcing them out of the state would be disastrous for the poor and detrimental
to all their debtors, among whom were gentlemen and Spanish soldiers.49 To buttress their importance, the Jews claimed that Jewish merchants were useful to the
state economy, employed poor citizens, and served the Spanish crown as spies
against its enemies.50 Furthermore, despite accusations to the contrary, the Jews
lived modestly, in isolation, and avoided inappropriate relations (commertio)
with Christians in obedience to their own law.51 Last, the Jews again assured
46. ASM, Albinaggio 3.
47. Chabod, Storia di Milano, 41215; Sella and Capra, Il ducato di Milano, 217.
49. ASM, Dispacci Reali 20: Havendo il governor desso stato per ordine di quella per scacciar
detti hebrei da quello stato haver fatto cride et bando chessi hebrei non facessero piu larti del prestare
et chhavessero portare segnale che cedeva et cede in ogni danno et roina non solo dessi et dinfiniti
poveri et anco de gentilhuomini et buon numero de soldati et spetialmente spagnoli de quali diversamente son creditori di gran soma de danari.
50. ASM, Dispacci Reali 20: Et secondo la sorte di marcantie fanno fare diversi essercitii et
lavorerii che risulta grande utile a la detta camera et alli poveri a quali danno da lavorare Et speso
in tenere spie contra nemici di V. Mta dandoni ogni aviso a ministry suoi per loro rispetto da la
natione hebrea ce habita in Tunesi. The reference to spying suggests that Vitale Sacerdoti and his
son Simon were among the authors of the letter.
51. ASM, Dispacci Reali 20: Cessi diano mal documento et essemplo a christiani non si puo
dire per che gli hebrei viveno retiramente da essi et il solito loro fu sempre in vivere modestamente
71
Flora Cassen
the king that wherever Jews lived, they had always been useful to society. For
proof, they mentioned that all other Christian princes, including the popes, tolerated them.52 At the end, they returned to the issue of moneylending, reaffirming its
importance to the poor and, perhaps impudently considering the gravity of their
situation, pointing out the kings own inconsistency: he allowed moneylending in
Flanders at higher interest rates than in Milan.53 It was a carefully crafted letter that
made a strong case for renewing the condotta and advanced the argument that the
Jews utility to the crown justified their continued presence in the state. That the
Jews neither resorted to religious arguments nor appealed to Christian charity may
have been a sign of the times. Western European countries had begun readmitting
Jews based on mercantilist principles, hoping that their commercial expertise
would benefit their countries economies.54 The Jews of Milan wisely applied
mercantilist thinking to their own circumstances by focusing on their usefulness
to the empire as merchants, lenders to Spanish soldiers, and occasional spies
against the Turks, and by avoiding controversial religious arguments.
Having read the Jews letter, Philip wrote to the governor on July 30, 1567,
asking for his opinion on the Jews request. The governor transmitted the entire
case to the senate, which rejected the expulsion. Not only did the senators
strengthen their arguments in favor of keeping the Jews in the state, they also
issued a scathing criticism of Spains 1492 expulsion, terming it both inhumane
and contrary to Christian piety: And we have seen numerous evident examples
[of expulsions], including the law that was proclaimed in Spain. Nonetheless
there is a different and more human opinion according to which Christian
princes should not chase the Jews out of their lands but instead, in conformity
with Christian piety, should tolerate their living with us.55
The senates memorandum went unanswered for four years. In 1571, two
years after the Jews condotta expired, the senate sent a new report to Madrid
stating again that the Jews ought to be granted the right to live in Milan but that
usury should be prohibited. The governor added that his secret council of six advisers agreed with the senate, but suggested adding another provision that prohibited
Jews from employing Christians. The Council of Italy in Madrid concurred:
Since the Jews live quietly, as we understand that they have been doing in that
State [Milan], there is no cause for expulsion, nor should they be expelled.
senza alcuno inconveniente che habbio comertio con christiani non si ritrovera questo et se mai si fosse
ritrovato quello tale e stato severamente punito et castigato secondo loro leggi.
52. ASM, Dispacci Reali 20: Che in ogni parte che va essa natione porta universalmente et
particolarmente commodo et utile per le cause sudette senza inconveniente alcuno sono stati et sono
tolerati da tutti i principi christiani et dal summo pontefice capo qualche ha confirmato a quelli che habitano in Roma loro concessioni.
53. ASM, Dispacci Reali 20: Il che sin qui ha permesso V. Mta et permette in Fiandra se bene
vulgarmente non si chiamano hebrei con maggior interesse del prestato di quello fanno quelli del stato
di Milano. Acording to Segre, this refers to Lombard moneylenders. Segre, Gli ebrei lombardi, 55.
54. Israel, European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism.
72

Philip ignored this growing consensus and asked yet again for additional inquiries:
The opinion of the governor is not included here. These [reports] are full of
negotiations and promises, so it is imperative to understand this affair very well
in order to solve it.56 Ostensibly Philip remained above the fray and focused
on trying to figure out every stakeholders position, so he could better adjudicate
between them. Still, by rejecting his advisors recommendation and delaying resolution of the issue, he was signifying that he wanted to go a different route.
A reproduction of the report of October 1571 with Philips loopy, barely

