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Aronne from behind, just as Aronne was leaving the Jewish hospice at San Polo, before he could reach his son-in-law s home, a few islands
away. Aronne was struck on the head with an edged weapon and left to die, on the ground, in a pool of blood (36). Aronne, despite a serious
head wound and skull fracture, survived the attack, and later denounced his unknown aggressor. A reward was immediately placed on the
attacker s head, and his identity was quite soon discovered by the police authorities (37). On 22 May 1488, the would-be killer, Isaia, who
had, in the meantime, prudently taken flight, was tried in absentia and banned in perpetuity from Venice and its territories. If he was
captured, he was to suffer a particularly cruel fate: dragged to the scene of the crime, he was to lose his right hand, after which, with his own
hand appended to his neck, he was to be conducted to the Piazza San Marco and publicly beheaded between the two usual columns (38).
Once the attacker was identified, it was child s play for the Venetian city authorities to identify the instigator, the unscrupulous businessman
from Piove di Sacco, who had already served more than one term in the prisons of the Republic. Finding himself unmasked, Salamoncino
spontaneously appeared at the Public Prosecutor s office, admitting to commissioning the crime and paying the killer to commit it. He then
excused himself by saying that the victim had never ceased importuning him, dragging him through one long, exhausting judicial dispute
after another until, driven to his wits end, he had decided to free himself from the intolerable nuisance once and for all (39). Salamoncino
got off with a relatively mild sentence, which is not surprising in view of the type of relationship linking him, more or less obviously and
officially, with the Venetian authorities. In the end, he was sentenced to six months imprison, in commutation of which he would be banned
from Venice
p. 44]
and its territories for four years, in addition to the payment of a fine of two hundred gold ducats, to be paid partly to the Hospital of Piety
(40).
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But Salamoncino was back at work as early as one year later, in 1489, managing his network of banks, at Piove di Sacco and Padua (41). In
1495, the municipality of Padua petitioned the Republic of Venice to revoke the chapters of the loan granted to Salamoncino as well as all
related privileges (42). But Venice refused. As mentioned by Marin Sanudo in his Diaries, in 1499, "Salamonsin de Piove de Sacho" was one
of the Jewish bankers engaged in negotiations with Venice for the concession of the huge sum of fifteen thousand ducats, to be pledged by
the Republic "in the Turkish matters", i.e., the war effort against the Sublime Porte (43). Salamoncino -- who had intended to remain at Piove
di Sacco at least until 1504, according to Sanudo -- was definitively expelled from the city of Venice one year later, allowing the city to
breathe one last sigh of relief. Salamoncino s memory, ambiguous and disturbing, was then lost in the mists of the lagoons of Venice.
--
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO
1.Cfr. D. Carpi, L individuo e la collettività. Saggi di storia degli ebrei a Padova e nel Veneto nell'eta del Rinascimento, Florence, 2002, pp.
39, 48.
2. On the activities of Marcuccio at Padova and Piove di Sacco, cfr ibidem, pp. 45-50.
3. Girolamo Campagnola da Padova, in an unpublished oration, written after 1480 in celebration of the martyrdom of Simone da Trento and
of Sebastiano Novello at Portobuffolè, recalled Marcuccio s exasperating arrogance, at that time a money lender at Montagnana: "Quis
Marcutio fratre (Salamoncini hebraeo), etiam carcere concluso, audacior et insolentior unquam fuit? Ille mihi ait: scias, velim, Christiani
nominis esse neminem, qui mihi digiti, ut ajunt, offensiunculam faciat, quin alteram duorum sibi lacertorum non reddam" [Approximately:
 Is there anybody more audacious and impudent than Marcuccio, the brother of Salmoncino the Jew, who spends half his time in jail? He
told me, look, no Christian would dare do me any offense, without getting a good beating from two of his henchmen ] (cfr. [Benedetto
Bonelli], Dissertazione apologetica sul martirio del beato Simone da Trento nell'anno MCCCCLXXV dagli ebrei ucciso, Trent, Grianbattista
Parone, 1747, pp. 280-281).
