ABSTRACT
In the first half of the nineteenth century, Italian culture attributed renewed legitimacy to the anti-Jewish stereotype of the ritual murder. This process was due in part to the revival of the public cult of relics of purported “martyrs of Jewish hatred,” the best known of which—Simon of Trent—was locally observed in Trent, and produced echoes in various areas of the peninsula. Italian Jews naturally viewed the phenomenon with concern, noting its negative impact on the legal and socio-political processes of emancipation. This chapter focuses on the strategies of self-defence adopted by the Jews of Habsburg Italy, analysing the counter-narratives of the “martyrdom” of Simon produced by two authoritative intellectuals, the Hebraist Samuel David Luzzatto and the historian Samuele Romanin, in their attempt to neutralise the defamatory allegations fuelled by the stories transmitted through these organic remains.
