Monte San Savino, Solomon Fiorentino and me

Some weeks ago, September 6, there was the 9th European day for Jewish Culture. An Italian friend, knowing of my Jewish roots, since we worked together for some years in the restoration of my farmhouse hotel “La Mucchia” in Cortona, called me, saying that there is congregation near “Teatro Verdi” in the small town of Monte san Savino, which might be of interest to me.

Me together with my wife and son, put our steps to the small theatre in via Salomon Fiorentino. We didn’t imagine ourselves what portion of history we are going to meet up.

At 10 o’clock there was concert I didn’t make it on time , then presentation of the Mayor Silvano Materazzi and introduction by Jack Arbib, and very interesting lecture by Stefania Roncolato about her research of Jewish “Ketuba” in Tuscany, but first let me tell you who was Salomon Fiorentino: Born in Monte San Savino, district of Arezzo, in Tuscany, Italy in 1743 and died in Florence in 1815, writer and poet, wrote the “suicide of Neera” and various poems .The first Jewish culture in Tuscany.

Then we went to the Synagogue which is a very peculiar building. It has been restored various times and is located in a street now named after Salomon Fiorentino. It tells of the lasting influence of the Jewish community in Tuscany. The most ancient parts of the Synagogue date back to restorations carried out in 1729-32.

At Monte San Savino Jews were present in two distinct periods:

1421 to 1571, with banks lending pledge: 1627 to 1799, again with a bank loan on pledge, but also with a community itself.

The Jewish pawn shops are spread throughout central and northern Italy, from the fourteenth century. Practices affect smaller than those used previously, Christians from providers, and are more easily controlled by the authorities, which stipulate, to this end with the holders of the bank, real contracts renewable every five to ten years.

The most important period of stay of the Jews in Monte San Savino is the second. In 1627 the Marquis Bertoldo Orsini authorizing the establishment of a bench in the town of loan, which they hold Passigli Ferrante, jew from Florence, and some of its members.

The dealer, as such, will last until the end of the seventeenth century, but from the beginning was created a seed of a small community with its own order, its synagogue and its cemetery.

 This formed a ghetto Savinese in a street parallel to the current course Sangallo. The road was called the Village Synagogue (just because there was placed the Jewish temple, which still exists, although much deteriorated) and, in our times, that of Solomon Fiorentino, on the recommendation of the city administration who wanted to remember and honour so what is considered the first poet of Jewish origin appearing in the history of Italian literature (he was born in Monte San Savino in 1743).

 The number of Jews present in the town vary much over time but, ultimately, growing from 50 in the mid-seventeenth century to more than 130 years of 1798-99 (between 3 and 4% of the global population). Their life is not always easy. Especially between the mid-seventeenth to mid eighteenth century (the age of the Counter-Reformation), are made subject to a variety of oppressive measures that are reduced greatly when the Grand Ducal throne halls the enlightened Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine (1765-1790) and disappear with the French Revolution that, everywhere, is the Jewish citizens like everyone else.

 Just reached the emancipation of the Jews drew the reaction of peasants belonging to the movement Sanfedists of "Viva Maria", which starts from Arezzo and is spreading throughout Tuscany. In the summer of 1799 Savinesi Jews are attacked by the population and driven out of town, where they will not return. Some of them will be victims of a real pogrom, which occurred in Siena, where they had sought refuge, 28 June 1799.

In 1994-95, the town council of Monte San Savino, with the help of the Jewish communities of Florence and Rome, organized a documentary exhibition of the Jewish presence in the country and awarded honorary citizenship to prof. Elio Toaff, chief rabbi of Rome, whose family is originally from Monte San Savino.

 With the occasion was also published, provided by the Municipality, the "Notebook Savinese III, The Jews in Monte San Savino" (illustrated), which reconstructs the history and culture of this small but significant Jewish community in Tuscany.

Coming back to our meeting in the synagogue, there was an exhibition of old “Ketubas” (Jewish traditional marriage agreement) and it was held by the initiative of Jack Arbib and Jean Mimun, the organizers and revivals of the memory to the San Savino Jewry.

At late noon, all of the guests walked about one kilometre from the synagogue to the Jewish cemetery in Monte San Savino, it was hard to arrive there, since it is hidden just in the back of the Christian cemetery but deep in the woods between olive trees, and road that goes downhill.

We have seen some very clear Hebrew writings on the tombstones they looked very old and broken, the authorities invested money in restoration of the cemetery and the memory day ended by saying a “kadish” prayer and lighting candles.

Uri Nachimson