4. On 27 February 1473 Marcuccio, at that time a resident of Padua, together with his brother Salomoninco and their father Salomone da
Piove, were denounced for calumny and embezzlement by a law student at the Studio (ASP, Notarile, Luca Talmazzo, 253, cc. 252r-254r).
On his long residence in Montagnara, documented since 1475, his activity as an approved money lender and the events linked to the visit of
Bernardino da Feltre, see, in particular, V. Meneghin, Bernardino da Feltre e I Monti di Pietà, Vicenza, 1974, pp. 489-502.
5. ASV, Consiglio dei Dieci, Lettere, file 2 (1476-1483). The heads of the Consiglio called Marcuccio "fidelis noster civis Marcuonus (recte:
Marcutius) ebreus quondam Salomonis de Plebesaccii", then a resident of Montagnana. The privileges Marcuccio enjoyed, and his father as
well, constituted an extension of those granted by Venice to David Mavrogonato and his family in the past. The Doge, in a letter to the rulers
of Candia in 1532, referring to Meir Mavrogonato, a descendent of David, recommended the application in his regard of the privileges which
he enjoyed, "essendo trattato come li cittadini Venetiani nelle datiii et alter fattioni, et esento lui et figlioli dell'angarie che fanno l'Hebrei,
secondo la forma delli soi privilegge" [ being treated like the citizens of Venice in all respects, and free of the annoyances suffered by Jews,
according to the manner of their privileges ] (cfr. D. Jacoby, On the Status of Jews in the Venetian Colonies in the Middle Ages, in "Zion",
XXVIII, 1963, pp. 57-69 [in Hebrew].
6. On Salamoncino s mercantile and financial activity at Piove di Sacco, Padova and Verona, see D. Jocoby, New Evidence on Jewish
Bankers in Venice and the Venetian Terraferma (c. 1450-1550), in A. Toaff and Sh. Schwarzfuchs, The Mediterranean and the Jews.
Banking, Finance and International Trade (XVI-XVIII Centuries), Ramat Gan, 1989, pp. 155-156; Capri, L individuo e la collettività, cit.,
pp. 54-58; G.M. Varanini, Appunti per la storia del prestito e dell'insediamento ebraico a Verona nel Quattrocento, in G. Cozzi, Gli ebrei e
Venezia (secoli XIV-XVIII), Milan, 1987, p. 621.
7. Cfr. Sh. Simonsohn, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, Jerusalem, 1982, vol. I, p. 633, no. 1538. The document is dated: Lonate, 30 October
1474.
8. ASV, Avogaria di Comun, Raspe, 3653 (II), cc. 8v-9r (29 May 1472). I wish to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Rachele Scuro for her
invaluable assistance in transcribing the documents and my friend Reiny Mueller of Venice for his archiving tips, which were always
illuminating. "Joannes Antonius de Mediolano et Abundius de Cumis [...] confessi fuerunt se pluries conduxisse e Farraria Venetias multam
quantitatem monetarum argenti falsarum verum grossestos et grossones ad similitudinem stampe Dominii Nostri, quas monetas scienter
accipiebant a fabricatoribus illarum et illas, reductas Venetias, dispensabant diversis personis, a quibus habebant ad incontrum ducatos auri et
argenti cum certa sua utilitate". On the crisis of May 1472 and the "monetary war" being waged between Venice and Milan, see, in particular,
R.C. Mueller, L'imperialismo monetario veneziano nel Quattrocento, in "Società et Storia", VIII (1980), pp. 227-297 (292-294); Id., Guerra
monetaria fra Venezia e Milano nel Quattrocento, in La Zecca di Milano, Records of the Congress, Milan, May 1983, pp. 341-355.
9. ASV, Avogaria di Comun, Raspe, 3653 (II), c. 9rv (29 May 1472): "Nicolaus Fugaconus, becharius de Veneciis et socii quos processum
fuit [...] pro eo quod etiam ipse habuit commertium cum Abundio infrascripto, conductore monetarum falsum, a quo recepit satis bonam [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]