Private Letters, Public Stories

Abstract

In November 1847, the Archbishop of Ferrara wrote the Holy Office of the Supreme Inquisition regarding a request he received to reprint an article that had appeared in a Roman newspaper, l’Artigianello. That the article had been printed at all scandalized the Ferrarese clergyman, and its title, “Jews Must Be Respected,” with its jab at the state’s anti Jewish edicts, suggests why. Indeed, despite its initial publication, the Ferrarese Archbishop wrote that the piece “contains doctrines that are not only extremely dangerous but completely erroneous,” and he recommended that the Inquisition Tribunal censor the story.¹ The incendiary article hinges upon a (fictional) dialogue between three characters: Antonio, a shopkeeper; Andreuccio, a shoemaker; and a parish priest. The topic of discussion is Pius IX’s recent decision to open the Roman ghetto and to allow its inhabitants greater civil rights, including the freedom to live and work outside of the ghetto. About two and a half months after his first letter, on February 10, 1848, Ferrara’s archbishop addressed a second letter to the Inquisition Tribunal in which he revealed that Bresciani’s fears about the spread of the liberal press were not completely unfounded.