legible handwriting on the bottom half of the page (Espaa. Ministerio de
Cultura. Archivio General de Simancas, Estado 1792 # 191)
In answer to Philips latest queries, the secret council reminded him that they
had discussed the issue twice already. They summarized for him the history of the
56. AGS, Estado 1792 # 191.
73
Flora Cassen
Jews condotte since the 1530s and suggested that Philip should give Jews the
right to live in Milan, but make this right contingent on their behavior rather
than tying it to a pre-established date: Thus when they [the Jews] dont live
peacefully and quietly, it will be in His Majestys hands to expel them.57 The
councilors also reviewed the arguments that the Jews representatives in Madrid
had made in favor of usury and against the Jewish badge, but reiterated their opposition to changing anything about these measures. That the Jews of Milan even had
representatives in Madrid demonstrates how hard they were trying to influence the
king.58 But this latest report did not sway Philip, who wrote: Although on this I
now have the opinion of past governors, it would still be good to consult with the
comendador mayor. And that he advise us on how they [the Jews] are governed in
that state [Milan] and whether we ought to leave them there.59
The comendador mayors reply arrived a year later, in July 1573. He had
discussed the issues with the secret council and concluded that the Jews should
not be expelled, but that they should be forced to wear the Jewish badge. With
regard to usury, he reported a split in the council with three, including the governor, in favor of letting the Jews lend money and three strongly opposing it.60 The
comendador mayor, placing moral imperatives above economic ones, ruled that
usury be outlawed. However, he also recommended that the condotta be
renewed for an additional ten years. The king, taking stock of all the advice,
agreed to extend the Jews condotta by four or five years on the condition that
they wear the Jewish badge and stop lending money.61
During these exchanges, the king, despite his active involvement in the
negotiations, neither explicitly voiced his own opinion nor made disparaging statements about the Jews. His interventions were limited to asking questions and
ordering further inquiries.62 Yet, in agreeing to a four- or five-year extension,
Philip was in fact registering a disagreement with his advisors. Now that everyone,
including the comendador mayor, supported the Jews continued residence in
Milan, the king decided not to oppose itbut his condotta barely granted the
Jews half the term of residency that the comendador had recommended. Was he
57. AGS, Estado 1793 # 26.

58. The Jews representatives included Nicola Maria Dugnano, Gaspare de Schina, and Johanne
de la Sisla. The latter two also represented the Vitale-Sacerdoti family. After the expulsion, Simon
Sacerdoti himself would spend considerable time in Madrid. Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of
Milan, 1:xxxi n. 87.
59. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1792, fol. 26.
60. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1793, fol. 48: Three thought that despite the profits
that usury brings to the State, it should not be allowed. The other three said that if an exemption can
be obtained from the pope and that interest rates were reduced, then the governor explained that
for reasons of state and good government, they should be permitted to lend money.
62. This was the kings usual way of working, see Helmut G. Koenigsberger, The Statecraft of
Philip II, European Studies Review 1 (1971): 4. Everyone knows the picture of the lonely king in his
small work-room at the Escurial, poring over reports and maps, annotating minutes in his illegible,
loopy handwritingitself almost a visual image of the circles of command and powerendlessly
returning back to the writer.
74

acknowledging that when faced with unanimity among his advisors, all he could
do was reduce the length of the condotta? Or was he signaling to Pavia, Cremona,
and those in Milan who demanded expulsion that he had heard their concerns and
was proposing a middle ground between them and the senate: yes to a condotta,
but only a considerably shortened one?
We cannot be certain of the answers to the above questions. For now, however,
it appeared that those advocating for the Jews stay had succeeded in bringing the
king to their side. In a span of six years, Philip went from inquiring about expelling
the Jews and grappling with what status to grant them (if any) to reissuing their condotta three times: in 1577 for three years, in 1581 for four years, and in 1582 for five
years.63 With the 1577 renewal, Philip recognized the Jews good behavior: They
have lived in such a way that no blame can be imputed to them.64 In 1582 he agreed
with the Jews that short-term condotte economically hurt them and, by extension,
Milan, because condotte did not afford the Jews the security to engage in new or
long-term commercial ventures.65 Moreover, in contrast to what had become established Spanish policy since the reign of his great-grandparents Ferdinand and Isabella, Philip II concurred with his advisers in Spain and Italy that there was a
place for the Jews in Christendom if they behaved appropriately, were clearly
marked, and engaged in professional activities other than moneylending. In so
doing, the king was ostensibly adopting longstanding papal policies on the Jews.
However, since Philip had notoriously difficult relations with the papacy, he may
have been more concerned about preserving Milans status quo vis--vis the Jews
than about aligning himself with Pope Gregory XIII.66
Nonetheless, the ongoing uncertainty of the Jews situation went on full
display just five years later. Their latest condotta had expired in 1587 and was
not being renewed. According to the Corrector, the impetus for expulsion came
from the citizens of Cremona and Pavia: The people of Cremona and Pavia
sent envoys to King Philip and asked him to expel the Jews who live in
Milan.67 But in fact, the town of Cremona had begun demanding and gathering
support for the Jews expulsion in August 1582immediately after Philip had
renewed the condotta. In a letter, the towns president alleged that the Jews
lived in the best part of town, competed with Christian businesses, mixed with
them socially, fornicated with Christian women, helped thieves hide their loot,
melted down precious metals, and continued to lend money at interest despite
the prohibition. They sent the same letter to Cardinal Borromeo, who promised
his support before he learned that his confessor, Roberto Griffidio, believed that
the true reason for the towns demand was outrage over the fact the Christian
63. Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, 3:168487, 16945. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1209, fol. 284, and libro 1213, fols. 67.
65. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1213, fols. 67: La ultima prorogacion es tan breve
que por esta causa no pueden ni osan proverse de differente generos de mercaderias que se van vendiendo despacio ni formar companies ni corres.
66. Lynch, Spain under the Habsburgs, 36985.
75
Flora Cassen
murderer of the Jew Viviano Levi had been put to death.68 (The Corrector also
attributed Cremonas request to expel the Jews to the fallout over Viviano
Levis murder.69) Moreover, Borromeo had also heard that the Jews of Cremona
and elsewhere in Milan had, themselves, asked the king to assign them to
special neighborhoods; it had been his own opinion for a long time that this
approach was preferable to expulsion.70 Although Borromeos actual support
was to prove minor, the letters from the town of Cremona revealed that,
perhaps because of the strength of the Jews supporters, the Cremonese did not
believe at that stage that they could prompt the expulsion on their own but
needed Borromeos and even the popes intervention. This was 1582. Over the
next five years, the balance of power would shift.
On January 29, 1588, the final condotta having run out several months
before, the governor wrote to the king with details of the Jews latest offer: a
one-time gift of 8,000 escudos and an annual fee of 5,000 escudos, half for the
right to live in the state and half for the right to maintain a residence in the city
of Milan.71 (The Jews could live anywhere in the state, but not in the city of
Milan. To conduct their business they had obtained the right to maintain a
shared residence in the city for short-term visits.72) The governor then asked the
king to accede to the Jews demand, arguing that any delay risked causing the
Jews departure to neighboring principalities: And because so much time has
passed without His Majestys will being known, the Pope and all the other
princes are taking advantage [of this situation] to attract them [the Jews] in their
dominions.73 Philip II responded five months later with a request for more information: Before resolving this issue by accepting the said Jews offer, I ask you to
inform me and explain your thoughts about this. Therefore I order and command
that you consider all the warnings and understand what this is about and what
should and can be done.74 A year later, the king requested a census and a detailed
report on the Jews activities and their utility to the state: I order and command
that, fully informed, you [the governor] tell me how many Jews live in this state,
what advantages would be secured by giving them the permission that they once
more are asking for and on the contrary what the disadvantages would be, along
with your opinion, so that I can understand one and the other.75
It fell to the senate to take the census and draw up the report of the pros and
cons of any Jewish presence in Milan. As the last representatives of the old
68. Renata Segre, Il mondo ebraico nei cardinali della controriforma, in Italia Judaica: Gli
ebrei in Italia tra Rinascimento ed et barocca, ed. Vittore Colorni et al. (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico
e Zecca dello Stato, 1986), 24041.
70. Segre, Il mondo ebraico nel carteggio di Carlo Borromeo, 23760.
72. Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, 1:xxxii.
75. ha-Kohen, Sefer emek ha-bakha, 112: And the king wrote to his governor: Please, travel
to all the Milanese cities and count all the people of Israel so that I may know the numbers. Thus a
census was taken. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1220, fols. 124125.
76

