Italian Jews have a rich historic past. We know they were in Rome in ancient times. We possess much of the cultural heritage the different communities left throughout the peninsula during the Renaissance. We are aware of the strong influence the vicinity of the Papacy exerted on subsequent events and of the long and painful period of the ghettos. Less reflection, however, is paid to the particular factors that were at play in the process of emancipation. I am referring here to the clean break with the Church required by the liberal state during and after unification in 1861. This separation did much to ease the processes of Jewish integration and acculturation set in motion by the French at the end of the eighteenth century and which extended, through shifting events, to and beyond the definitive granting of equality between 1848 and 1870.

Without a doubt, we could go as far as to say that Italy was one of the countries in nineteenth-century Europe with the fewest difficulties in minority–majority relations. By the same token, secularization, which affected vast sections of the Jewish community, helped to amplify the different ways Jews experienced their relationship with their tradition. All this helped to minimize the tangibility and, to a greater extent, the visibility of a group that, on its own, was very keen to take full part in the social and political life of the nation.