The First Ghetto: Alexander Lee on Venice and the Origins of Modern Antisemitism

“It was a cold January afternoon when I first came to the ghetto. I got there much later than I’d hoped. I’d spent much of the day elsewhere and had just lost track of time. It was already beginning to get dark. The campo seemed deserted. Shutters were closed, and apart from the tinkling of water in the wells, there was hardly a sound. There were no streetlights, barely even the glimmer of a lamp. But in the branches of the trees, thousands of tiny lights were shining.”That is the opening paragraph of my guest Alexander Lee’s new book, The First Ghetto: Venice and the Origins of Modern Antisemitism, in which he traces both the history of the Venetian ghetto and, through it, the history of modern antisemitism. In our conversation we discuss the origins of the word “ghetto,” the peculiar politics of the Venetian Republic, Jewish moneylending and commerce, the arrival of Iberian Jews fleeing persecution, the vibrancy of ghetto culture during its “golden age,” and how following the collapse of the Republic how segregation and antisemitism mutated into the twentieth century.Alexander Lee is a historian of Renaissance Italy and the author of numerous books, including Machiavelli: His Life and Times. He is also a columnist for History Today.