Milanese nobility, and because they had protected the Jews since Philips first
effort at expulsion, the senators were now in a difficult situation. Not only was
Spanish rule rendering their central position in Milan irrelevant, but in a blatant
disregard for their authority, the cities and towns of the state were bypassing
them by sending their demands and complaints directly to the king in Spain.
Despite these challenges, or perhaps because of them, the senate would go on
to deliver its strongest defense of the Jews yet. Rather than focusing on
the Jews contribution to the economy of Milan, as they had done before, the
senate took the king at his word and delivered a full-fledged analysis of the
laws and principlescomplete with references and footnotesthat gave Jews
the right to live in Christian countries. Citing Roman and papal laws as well as
recent pronouncements by cardinals and theologians, the senators tried to establish
the legal and religious principle that Jews should not be expelled, and further, that
they had to be tolerated in Christian lands.76
Next, thirteen local officials, secular and religious, were called upon to
testify that Milanese Jews led honest and respectful lives. Don Raphael Mandrich,
said to be one of the most illustrious noblemen in the state, wrote in a sealed letter
that the Jews lived simply, treated Christians with reverence and respect, and provided necessary services to soldiers. Both Francesco Prevedone, the criminal
recorder of Lodi, and an unnamed episcopal vicar of Alessandria added that the
Jews lived modest and blameless lives. Indeed, in twenty-five years there
hadnt been even one scandal concerning them. The subconservator of Alessandria, also unnamed, weighed in by saying that the Jews displayed courtesy
towards Christians by allowing delayed repayments of debts, and occasionally
even the remittance of interest and expenses, while the criminal and civil recorder
of Casalmaggiore noted that in his town, Jews lent money for free.77 The senators concluded that the Jews behave as prescribed by the laws and the canons.78
In the last section of its letter, the senate adduced a series of disparate argumentsa combination of old theological claims, a timeline of the Jews contribution to the Milanese economy, evidence of the Jews usefulness, and a harsh
evaluation of Spains Jewish monetary policyto reinforce their opinion that
the Jews should be allowed to live not only in their state but in all Christian dominions as well. Some Jews, the senators wrote, have come to accept the true faith of
Christ This can only happen if they live among us.79 Echoing Augustine, they
explained that the Jews represented the memory of Christ and prefigured the truth
of Christianity.80 Citing the testimonies of seven fiscal officials from around the
state, they argued that the Jews were useful to the economy of Milan. They sold
76. ASM, Fondo Culto 2159. Also published in full in Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of
Milan, 3:181319.
77. Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, 3:18151816.
80. On the reception of Augustines ideas through history, see Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of
the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity, 1st ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1999).
77
Flora Cassen
fruit, grain, wine, clothing, and furniture, and when their businesses went well, the
region benefited from increased tax revenues. Thus, thanks to the Jews, the cities
of Milan were wealthier and more populated.81
Flinging aside a veil of hypocrisy, the senators added that the king, too, profited from Jewish businesses. For thirty years, Jews had been paying Philip II for
the rights to lend money and not wear the Jewish badge, and had also lent significant amounts of money to the kingmuch of which Philip still needed to reimburse. Christians also lent money, the senators noted, but usually at higher
interest rates and under worse conditions than the Jews did. While Christian
lenders enriched themselves, the Jews [fair lending practices] left them exceedingly poor and miserable, so much so that they do not have anything to live
from.82 Moreover, the senators reminded the king, he had appointed two deserving men as conservatori to manage the Jewish community of Milan. Should the
Jews be expelled, the king would have to find other means to reward these men.
Finally, the senators disputed the claim that Jews had intercourse with Christians
and dared the king to look through all the trial records of this state, for he would
not find a single case.83 Only after presenting this long and detailed set of arguments did the senators accede to the kings request to count the Jews of Milan.
And to obey His Majestys command, this is the number of Jews living in the
state of Milan: it is said that there are 889 in total, 456 in Cremona, 123 in
Pavia, 130 in Lodi, 103 in Alessandria, 71 in Casalmaggiore, and 6 in Caravaggio.
For these reasons, we conclude that they cannot be prohibited from living in Christian lands.84
Based on this report, the Council of Italy in Madrid advised the king to add
ten years to the Jews condotta. The king replied, as usual, that he was consulting
other advisors on this issue. But on December 31, 1590, without further explanation, he informed the governor that he had decided to expel the Jews.85 In
February 1591, the governor notified the representatives of the Jews, Rafaele
Carmini and Clemente Pavia, that they needed to leave the state within six
months of April 1 with their home, family, and farm (con sus casa, familia y
hazienda). Those who converted sincerely could stay.86
After years of relative tolerationduring which, he admitted, the Jews had
benefited the statePhilip now ignored the advice of his own governor, the
Council of Italy, and economic trends in vogue elsewhere, and decided to expel

82. Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, 3:1816, 1818. This and the testimonies of local
officials mentioned above challenge the idea that Jewish moneylenders charged exorbitant rates. The
majority of Milans Jews lived in small towns where they served a poor clientele that borrowed
money for sustenance. Such a business model probably did not allow for inflated rates.
85. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1795, fol. 261, and Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy
of Milan, 3:1850.
86. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1795, fol. 261, and Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy
of Milan, 3:1850.
78

the Jews. However, the Jews did not leave Milan on the prescribed date; in fact, it
took Philip six additional years to execute the expulsion. Those extra years were
marked by intense power struggles at every level of Spains government in Italy
and the kings increased involvement in Jewish Milanese affairs.
15911597: T HE J EWS D EPARTURE D ELAYED
The efforts of a Jew, Simon Sacerdoti, and the governor of Milan, Don Ivan
Fernandez de Velasco, were key in delaying the Jews departure. While Sacerdotis motivations are obvious, it is harder to understand why the governor, a Spaniard appointed by Philip, resolved to help the Jews. Meanwhile, demands from
the towns of Cremona and Pavia to expel the Jews grew ever louder and
Philips patience with both the Jews and the governor was evaporating. Throughout those years, Philips health dramatically and visibly declined as well.
Soon after the promulgation of the expulsion decree, Simon Sacerdoti
departed to Madrid. According to the Corrector of Emek ha-bakha, Sacerdoti
succeeded in getting all the way into the palace where the king and his highest
ministers were. He spoke in the name of the Jews and asked [the king] why
he planned to deal in this way with his servants who had assisted him and his
father in times of trial. He said that they were still ready today to help him
with as much and moreBut if the king had once decided to expel them, he
would then demand, in the name of the Jews, that he first repay them what they
could rightfully claim: for this is what justice demanded.87 In reporting the
events in this way, the Corrector underscored the kings dependence on Jews.
The Council of Italy also reported that Simon Sacerdoti was in Madrid; their
summary seems to corroborate the story recounted in Emek ha-bakha. According
to the council, Sacerdoti reminded them and the king about the many services he,
Simon, and his father, Vitale, had accomplished for the crown in the past sixty
years. The two had discovered French schemes (against Spain), other intelligence
information, and spies in Alessandria, the castle of Savona, and Milan.88 By order
of the governor, they had traveled to the Levant, Germany, Provence, and other
places for secret affairs of great importance.89 The Jews had provided help
87. ha-Kohen, Sefer emek ha-bakha, 11213:There was a Jew in Alessandria by the name of
Samuel Hacohen. He offered to go to Spain on behalf of the Jews to plead for his fatherland. [A]fter
he arrived in Spain, he conferred with the councilors about the plight of the Jews. He even succeeded in
getting all the way into the palace where the king and his highest ministers were. He spoke in the name
of the Jews and asked why he planned to deal in this way with his servants who had assisted him and his
father in times of trial. He said that they were still ready today to help him with as much and more for the
poor and indigent in case this became necessary, and that they could bring witnesses to justify them. But
if the king had once decided to expel them, he would then demand, in the name of the Jews, that he first
repay them what they could rightfully claim; for this is what justice demanded. Here, ha-Kohen
mistook Samuel Sacerdoti for his brother, Simon. Numerous documents in Simancas confirm that
the man in question was indeed Simon.
89. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1796 fol. 33.
79
Flora Cassen
with weapons, munitions, and money, even saving the county of Alessandria.
Moreover, the crown still owed Sacerdotis family a considerable amount of
money. For all of these reasons, Simon asked that his family and the rest of the
Jews be allowed to stay until all their debts had been repaid.90 Using the debts
a bargaining chip, Simon also offered to remit some if the Jews condotta were
renewed for twelve years. Then, in a last-ditch effort to convince the king, he
told the council that among his siblings, one brother and two sisters had converted,
but the expulsion would force many Jews to Turkey or North Africa where conversion to Christianity could not happen. This prospect, he added, explained
why the pope and other Italian princes did not expel the Jews.91
Sacerdoti seems to have convinced the council. In the margins of his missive
the council noted: Really that which this Jew proposed merits particular consideration, for it is only justice to pay what we owe them, and that is what should be
done.92 Although Philip did not rescind the expulsion, he agreed that the Jews
should not be despoiled and ordered the governor to execute their expulsion precisely one month after repayment of their debts.93
Simon stayed in Madrid for more than fifteen months, at tremendous personal cost, and ended up having to beg Philip for financial help.94 Based on the
memos he submitted to the court, he was working on two goals: securing a new
condotta for the Jews and getting the king to pay his familys outstanding
debts. He failed at the former, but succeeded at the latter. To change the kings
mind about the expulsion he submitted another long memo that, although differently structured, was remarkably similar in content to the senates report of 1589.95
This similarity suggests that either Sacerdoti had access to senate documentation
or had collaborated with the senators on its writing. As the senate had done, Simon
began with a legal and theological argument: [A]ll the lawsdivine, human,
civil, and canonaccept that Jews live and converse with Christians. Moreover
many doctors, theologians, and learned people conclude that they [the Jews] are
necessary and cannot be expelled without offending Christian charity and
divine majesty for they represent the passion of Christ.96 Next, Simon
90. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales libro1221, fols. 127129 and libro 1222, fols. 207208.
94. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1796, fols. 3738. The edict of expulsion of 1492 prohibited Jews from residing in Spain, however there is evidence that the king granted dispensations on an
ad hoc basis for commercial, financial, and political reasons. This practice was rare in the sixteenth
century, but increased in the seventeenth. For more, see Jonathan I. Israel, Spain and the Dutch Sephardim, 16091660, Studia Rosenthaliana, no. 12 (n.d.): 161; Mercedes Garca-Arenal and Gerard
Albert Wiegers, A Man of Three Worlds: Samuel Pallache, a Moroccan Jew in Catholic and Protestant
Europe (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 412.
95. Even the footnotes and references to specific laws, councils, and works of theology were
similar. For the senate report and identification of the main sources, see Simonsohn, The Jews in the
Duchy of Milan, 3: 18141819. For Sacerdotis memo, see AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro
1796, fol. 34.
80

