e Ninth considered it indefensible and abolished it. In actual fact it
must have been of enormous advantage to the Jews, who were thus provided
with a stronghold against the persecutions and robberies of the rabble.
The little quarter was enclosed by strong walls with gates, and if the
Jews were required to be within them at night, on pain of a fine, they
and their property were at least in safety. This fact has never been
noticed, and accounts for the serenity with which they bore their
nightly imprisonment for three centuries. Once within the walls of the
Ghetto they were alone, and could go about the little streets in perfect
security; they were free from the contamination as well as safe from the
depredations of Christians, and within their own precincts they were not
forced to wear the hated orange-coloured cap or net which Paul the
Fourth imposed upon the Jewish men and women. To a great extent, too,
such isolation was already in the traditions of the race. A hundred
years earlier Venice had created its Ghetto; so had Prague, and other
European cities were not long in following. Morally speaking their
confinement may have been a humiliation; in sober fact it was an immense
advantage; moreover, a special law of 'emphyteusis' made the leases of
their homes inalienable, so long as they paid rent, and forbade the
raising of the rent under any circumstances, while leaving the tenant
absolute freedom to alter and improve his house as he would, together
with the right to sublet it, or to sell the lease itself to any other
Hebrew; and these leases became very valuable. Furthermore, though under
the jurisdiction of criminal courts, the Jews had their own police in
the Ghetto, whom they chose among themselves half yearly.

It has been stated by at least one writer that the church and square of
Santa Maria del Pianto--Our Lady of Tears--bears witness to the grief of
the people when they were first forced into the Ghetto in the year 1556.
But this is an error. The church received the name from a tragedy and a
miracle which are said to have taken place before it ten years earlier.
It was formerly called San Salvatore in Cacaberis, the Church of the
'Saviour in the district of the kettle-makers.' An image of the Blessed
Virgin stood over the door of a house close by; a frightful murder was
done in broad day, and at the sight tears streamed from the statue's
eyes; the image was taken into the church, which was soon afterwards
ded