Review of: Marina Caffiero (Hg.): Rubare le anime. Roma: Viella 2008

Abstract

Contemporary reports on the forced conversion of Jewish girls and woman to Catholicism, not a rare occurrence in papal Rome from the 16th to the 19th centuries, can be found in the files of the official papal archive and the Roman Jewish community. One of the most valuable documents of this conversion practice has now been published in a new annotation edition: The diary of 18-year-old Anna del Monte, who was able to successfully resist the attempted forced conversion in 1749. In her introduction the editor Marina Caffiero places this extraordinary individual fate within the concurrent and parallel processes of assimilation and emancipation. These emerge in 18th century Rome’s Jewish upper class, which was “infected” with Enlightenment ideas.