explained, as the senate had, that the Jews were more likely to convert to Christianity if they lived in Christian lands, but he took this argument to a personal
level: Simon Vidal has two Christian sisters and a Christian brother as well as
nephews, nieces and cousins. Had they all been in Turkish or Moorish lands,
they would not have converted.97 Like the senate, he critiqued Ferdinand and Isabella: Her Majesty should not follow the example of the King Don Ferdinand,
especially since many doctors came to the conclusion that it was not done
well.98 In another paraphrase of the senate, he asserted that the Jews of Milan
had lived quietly and without scandals for centuries and that no one had ever
seen or heard anything negative about them. In the second and third sections of
his memo, Simon focused on the Jews service to the king and the people of
Milan. But whereas the senate had discussed Jews from across the state, he emphasized his own familys accomplishments and ended with the demand that the
crown fully reimburse them.99
Simon Sacerdotis efforts were to no avail. The kings attention had already
turned to implementing the expulsion. On December 12, 1592, he sent the governor, Don Ivan Fernandez de Velasco, a detailed summary of the Jews credit
accompanied by a payment plan. In 1555 they had made a loan of 6,544
escudos to the crown. Until 1565, they had charged 5% interest and from 1565
to 1591, according to a new law governing rents, they had charged 8% on the principal and 5% on the interest, with the result that the crown now owed them 32,727
escudos and 108 soldi.100 (Simonsohn wondered how the crown could balk at
repaying what would have been a paltry sum, but as Philips reign neared its
end, the Spanish treasury was completely depleted.101) Philip ordered the state
of Milan to make these payments, entrusting the governor with the task of fairly
apportioning them across the state and promising to reduce tolls and taxes for
three years to ensure that Milan did not suffer from the Jews departure.102 The
town of Cremona, eager to see the Jews go, immediately informed the king that
it would pay its share, but smaller towns recoiled at paying theirs: eighteen
months later, the Jews were still in residence.103
The king wrote an angry letter to Don Ivan, reminding him that he had
ordered to expel the Jews three times already and that he expected this to be
100. This was not a common way of raising interest rates. In August 1565 the treasury of Milan
and a group of rentiers agreed to make a distinction between income derived from rents paid in cash and
income derived from credit: the former could accrue interest at a rate of 8% and the latter at 5%. In an
effort to reduce the treasurys debt, the king and his council rejected the claim that this distinction
should apply to the Jews: This applies only to rentiers and not to money lenders [creditors of hard
currency] such as the said Jews. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1161, fols. 6264. In reality,
the distinction between moneylenders and rentiers was fuzzy. Henry Kamen, Early Modern European
Society (East Sussex, UK and New York: Psychology Press, 2000), 99.
101. Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, 1:XXIX.
81
Flora Cassen
done promptly. The governor replied that he had not been able to execute the
kings orders because, other than Cremona and Pavia, the cities of Milan were
refusing to pay their shares.104 Then, in 1595, the fiscal conservator of Milan
found that the Jews actually owed the treasury 16,000 scudi, almost half of
what the treasury owed them. The Jews quickly countered with their own,
lower estimate of what they owed.105 Settling these debts was a challenging
task: based on extant documentation, series of loans were made by the Jews to
different towns over many years and accrued interest at varying rates. Not only
was it difficult to figure out exactly who owed what, perhaps this confusion
was further complicated by the Jews themselves as a way of extending their
stay in the state.
Meanwhile, a Milanese lawyer, Bartholomeo Carranza, was preparing a
damning case against the Jews based on the testimony of one converted Jew.106
In March 1594, he sent Philip a detailed memo in which he accused the Jews of
being criminals and blasphemers: they used banned books in which they disparaged Christianity, built new synagogues, and lent money at interest despite the
kings prohibition.107 For the Corrector, Carranza was a foe and an enemy,
from the stock of Amalek whose false accusations resulted from a failed blackmail attempt against the Jews.108 But even though the Council of Italy dismissed
Carranzas accusations as calumny, saying that there are enough legitimate
reasons to expel the Jews, Philip decided to open an investigation into Carranzas
allegations. In July 1594, the king asked the governor to appoint judges to look
into the matter and reminded him that he must expel the Jews in any case and
also ensure that those guilty of blasphemy be punished.109 Then in September
and again in December, King Philip wrote to express outrage that Don Ivan had
not yet carried out the expulsion: [I]t baffles me that this has not yet been
done.110
This back-and-forth between Philip II and his governor continued through
1595 and 1596 as the kings health took a dramatic turn for the worse. In May
1595 he contracted a serious illness that convinced his doctors his death was at
hand. He recovered, but, struck by terrible gout, spent the remaining three years
of his life in a wheelchair.111 Philip tried to keep up with the affairs of government
despite his illness; perhaps the expulsion of the Jews of Milan, a small matter in the

106. Segre identified the convert as Giovanni Ludovico Cadamosto, formerly Joseph Levi and
probably the brother of Moise Leviwho, under his conversion name of Giovani Domenico Vistarini,
became a censor of Hebrew books. Renata Segre, Gli ebrei lombardi nellet spagnola, 9598.
107. ASM, Fondo Culto 2159; and Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, 3: 18901891.
108. ha-Kohen, Sefer emek ha-bakha, 113. This is also how the book of Esther describes the
Jews enemy, Haman, see 6:2.
110. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1161, fols. 129130 and libro 1223, fols. 240241.
111. Parker, Philip II, 17899; Henry Arthur Francis Kamen, Philip of Spain (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1997), 30121.
82

bigger scheme of things, continued to grasp his attention out of increased religious
feelings toward the end of his life.112
Philips last decade in power was beset by difficulties: costly wars with
England and the Netherlands (both ending in defeat), a series of famines and economic crises brought about by the unsustainable costs of colonialism, and a serious
decline in his personal health. He wrote in 1587 (to his secretary, but as if to
himself): Do not allow yourself to be drawn into melancholy, which is a very
bad thing, even though the times we live in bring it with them, and so does
what is happening in the world. I cannot escape this state altogether, I am
greatly grieved when I look at the present state of Christendom.113 It was
during a period of heightened moral despair, declining physical health, and
increased religiosity that Philip decided to complete the expulsion of the Jews
from Milan.
By January 1596, Philip had grown so irritated and impatient that he started
implying that the governor and other officials were engaged in intentional footdragging if not actual corruption. He wrote: [T]his raises the suspicion that this
[the delay] may stem from ministers who have a stake in this affair and if
this were true (which I cannot believe) it would deserve exemplary punishment.114 Clearly, Philip understood that the Jews had become a pawn in a political game that was threatening his power. By October 1596 he was making open
threats: If this [the expulsion] is not executed, I will have to send someone
from here to do it.115
For his part, Don Ivan seems to have been purposefully delaying the expulsion, using the Jews debt as an excuse. In January 1597, Philip told his governor:
[T]his is a very flaky excuse. . . (a muy flaca escusa).116 Certainly, figuring out
each towns share of the debts was difficult but not insurmountableat least the
king seemed to think soespecially because the two largest cities, Pavia and
Cremona, had already paid. In reality, despite Philips heroic attempts to continue
governing his empire through his last difficult years and despite his threats to Don
Ivan, the kings powers were on the wane. Throughout the empire, many governors were trying to take advantage of this situation to increase their power
among them Don Ivan, the governor of Milan.117 In addition, as we have seen
in the run-up to the expulsion, the governor agreed with the Jews and the
senates argument that the Jews were a dynamic element in the states economy.
If the governor were to take over the reins in Milan and run it quasi-independently,
it was in his interest to preserve the states revenue, even if its source was Jewish.
When no progress had been made by April 1597, the king ordered an investigation. He suspected some of his ministers were delaying the expulsion because
112. According to Kamen: Though he felt deeply about religion, not until the later years of the
reign did he display signs of religiosity. Kamen, Philip of Spain, 232.
113. Parker, Philip II, 182.
117. Parker, Philip II, 18599; Kamen, Philip of Spain, 30121.
83
Flora Cassen
of conflicting interests and raised the pressure on Don Ivan by telling him to find
and punish those who are found guilty.118 In September, in response to the governors letter complaining about the reluctance of the cities of the state to pay their
portions of the debt owed to the Jews, Philip made clear that he was furious and
that it was incumbent upon the governor to do whatever it took to make those payments, to the point of repaying the cities later if necessary. Unable to postpone the
expulsion any longer, Don Ivan proceeded to carry out the decree but allowed four
representatives of the Jews (Simon Sacerdoti, Clemente Pavia, Isach Suavi, and
Conseglio Carmini) to remain in the duchy to collect outstanding debts. Philips
actions, however, took on an added layer of complexity when he allowed the
Sacerdoti family to stay in Milan after the Jews credit was settled. He did so in
recognition of Simons services to the crown, which had included supplying
Spanish troops and spying against the Ottomans in the Mediterranean.119
Simon, an astute and intriguing political operator, had failed to save Milans
Jewry, but did obtain a remarkable privilege for his own familythough one
wonders how the Jews, who had chosen Sacerdoti as their spokesman, reacted
to this. The Sacerdotis were to be the only Jewish family residing in the state of
Milan for the next two hundred years. Perhaps dedication and utility to the
crown mattered more than Jewishness after all.
The rest of the Jews were devastated, but even in this time of great despair
they acknowledged the governors help. In their eyes he did not act out of mere
self-interest, but was truly supportive. One of the expellees, the Corrector of
Emek ha-bakha, movingly described the situation:
He [the governor] then called in the most respected men of the Jewish community and told them: As you know, I have stood at your side with all my
power so that you could remain in the land and pursue your business, but
now I can no longer resist the king. Here in my hand is the fateful document,
written personally in the kings own handwriting and sealed. Nothing can be
done about itThe governor permitted all those whose wives were expectant
to remain as long as they were illMay God remember him [the governor] for
his good, for surely he belonged to the pious among the gentiles who will have
a share in the life beyond.120
Philip II of Spain died exactly a year later.

W HY
THE
E XPULSION ? R EASONS
FOR A
C HANGE
IN
P OLICY
The expulsion was a royal actone that Philip II pushed hard to complete
but it was not inevitable. The evidence suggests that Philips position favored
expelling the Jews and the burden of proof usually rested on those who advocated
119. For a summary of Simon Sacerdotis activities, see AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro
1796, fol. 34.
84

for the Jews. Nevertheless, for almost three decades, the Jews and their supporters
were able to convince the king that the Jews were useful and contributed to the
economy of the state. Philip acknowledged as much when he extended the Jews
condotta in 1582, agreeing that they needed stability for their business to thrive.121
His stance appears to have been flexible; in the interest of the state, he was willing
and able to overrule his initial preference for expulsion. Yet by 1591, his decision
to expel the Jews became definite.
It is unclear what changed Philip IIs mind. A broad study of his attitudes
toward the Jews remains a desideratum and would help in resolving that question,
but it is safe to say that overwhelming anti-Jewish or antisemitic feelings were not
the whole story.122 Philip certainly was not sympathetic to Jews, but in all those
years of dealing with the Jews of Milan and writing about them, not once did
he voice negative feelings toward or about them. Although he gave credence to
Bartholomeo Carranzas damning accusations against the Jews and ordered
severe punishments for the alleged perpetrators, he also agreed to renew the
Jews condotta several times and at one point even explicitly acknowledged
that they deserved this concession for living quietly and peacefully in
Milan.123 Henry Kamen, author of a biography of Philip II, further highlights
the complexity of the kings attitude toward the Jews by juxtaposing the expulsion
from Milan with the simultaneous relaxation of the treatment of conversos in
Spain. For the first time, Philip agreed to appoint new Christians to clerical positions and set up a committee charged with critically reviewing the purity of
blood rules that had posed both threat and barrier to Iberian new Christians
for so long.124
Philip probably did not subscribe to the idea that since the expulsion of
1492, ordered by Ferdinand and Isabella, his great-grandparents, it was
somehow Spains destiny and duty to expel the Jews from all its possessions.125
He is said to have enthusiastically supported his fathers decision to expel the
Jews from Naples in 1544 and was a staunch supporter of the inquisitions in
Spain and abroad (he ordered tribunals to be set up in Mexico and Peru). But
he let Jews live in Milan for decades and continued to tolerate them in North
Africa. Even though Spain often resorted to expulsions, the one from Milan
was not simply the implementation of a longstanding Spanish policy.

122. Unlike historians such as Parker and Simonsohn have posited. Geoffrey Parker, Philip II,
The Library of World Biography (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978), 193; Simonsohn, The Jews in the
Duchy of Milan, 1: xxviiixxxviii.
123. AGS, Estado 1792 #191.
124. Kamen, Philip of Spain, 31011.
125. In a short subsection titled Understanding Spain, Braudel described the Jews as victims
of Spains drive or destiny to become the country that it is today, but rejects the idea that the country
and its leaders gave in to some ingrained antisemitism or that expulsion was a specifically Spanish
policy. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 82336.
85
Flora Cassen
Instead, it seems that the expulsion of the Jews from Milan followed not
from personal feelings but from Philips approach to governing and from multifaceted conflicts at all levels of the empire. Philip II was intent on developing Spain
into an early modern state with a strong, centralized monarchy, a professional
army, and a complex bureaucracy.126 Yet, for all of Philips centralizing efforts,
the Spanish Empire remained a vast, diverse patchwork of provinces that maintained strong traditions and institutions, and contained local nobilities who were
intent on protecting their perks and statuses. All of these factors limited royal
power. Recently, some scholars have introduced the term polycentric monarchy
to describe the organization of Spains Empire.127 Its difference from the older
concept of composite monarchy is mostly one of perspective: rather than a
major political center surrounded by more or less influential peripheral satellites,
these scholars see a multiplicity of centers each with their own histories, statuses, and power groupsin a dynamic and constantly renegotiated interaction.128
Perhaps the idea of polycentric monarchy can shed light on the complicated
relations between Milan and Madrid.
Milan was crucial to Spains political aims because it established a Spanish
foothold in northern Italy that functioned not only as an influential cultural center
but also, in these times of almost constant war with France and the Low Countries,
as a gateway to central and northern Europe.129 These considerations highlight the
necessity of firmly subduing Milans administration to Madrids authority. The
governor was acting as the kings direct representative and Spanish officials had
infiltrated much of the administration. Yet the senate, the traditional bastion of
Milans aristocracy, never counted more than three Spaniards out of fourteen senators, and outside of Milan, rule was still largely in Italian hands. The latter faction
is precisely where opposition to the Jews coalesced. The states larger towns,
126. For more on that process, see Ian A. A. Thompson, War and Government in Habsburg
Spain, 15601620 (London: Athlone Press, 1976); Ian A. A. Thompson, War and Society in Habsburg
Spain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1992); John Lynch, Spain under the Habsburgs, 2nd ed. (New York:
New York University Press, 1981); John H. Elliott, Imperial Spain 14691716 (New York: New American Library, 2002); and, more generally, Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London:
N.L.B., 1974); Thomas Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval
and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); and Daniel H. Nexon,
The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).
127. Cardim et al., eds., Polycentric Monarchies.
128. Alberto Marcos Martin, Polycentric Monarchies: Understanding the Grand Multinational
Organizations of the Early Modern Period, in Polycentric Monarchies, ed. Cardim et al., 21726. For
example: in the Azores, a Spanish governor and military were superimposed onto local institutions that
continued to exist and function. As a result, Spanish governors were constantly forced to negotiate with
local powers that resisted by all possible means, including taking their case to Madrid. Jean-Frederic
Schaub, Maritime Archipelago, Political Archipelago: The Azores under the Habsburgs (1581
1640), in Polycentric Monarchies, ed. Cardim et al., 1126. See also Elliott, A Europe of Composite
Monarchies, 4871.
129. In fact, it was located on the Spanish Road that Philip II used to send a constant stream of
soldiers (and supplies) to fight the rebels in the Netherlands. Parker, The Army of Flanders and the
Spanish Road, 15671659.
86

Cremona and Pavia, led the charge against the Jews and were also the most
indebted to them. In asking for the Jews departure they were probably hoping
for some debt relief, but they were also reacting against Spanish and Italian
elites in the capitalmainly the senate and the governorwho had not only profited from Jewish businesses but had also been steadily concentrating Milanese
power into their own hands. Milans Jewish population was small, but it threatened
the integrity of the state by pitting local Italian towns against central Milanese
power and Spanish rule in Madrid.
Moreover, in an added twist, both the senate and the governor used the Jews
to elevate their own standings. In 1570, the Marquis of Ayamonte, governor of
Milan, wrote to Philip that these Italians, although they are not Indians, have
to be treated as such, so that they will understand that we are in charge of them
and not they in charge of us.130 By the 1590s, in the presence of a weakened
monarch, the situation had reversed: the governor and the Italian senate were
allied against the king.131 In standing together for the Jews, they defied Philip
II and boldly asserted their power. Seen in that light, the expulsion of the Jews
from Milan reveals both the extent and the limits of Philip IIs rule. To preserve
his power, he had to expel the Jews; the economic harm that might result from
this policy paled in comparison to the danger of letting the Jews stay.
In his last letter to the governor, Philip asked how many Jews resided in the
state. The answer was 889. The city of Milan was one of the largest in Europe, with
more than a hundred thousand residents. Jews formed a miniscule percentage of
the population of the entire statea fact that Philip, given the amount of correspondence already expended on the Jews of Milan, may not have realized,
although he probably knew that the expulsion of a much greater number of
Jews from Spain in 1492 had not seriously affected the peninsulas economy.132
Moreover, contrary to his medieval predecessors, Philip did not use expulsion
as an opportunity to expropriate Jewish wealth. Of course, he may not have
believed that such a small community possessed significant assets, but nonetheless
he did everything in his power to ensure that the Jews left with all the money owed
to them. Although the expulsion hearkened back to older models of thought, his
insistence on repaying the states debts reveals a shift in attitude toward public
finances and economic concerns.
Both Sacerdotis report written in Madrid and the senates last memorandum
discussed the Jews economic activities at length, with the senate giving an overview of its activity across the state and Sacerdoti focusing on his own affairs,
130. Koenigsberger, The Statecraft of Philip II, 9.

131. In addition to an impending succession crisis, and military and financial difficulties, there
was a widespread and damaging perception among Spaniards themselves that the empire was on the
wane. See for example John Elliott, Self-Perception and Decline in Early 17th-Century Spain,
Past and Present, no. 74 (1977): 4161; and Richard L. Kagan, Politics, Prophecy, and the Inquisition
in Late Sixteenth-Century Spain, in Cultural Encounters: The Impact of the Inquisition in Spain and
the New World, ed. Mary Elizabeth Perry, Anne J. Cruz (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies, 1991).
132. Kamen, The Mediterranean and the Expulsion of Spanish Jews in 1492, 3055.
87
Flora Cassen
especially his trading links with the Levant. These emphases suggest that Philip II
was not insensitive to mercantilist considerations. However, the long route to
expulsion taken by Philip also suggests that economic incentives alone were not
enough to preserve and promote Jewish life; favorable political circumstances
were also necessary. These circumstances were present in Spanish North Africa
and European states (e.g., Italy, Germany, Czech lands, and France) that readmitted Jews during those years, but progressively diminished in Habsburg
Milan during the last decades of the sixteenth century.
Examined in detail and in its larger historical context, the case of Milan illuminates the mechanisms of an expulsion and weaves together the dynamic
elementsreligious beliefs, economic arguments, and political strugglesthat
drove it. Some, such as old anti-Jewish ideas, religious arguments for and
against them, and fear of economic competition, came from the past; others,
such as an increased focus on the Jews utilitarian value, looked to the future.
Which element would hold the most sway was anyones guess, especially
because King Philip II of Spain defied easy categorization. His Jewish policy in
Italy was a blend of old and new, thoughtful and impulsive, collaborative and despotic, forceful and hesitant, rational and illogical. In their quest to maintain and
possibly increase their power, all of the playersincluding the Jewsneeded
to position themselves in relation to each other as well as to the king. Alliances
were formed and shifted; every exchange of letters and reports, whether for or
against the expulsion, required participants to stake out positions in this larger political chess match. In the end, although it was out of step with the rest of Europe,
expelling the Jews from Milan was not a regressive action. Instead, as the outcome
of intense power struggles at so many levels, this expulsion was a reflection of the
multitude of drives that shaped an early modern empire.
Flora Cassen
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
88

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The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe: Milan

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0364009414000038

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AJS Review 38:1 (April 2014), 5988

T HE L AST S PANISH E XPULSION IN E UROPE :

Empires often ground their rising dominance in ideology, religion, or both.

2. Federico Chabod, Storia di Milano nellepoca di Carlo V (Torino: G. Einaudi, 1971), 5;

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

The duchy of Milanthe peninsulas largest inland statewas home to a

14. Segre, Gli ebrei lombardi nellet spagnola, 1828.

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

Modern historians have expressed skepticism about Emek ha-bakhas reliability

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

A reproduction of the report of October 1571 with Philips loopy, barely

57. AGS, Estado 1793 # 26.

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

81. Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, 3:1817.

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

104. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1161, fols. 6264.

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

Philip II of Spain died exactly a year later.

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

121. AGS, Secretarias Provinciales, libro 1213, fols. 67.

The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe

130. Koenigsberger, The Statecraft of Philip II, 9.

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